GOOD NEWS ABOUT BAD NEWS

By James E. Lukaszewski, APR, Fellow PRSA

As Published in Security Management Magazine, December 1990 (Revised April 2000)

Copyright © 1990, 2000, James E. Lukaszewski.  All rights reserved.

Crisis and surprise rarely kill an organization. Distracting? Yes. Costly and time consuming? Yes. And the larger the company, its interests, issues, and involvements, the more numerous the vulnerabilities that lead to emergencies and cause unplanned visibility for the company and its personnel.

Most businesses know how to deal with the operational crisis. The truth is, however, that bad news comes from the unplanned visibility resulting from disrupted operations. The damage that comes from dumping a chlorine tank; starting a fire; blowing something up; or causing foam, odor, smell, or noise can be fixed. But then news helicopters fly in, reporters crawl over fences, and news cameras get in the way of the repair crews. That's when managers throw up their hands and toss their big, fat emergency plan - if they have one - into the trash can.

Suddenly they have to work in the circle of lights caused by public exposure. Tension and irritation are further heightened by the arrival of nonoperating personnel, such as corporate communications and human resource managers, whom operations staff often perceive as impeding crisis resolution and even causing additional, unnecessary exposure.

Managers, in general, are unprepared for the stress, fatigue, endless, probing media attention, charges and counter-charges from outside groups, constant misinterpretation of their decision making, and apparently personal attacks on their honesty and motivation. If personal injury or death is involved, managers must also cope with feelings of guilt or accusations of negligence.

But, virtually all of these elements of unplanned visibility follow patterns we can recognize and accommodate. We can predict what reporters will ask, how management will react, and what is needed to survive the first few hours when the operational problem is most highly visible and public attention greatest. The question is: how do managers prepare?

Preparing for unplanned visibility ensures the manager's effectiveness and well being, preserves and protects the organization's reputation, maintains or enhances its credibility, and keeps or perhaps even expands market position or perception. Emergencies can be powerful communications opportunities if management is ready to take the initiative.

To prepare for unplanned visibility, managers must work out a strategy predicated on containment and counteraction rather than reaction and response. Developing emergency media relations and public affairs processes based on pragmatic approaches enables the organization to look ahead, work ahead, and think ahead.

This article discusses issues and tactics at the heart of managing bad news - from the concerns managers have and the mistakes they commonly make to what's involved in vulnerability analysis, what to do and what to say when emergencies arise, and the steps organizations can take to prepare for unplanned visibility. Managers must recognize the necessity of being prepared to think differently and communicate pragmatically when trouble occurs.

Managers are neither educated for the personal and public exposures they experience as a result of unplanned visibility nor trained in how to think through the emergency communications process. The manager's day-to-day experience and expectations are for process and order, system and strategic planning, delegation and rationality. One-dimensional, reasonably linear decision making is all that is required. Even years of managerial experience, intuition, and focus are irrelevant in the face of unplanned visibility. Bad news management is an on-the-job training experience.

Emergency situations require urgent action and immediate decision making on many levels and at a variety of speeds. The usual organizational response to sudden change is to hunker down and deal with problems out of the glare of public view. The unplanned visibility brought about by emergencies, however, means that hunkering down actually initiates new events, aggravating the situation and impeding resolution. The company is perceived to be stonewalling, and further actions are seen as muddling and stumbling - late and desperate attempts to remedy the situation.

The idea of planning for visibility in the absence of a current crisis seems to elicit two kinds of management responses: either a minimal-to-zero desire to conduct preparation and analysis beyond operational solutions or an almost adolescent arrogance that managers and their people can handle whatever happens.

Arrogance or indifference leads to predictable errors. Years of observing managers handling unanticipated visibility have revealed patterns of mistakes. Certain behaviors cause the first problems in emergencies because public feedback quickly intensifies for reasons managers fail to understand. The following are common ones:

• Hesitation creates a public perception of confusion, lack of preparation, callousness, or incompetence.
• Obfuscation is the failure - deliberately or foolishly - to recognize that when time and understanding are critical, simplicity is a must. The perception is of dishonesty and insensitivity.
• Retaliation is a tactical mistake. To win, the goal is to reduce emotion and tension rather than stimulate them.
• Prevarication is perhaps the greatest error. There's no substitute for the absolute truth.
• Pontification is dangerous. While a manager's nose is in the air, he or she gets hit in another part of the anatomy. Such a tactic is detrimental.
• Confrontation provides the opposition with undeserved visibility. Always let the opposition find its platform and speak for itself.
• Litigation only guarantees greater visibility. It may also eliminate reasonable end points to the crisis.
• Revelation is inevitable. If a company is guilty, that fact will be revealed, probably by a well-meaning friend, a whistleblower, or a victim. And the disclosure is deserved.

Each of these behaviors generates unnecessary negative perceptions in the audiences most affected by the emergency. Audience response to these perceptions is inevitable. Often the news media, corporate spokespersons, or outside opposing forces are blamed for bad publicity when the fact is that management, by eliminating these behaviors, could greatly minimize negative audience perceptions.

Operating managers in various businesses and industries have surprisingly consistent questions and uncertainties about dealing with surprise situations and unplanned visibility, whether or not their companies have formal plans. Involving managers in the bad news management planning process by allowing them to discuss their concerns and questions is an intellectually stimulating experience for them.

That involvement also lays the groundwork for coordinating communications policy with operations. Such coordination allows communications experts to deal with the unplanned visibility and managerial experts to deal with the problem itself. Typical concerns operating managers mention during emergency planning are:

• Recognition: Who decides if it's really a crisis or emergency?
• Notification: Who tells us when there's a crisis or emergency?
• Responsibility: Who's in charge during an emergency?
• Authority: Who's in charge of the telling?
• Information: Where does the background information come from?
• Exposure: How do we work with the legal department?
• Conflict: How many plans are there?
• Working together: How do we coordinate activities?
• Policy: Who decides how many resources to commit?
• Communications: What is the public relations practitioner's role?
• Analysis: Who interprets the results?
• Employees: Who gets information to employees?
• Testing/Forecasting: Should we do drills and simulations?

Once these questions are on the table and answered competently, cooperation continues and managers begin to feel more comfortable. The reality of emergency and crisis is that no single question or circumstance exists that cannot be anticipated. Our surprise at unplanned visibility is more from our irritation at not being ready than at some outsider who has the temerity to question how we deal with operational problems.

Addressing managerial concerns, misconceptions, and questions about unplanned visibility requires preparing specific structures and processes that can swing into action immediately when a crisis occurs. The benefits of such preparation are coordinated approaches, speaking to appropriate audiences with appropriate voices, and getting the message across while remaining adaptable, flexible, and unflappable, even in the worst emergencies. Operations also get back to normal more quickly.

Important actions to take now to prepare managers and organizations for what could happen include the following:

• Assess vulnerabilities across the organization and develop an issues and vulnerability matrix - including both the likelihood of occurrence and impact - to help management forecast possible exposure.
• Create exposure alert and response processes to reduce surprises. Imagine worst-case scenarios as well as the best possible outcomes. Then structure responses by working backward from desired outcomes to identify the steps needed to reach the goal.
• Develop networks of incident response managers and spokesperson teams. The goal is to create operational pairings of people to join expertise in handling operational problems with skill in communications.
• Convince top management to endorse and participate in emergency media relations and public affairs response planning by focusing on truly serious problems.
• Test management response procedures for unplanned visibility.

The goal is to help managers develop incident-specific strategies to contain and counteract the effects of a crisis.

The key to preparing unplanned visibility procedures is carefully assessing organizational vulnerabilities. Visibility is usually directly related to operating processes, people, safety, natural environment, and outside forces. Understanding where to look for vulnerabilities helps in estimating the extent of risk. In simplest terms, a vulnerability exists if something we do, or plan to do, can go wrong and become highly visible quickly. We're surprised. A vulnerability turns into bad news if three conditions occur: a project or process we normally do leads to an unplanned result; that result affects people or the environment; and its effect creates visibility in the news media or in audiences important to us.

Basically, three causes exist for unplanned results: acts of God, acts of people (other than those who work for us), and ourselves. We have no control over acts of God and limited control over people outside the organization. Managers can, however, recognize levels of vulnerability. Even more importantly, they can forecast internal vulnerabilities caused by their own behavior, such as:

• Egos: "I don't care what the Environmental Defense Fund says, our scientists are the acknowledged experts about this chemical, and they say it's safe, so we'll use it if we want to!"
• Mistakes: "Oops. Well, our workers are only human." "How could we know the pipe would rust so fast?" "We didn't know it could catch fire that quickly." "That has never happened before."
• Arrogance: "Why are the media interested in this anyway? It's nobody's business but ours. They'll just get the story all mixed up; they simply can't get it right. We certainly can't let our employees talk about this!"
• Jargon: "Although there are 21 adverse gastric sequelae including hematoma and isolated pediatric fatalities, we'll continue to permit the sale of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) for pediatric and adult use without a prescription."
• Ignorance: "How was I to know he was pushing drugs right in our own company mail room?"
• Unpreparedness: "That sewer had been leaking chlorine for years. Until those people were killed and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration shut the operation down, it just didn't seem to be that big a deal."
• Inconsistencies: "I know we made them that way for 20 years. But now rats are dying in laboratories, and we had to change the formula immediately."

Like common managerial mistakes, these vulnerability creating behaviors block ways of avoiding unplanned results. For example, in engineering organizations, the perfect design for a product or process creeps into management's attitudes to the extent that when something does go wrong, managers react slowly. They are unwilling to believe that the organization or process is the source of the problem.

This sense of incredulity coupled with the probing actions of reporters and victims' families, or the appearance of legal counsel for those injured, forces the engineering mentality back into itself, and managers become even more reluctant to respond. The pressure of the situation combined with a high profile causes managers to retreat further and makes resolving the situation almost impossible. The result is that more mistakes occur.

Corporate vulnerability analysis provides numerous benefits such as:

• Recognition, so managers do not deal with these emergency situations for the first time in front of the public or the media;
• Identification of patterns, so managers can act to eliminate the threat;
• Surprise reduction, in terms of both their response and their ability to maintain operations; and
• Clarification, which allows managers to address in advance the concerns, misconceptions, and questions of employees, those actually called upon to manage crises, and those most directly affected.

Assessing vulnerabilities is a surprisingly positive activity for an organization, particularly when used throughout the company. In some organizations turf concerns appear for the first time. But even the most intransigent operating manager will participate, because eliminating surprise and reducing mistakes is critically important to achieving production goals and staying out of the spotlight. Managing unplanned visibility provides a critical management service, which may be career saving at best and organizationally invigorating for sure.

Identifying vulnerabilities requires systematic examination of all major segments of a business that can cause unplanned visibility through unintended outcomes. Exhibit 1 is a vulnerabilities list from a major regional telephone company.

After developing such a list, the next step is to identify the most urgent and likely vulnerabilities. The crisis management support group then can begin developing questions, answers, and resolution scenarios for each one. New vulnerabilities frequently are revealed during the message/response drafting process.

Fortunately, the news media, stockholders, victims, and others act in recognizable and foreseeable patterns. The questions are virtually always the same.

Questions always asked during emergencies include the following:

• What happened?
• When did it happen?
• Whom did it happen to?
• What was the cause?
• Who, if anyone, was injured?
• How much damage was done?
• What's the potential for continued damage or danger?
• Who was responsible?
• What went wrong?
• What do you plan to do about it?
• When will more information be available?

Other questions arise depending on the circumstances. When casualties occur, the media will ask about the number killed or injured; who escaped injury; the nature of injuries; care given to the injured; disposition of the dead; prominence of anyone who was killed, injured or uninjured; and what went wrong that caused injury.

When property is damaged, the media want to know about the estimated value of the loss; the kind of buildings and property; the importance of the property, such as historic or environmental value; other property threatened; insurance protection or coverage; and previous emergencies in the same area.

The media will ask about the causes, including the testimony of witnesses, the testimony of key responders such as the crisis management team and police, how the emergency was discovered, who sounded the alarm, who called for help, and any previous warning or indication of danger.

Exhibit 1: VULNERABILITY CATALOG
Source: Labor Relations Bargaining Strikes Safety Kidnapping Video display terminals Office locations Asbestos Vehicles Accidents Work environment Clothing Drugs/chemical abuse Undercover Drug Surveillance Age Contracting out Layoffs Plant closings Privacy Cultural differences Source: Legal Vulnerabilities Labor Discrimination Drug testing Personal injury Liability Political Ethics Criminal behavior Civil matters Regulation Competition (business conduct) Malfeasance	Anti-competitive behavior Business recovery insurance Judge Harold Green Source: Regulatory Vulnerabilities Pornography Rates Organized opposition Disorganized opposition Lack of preparation Interaction with unregulated entities and their associates Product liability Source: Network Vulnerabilities Earthquakes Weather Fire Nuclear plant incidents Evacuation Service continuation Chemical spills Commercial power failure Major event Plane crash Public event Assassination National emergencies War Terrorist activity Industrial accidents No-ring architecture Isolated stations	Unattended equipment Choke network fraud Source: Security Vulnerabilities Kidnapping Liaison with local law enforcementBomb threats Decision to evacuate Who decidesLoss preventionSafety Guards (perception of safety) Limits of authority Sabotage Terrorism Strikes/employee actions Liaison with local authorities Data security (hackers) Privacy Source: Larger Issues Toll interruption Office loss (major switching loss) World impacts of networking Computerization Network diversity Switch diversity Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act laws

Where rescue or relief efforts are underway, the media want to know about the number of people engaged in rescue or relief operations, any prominent persons in the relief crew, equipment used, handicaps or barriers to rescue, care of the desolate and homeless, how the emergency was prevented from spreading, how property was saved, and specific acts of heroism.

Reporters want descriptions of the crisis or disaster, including such factors as the problem's likelihood of spreading, blast effects, crimes or violence, attempts at rescue, duration, collapse of structures, color and height of flames, extent of spills, and presence of toxic compounds.

Related information and story color are important to reporters as well. They want information on the number of spectators; spectators' attitudes; crowd control measures; unusual happenings; anxiety and stress of families and survivors; potential further danger; and difficulties in dealing with the problem, such as weather, crowd, toxic chemicals, toxic gas, lack of equipment, and physical danger.

Disasters have legal ramifications. Reporters want to know about inquests, coroner's reports, police follow up, insurance company actions, professional negligence and inaction, and possible lawsuits stemming from the incident.

In emergencies, logistical questions - such as where the nearest airport or landing strip, sheriff's office, hospital, and town are - always arise.

Information the media may request includes statistics on how many customers, employees, and residents are affected; the approximate time before normal operation can resume; other operations that are affected; and whether the situation affected production or services in other areas.

In addition to these questions, others about specific parts of the company such as operations, environment, safety, legal, security, or communications will arise.

Once managers know that there are virtually no surprise questions, they can focus energy on answering questions they know they'll be asked. In fact, rehearsing responses means answers can be tested and critiqued to ensure fewer mistakes.

The next crucial step in vulnerability analysis is drafting resolution scenarios, a process designed to anticipate and plan for specific outcomes of specific situations. A resolution scenario has four basic parts:

• Situation description - asking "what-if " or "if-then" questions.
• Statement of the desired outcome or the range of acceptable outcomes.
• Strategic or tactical options to achieve desired results.
• Optimal strategy or tactic recommendation - the one management thinks will produce the best outcome quickly.

The goals for managing any surprise situation are getting correct information out quickly, getting the organization back to normal, closing the loops, correcting perceptions, and learning for the future.

Most organizations need to write out specific tactics for guiding responses and train spokespersons and operations employees in their implementation. If common sense prevails, then a knowledge of strategy and preferred tactics allows management to focus on the two most important tasks during an emergency: what to do and what to say during the first few critical hours.

Any manager who has experienced a high-profile situation has a different attitude about managing perceptions and vulnerabilities after surviving it. Having managers, and therefore their employees, understand why the organization responds the way it does and establishing the expectation of appropriate response allows everyone to join the response effort and, more importantly, reduce vulnerabilities.

Establishing general attitudes about how and why we communicate is important. For us to succeed in managing unplanned visibility, everyone must understand why we're doing what we're doing. The following is a model external communications policy applicable to many organizations. Note how it discusses thinking as well as acting.

• Authorized local spokesperson responds to inquiries from the media and interested audiences.
• National spokespersons respond to national inquiries directly, focusing on the issue and using local examples wherever possible.
• External communications goal is to reach priority audiences appropriately with a sense of the importance of messages rather than a sense of urgency.
• Wherever possible, spokespersons use positive analogies, allegories, or anecdotes to illustrate points.
• Managers need to be reluctant to make local stories national stories or to release information until they have researched employee attitudes. Employees are a principal audience, no matter what forum is used.
• Messages will hold up in the face of the strongest critics and most ill-informed friends as long an organization is honest, empathetic, candid, persistent, and consistent.

Tactics - the actual activities managers select - must support the goals of containment and counteraction. New information, messages, and response alternatives must be weighed constantly against tactical considerations such as the following:

• Managing exposure:
  • Areas of sensitivity.
  • Areas of vulnerability.
  • Significant media contacts.
  • Information release schedule.
  • Other possible major exposures.
  • Events beyond the current time frame.
• Creating appropriate perceptions among key audiences.
• Continuously driving home the most important messages.
• Remaining flexible in responses to unanticipated events and circumstances.
• Maintaining tight control and coordination of all communications, messages, resources, and plans.

As tactical alternatives are considered and chosen, each should be tested for usefulness, appropriateness, and relationship to overall strategies. Each needs to pass the following five tests:

1. Appropriateness - Does it really fit the character, temperament and audience expectations of the company?
2. Adequacy - Is it complete in and of itself in doing the job it is designed to do?
3. Effectiveness - Is it economical in cost, people-power, and overall effort while at the same time hitting the target?
4. Deficiencies - What weaknesses will generate either negative audience reactions or difficult questions or issues?
5. Side effects - Who will this action or alternative affect? What questions will it generate for other audiences, including friends? What actions may others have to take when choosing this particular tactic?

Once managers have chosen strategic concepts, they can focus on the pivotal decisions facing them in first few critical hours: what to do and what to say. The following guidelines are simple and widely applicable:

Before the news media call, establish a local media relations procedure. Management will be busy. Train someone to answer the telephone and gather the follow information: reporter's name, name of medium, reporter's home and office telephone numbers, subject of reporter's call, questions he or she wants answered, deadline for the information needed, who the call was referred to, and any follow-up needed.

When the media call, find out their deadline. Most of the time they won't need the information when they call. Allow some time to prepare the right answers or locate the right spokesperson. Ask why they're calling. While getting specific questions is often not possible, spokespersons have the right to know the subject of the story and how the reporter feels about it and what the editorial view is. Ask for specific information.

Find out whom else the reporter is talking to. He or she may say "no one else," or they may be specific. Knowing whether he or she is talking to competition, public officials, or organized opposition is helpful. It helps the spokesperson prepare better answers and reduces stress. If the question isn't asked, the spokesperson will not know.

Ask reporters if they have special needs. Perhaps the interview can be done by telephone at the spokesperson's convenience. And if it's television, a crew many need to come in and set up ahead of time. Tell reporters whether or not an interview will be granted. Also, set ground rules at the time the interview is agreed on as to time of day, location, length of time, topics you'll talk about, and type of interview (stand-up, sit-down, broadcast, or telephone).

Before the media arrive, you should take several steps. Pick a comfortable place for the interview. Preferably the spokesperson can be seated and not be associated directly with the current emergency or news situation unless it suits the communications objective.

Develop communications objectives using special planning formats. Also let the staff know who's coming. Prepare brief memos on what will be said and done. Remind staff of their role, if any, with the news media. Be sure to share communications objectives and messages with staff. That way if the media call someone in the office, they'll receive the same information the spokesperson is giving out.

While the media are on-site, stick to the script. Communicate only messages and communications objectives. Stick to a time schedule. Set specific lengths for interviews and begin promptly.

Have a place to put the media as soon as they arrive, such as a conference room, roped-off area, or trailer. Having a place for them will help them do their job and allow the emergency to be handled competently.

Also schedule regular briefings during emergencies. When bad things happen, reporters expect to be told. Hold group briefings to allow everyone to hear the same thing at the same time.

After the media have gone, debrief immediately. The spokesperson should have a standard debriefing checklist that allows information to be shared immediately with key managers and other spokespersons. Jot down key information about the interview, using a media relations contact form.

Follow up with media only if appropriate. In most cases, follow up is not necessary, but in some circumstances it might be appropriate. The most common are to correct information given during the interview, share new data, or reveal a new angle.

Mistakes will happen. Let them pass unless a good reason for contacting the media exists. Establish criteria to guide whether or not corrections are requested or made.

So what do managers and spokespersons say? In crisis situations, a statement often works best at first. Issue a brief statement that addresses the who, why, where, what, when, and how. (See Exhibit 2.) Conclude the statement by saying, "More information will be provided later when it is available." Give a specific time, if possible. This is often sufficient for the beginning of difficult media situations.

Discuss the causes of a problem only when absolutely sure of them. Speculation on a problem's cause is never permissible. You also need to inform employees of the situation. In a crisis, let employees know first and tell them what you are telling the news media.

Organizations can stay on top of preparing for unplanned visibility by following these simple, concrete steps:

• Develop useful, simple tools for spokespersons to use for managing and communicating during times of unplanned visibility.
• Develop a key action checklist to be kept by the phone. Develop a pocket version as well.
• Develop a special "quick list for high-profile problem management" and recirculate every six months.
• Review results of the vulnerability analysis survey with survey participants, add their suggestions and corrections, and have them expand the general questions list.

Exhibit 2 SAMPLE STATEMENTS BY XYZ COMPANY Emergency With Injuries Date: June 30, 2000 From: John Jones, (xxx) xxx-xxxx At 8:15 this morning, an explosion and fire, in Linear City, Oklahoma, destroyed our gasoline production plant. At this time, we're aware of four injured company employees and three contract employees who were doing maintenance work at the site at the time of the incident. The fire was extinguished almost immediately by in-place safety equipment. Local fire officials were at the blaze. No cause has been determined. Clean-up operations are scheduled to begin tomorrow. The injured were taken to burn units at both city hospitals. Names of the employees injured in the incident have been withheld pending notification of their families. For media interested in following this emergency, the next briefing is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. today in Conference Room 12. Emergency with Injuries and Fatalities Date: June 30, 2000 From: John Jones, (xxx) xxx-xxxx We're now able to release the names of the employees injured in the explosion and fire yesterday in Wells, Louisiana. They are: Thomas W. Wilcox, age 44, field supervisor, 17 years with the company; William T. Russell, pumper, 28 years old, six years with the company; Bruce P. Williamson, 21, day laborer, four months service as a part-time worker with the company. All are local residents and will be released from General Hospital in the next three or four days. Conditions of the injured can be obtained directly from the hospital. There was one fatality, Terry Q. Henderson, also of Wells. He was a supervisor for the company with 11 years of service. He is survived by his wife and two children. Funeral arrangements are pending at Smith Funeral Home.

• Use a matrix to identify vulnerabilities common to different company operations. Immediately establish a liaison to coordinate messages and efforts between operating divisions and subsidiaries.
• Hold a combination briefing/brainstorming session with senior managers as soon as possible to get their comments and suggestions and ensure their active participation.
• Plan and hold brief training sessions for spokespersons, subject matter experts, and key management personnel.
• Resolve key policy questions now while you have time.
• Integrate visibility risks into periodic management reports by adding suggested policy guidelines.
• Schedule and circulate revised vulnerability surveys every six months.
• Schedule, plan, execute, and evaluate a simulation exercise that involves real issues, problems, and people - including top management.

As we've seen, managers have many questions and concerns about dealing with bad news. The issues they raise are compelling. When unplanned visibility occurs, corporate resources are consumed at unprecedented rates; mistakes are made; and people, both in and out of the organization, are hurt psychologically, physiologically, and sometimes financially. One powerful lesson in all of this for the manager is that participation in the preparation to handle bad news is the only reasonable course of action.

Taking early action with the pragmatic tools and guidelines suggested here is the key to managing unplanned visibility successfully. In summary, managers must do the following:

IDENTIFY ISSUES, MESSAGES, OPPORTUNITIES. Conduct an in-depth vulnerability analysis of the specific event at hand; select an exposure management process and create a public affairs events timeline; focus on creating appropriate perceptions among key audiences; interpret events and issues continuously within the context of desired messages; respond with flexibility to unanticipated events, circumstances, and contingencies; and maintain tight control and coordination of all communications, messages, resources, and plans.

IMPLEMENT A CRISIS COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE. Doing so matches specially trained managers and spokespersons with support teams that allow individuals to function during the emergency.

BUILD NETWORKS. If spokespersons are needed in different parts of the United States or the world, develop them from within the organization and create cost-effective networks with appropriate public relations firms throughout the United States and Canada, and abroad.

Organizationally, the combination of operating savvy and tactically effective internal and external communications is what minimizes the stress and trauma of unplanned visibility. The organization will survive. The issue is to cut the cost of the problem in terms of financial, human, psychological, and marketplace resources.

Copyright © 2000, James E. Lukaszewski. Permission granted to reprint with attribution.