LESSONS LEARNED #12

PERSUADING EXECS TO HEED CRISIS COUNSEL

By James E. Lukaszewski, APR, Fellow PRSA

As Published in PBI Media LLC's PR News, January 21, 2002

Copyright © 2002, James E. Lukaszewski. All rights reserved.

An all too common refrain from our profession and about our profession is that bosses don't listen.

One result is that bosses never seem to learn and have the same old agenda - telling us what to say, telling us to "control the press," and occasionally demanding that we "stop bad or unwanted stories now," the implication being that if we can't do this, someone who can will be found.

When I talk to the bosses about why they will do something on the advice of an outside consultant but will ignore the same advice repeatedly given by someone in-house, their response very often is, "But my communications people don't have a management perspective."

Like it or not, this is a very valuable insight for practitioners who wish to be management counselors, coaches, and strategists.

The price of credible admission to "the inner circle" is a management perspective that drives your attitudes, actions, and advice. Developing a management perspective means essentially four things:

1. Putting yourself in the manager's shoes operationally and non-operationally.
2. Asking different kinds of questions before those you normally raise.
3. Providing sound managerial reasons for communicating or not communicating.
4. Avoiding many of the usual pro-press arguments that have no credibility with management, make little sense from an operating perspective, and are virtually irrelevant anyway.

Putting yourself in managers' shoes means evaluating and assessing crises in a business context first. It is looking for options from the very beginning. Useful advice and supportive counsel involve helping the manager see a situation from more than one perspective and recommending several different courses of action. Remember, reporter and media attitudes rarely figure into this equation initially.

Ask managerially relevant questions:

• How does the current situation affect strategy?
• Are management mistakes changing the strategy they've laid out?
• Can we gain employee commitment to the changing circumstances that are causing the problem we're now facing?
• What strategies are available to us to keep shareholder interest aligned with our goals?
• Can management make the tough decisions and act quickly enough to turn a problem situation into an opportunity or at least a mitigatable circumstance?
• What resources can management allocate to deal with the issue at hand or to resolve matters in ways that move us more towards our strategy?
• What have peer companies, in similar circumstances, done?
• How will the present circumstance affect our ability to research and develop new products, services, and ideas?
• Is this a situation that requires adaptation or dramatic shifts and changes?
• What non-financial factors are of greatest concern? What about the direct financial factors?
• Will customer satisfaction be adversely affected?
• What are the compliance implications of the current situation and what remediative steps will be necessary?

One of the most powerful rules in management today is, "If it isn't measured or measurable, it doesn't matter."

That's why talk of risk/threat reduction and prevention needs to be quantified in terms of future damage control, or limitation of current collateral damage. Make it measurable, and you'll get more attention.

Yes, there has to be a sense of compassion. Yes, there has to be a sense of conciliation. Yes, there has to be a sense of responsiveness.

However, these more emotional concepts need to be introduced promptly in the context of a better business outcome. If emotional response is the main issue we bring to the table, don't look for a return invitation very soon.

It often appears that we know much more about the business of journalism than we do about the company that writes our paycheck.

Avoid the usual approaches:

• Trying to explain how the media works or reporters' top concerns.
• Explaining why we have to give reporters something special or more than we share with our own employees.
• Trying to write the news release in the first 10 minutes of your encounter with the senior management team.

Strive to tell executives something they don't already know. Once you're able to consistently provide a management perspective to communication, management meetings of any consequence in your organization will wait until you arrive.

Sidebar: Developing a Management Perspective

Approaching a problem from a management point of view is somewhat akin to the SWOT technique. Evaluate:

Strength
Weakness
Opportunities
Threats

and from that evaluation, develop options for addressing the situation that take into account the factors that most concern managers.

James E. Lukaszewski, APR, Fellow PRSA, is chairman of The Lukaszewski Group Inc., a consultancy specializing in crisis communication management. Reach Jim at jel@e911.com or 914/681-0000. Copyright © 2002, James E. Lukaszewski. All rights reserved.