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Wednesday’s Smart Shibboleth #11: Lukaszewski’s Crisis Realities

Word count 249 ( One minute 30 seconds)

Crisis Definition

A people-stopping, show-stopping, product-stopping, Trust busting, reputationally redefining event that creates victims and/or explosive visibility.

Grand Crisis Response Strategy

  • Stop the production of victims
  • Manage the victim dimension
  • Communicate internally
  • Notify those indirectly affected
  • Manage the new media, legacy media, bloggers, guessers, and
    people smarter than you

Crisis Truisms

  • Bad news always ripens badly
  • Crisis management is fixing mistakes faster than you make them
  • Critics and victims accumulate
  • Every moment of indecision creates unseen but avoidable
    collateral damage
  • Failing to talk promptly is the death of any effective response
  • Failing to talk to your critics rots your internal credibility
  • Failing to talk to your critics triggers people to make things up that
    you end up owning
  • Negative aggressive responses empower your opponents, aggravate the victims, and give all media bad headlines you will live with forever.
  • Once a critic, enemy, or victim, always a critic enemy or victim
  • Silence is the most toxic, top executive career-busting strategy
  • Speed beats smart every time, when in doubt do something . . .
  • Talking to your critics builds your credibility and silences or invalidates key adverse audiences.
  • There is no such thing as 2020 hindsight because there is no such thing as 2020 foresight
  • There will always be bellyachers, bloviators, gripers, secondguessers, and backbench complainers

See also:
OUR MANIFESTO FOR COMMUNICATIONS SUCCESS

LUKASZEWSKI’S CONTENTION SURVIVAL MANIFESTO – Keeping Yourself and the Things That Matter Under Control

Jim’s Wisdom #40: Profiles In Failure

Behavior Patterns That Precipitate and Perpetuate Trouble

Sometimes the way to prevent organizations from embarrassment, humiliating visibility, enormous litigation, and just plain stupidity is to powerfully illustrate the behaviors and attitudes that lead to catastrophic reputational damage. I call this pattern “Profiles in Failure,” easily recognized behaviors and their predictable impact. If you seek trouble, here’s the path to multitask your way into long-term difficulty.

Silence:The most toxic strategy. Makes you look like a perpetrator, whether true or not. There is no credible way to explain silence in the face of crisis. Silence is the most frequent leadership career-killer in crisis situations. It’s why the boss gets fired first.  
Stalling:Speed beats smart every time. Failure to act immediately, even incorrectly, is impossible to explain or apologize for. Doing nothing, even for what appear to be good reasons, is never explainable. #1 response criticism: failure to speak and act promptly.  
Denial:Refuse to accept the fact that something bad has happened and that there may be victims or other direct effects that require prompt public acknowledgement.  
Victim Confusion:Irritable reaction to reporters, angry neighbors, and victims’ families when they call asking for help, information, explanation, or apology. “Hey! We’re victims too.”  
Testosterosis:Look for ways to hit back, rather than to deal with the problem.  Refuse to give in, refuse to respect those who may have a difference of opinion or a legitimate issue.  
Arrogance:Reluctance to apologize, express concern or empathy, or to take appropriate responsibility because, “If we do that, we’ll be liable,” or, “We’ll look like sissies,” or, “We’ll set a precedent,” or, “There will be copycats.”  
Search for the Guilty:Shift blame anywhere you can while digging into the organization, looking for traitors, turncoats, troublemakers, those who push back, and the unconvinceables.  
Fear of the Media:As it becomes more clear that the problem is at least partly real, the media begin asking, “What did you know, and when did you know it?”, “What have you done, and when did you do it?”, and other humiliating, embarrassing, and damaging questions for which there are no really good, truthful answers anymore because you have stalled so long.  
Whining:Head down, finger in your navel, shuffling around, whining, and complaining about how bad your luck is, about being a victim of the media, zealous do-gooders, wacko-activists, or people don’t know anything; about how people you don’t respect have power; and, that you “don’t get credit” for whatever good you’ve already contributed.

Execute one, some or all of these behaviors in any order and I guarantee trouble, serious reputation problems, and brand damage. By the time you recover – if you do – look for some career-defining moments including involuntary departure, and a new team may replace you and yours. 

Wednesday’s Smart Shibboleth #10: The most toxic, reputation defining, career devastating, mistake in crisis

Word Count: 461 (3 minutes READING TIME)

One word: Silence.

  • This fatal mistake is intentionally made in most crises. Management thinks it can beat the odds.
  • This is a behavior that lives forever. Once you fail to speak, your reputation will be forever tainted by the question, “Why did you wait so long to talk? To act?”
  • There is no rational, believable, sensible, or plausible explanation for silence. It is leadership run amuck in reputational quicksand. Yet the perpetrator is only 240 characters away from avoiding this permanent, toxic reputation stain.
  • A sensible, successful response strategy leads with speaking immediately. You can use my grand strategy below for responding even as the fire trucks, victims and media assemble.

Grand Crisis Response Strategic Steps (The First Two Hours In Every Crisis):

1. Stop the production of victims. Continuous victim production is what drives media coverage, public interest, emotionalization, plus commentary and criticism from 1000 different sources.


2. Manage the victim dimension. This is what leaders and senior managers should be doing rather than stalling and second-guessing the command center.


3. Communicate directly and frequently with employees, stakeholders, and those directly affected. Calm and settle people down. Help insiders and victims know what is going on.


4. Notify those indirectly affected, those who have a problem now because you have a problem; regulators, licensing authorities, neighbors, partners, collaborators, key stakeholders, those who need to know and hear from you promptly.


5. Manage the self-appointed and the self-anointed; the new media and the legacy media, those who simply opt in, the critics, the bellyachers, the backbench bickerers, the bloviators. Management and leadership need to help all bystanders focus on resolution and caring for victims. Far too many response plans have only legacy media public relations driven tactics. Crisis communication is driven by a simple, sensible, constructive, positive, and clearly open and achievable strategy.

The Crisis Guru’s Truisms of Crises Response

  1. Bad news always ripens badly, it gets worse before it gets better.
  2. Every moment of indecision creates unseen but avoidable collateral damage.
  3. There is no such thing as 20-20 hindsight because there is no such thing as 20-20 foresight.
  4. Silence is the most toxic strategy and the greatest permanent response mistake.
  5. Critics and victims accumulate.
  6. There will always be bellyachers, bloviators, gripers, second guessers, and backbench complainers.
  7. Once a critic, enemy, or victim, always a critic, enemy, or victim.
  8. Speed beats smart every time. Act now, fix now, change now, stop now, decide now. Perfect fixing mistakes quickly. There will be many. That’s what crisis is.
  9. Lead by wishful thinking and cohort led guesswork, the Boss gets big bonus on exiting.

Wednesday Smart Shibboleth#9: Lukaszewski’s Civility and Decency Manifesto: 39 Paths to Decency

Word Count: 320 (2 minutes 15 seconds)

39 Paths to Decency

The true test of civility is a commitment to verbal, written communication, deeds, and actions that benefit a recipient more than the sender. Here are 39 possible paths that can get you to civility, decency, integrity, and trust. Always pick as many as you can, as frequently as you can.

1. Accountability
2. Apology
3. Calmness
4. Candor
5. Character
6. Charitability
7. Chivalry
8. Civility
9. Compassion
10. Constructiveness
11. Courtesy
12. Decency
13. Dignity
14. Empathy: positive deeds that always speak louder than words
15. Engagement
16. Forgiveness
17. Gratitude
18. Helpfulness
19. Honesty
20. Honor
21. Humility
22. Integrity
23. Listening: the greatest decency
24. Openness
25. Peacefulness
26. Pleasantness
27. Politeness
28. Positivity
29. Principle
30. Respect
31. Responsiveness
32. Sensibility
33. Sensitivity
34. Simplicity
35. Softness
36. Tact
37. Thoughtfulness
38. Transparency
39. Truthfulness

Use this shibboleth as a personal and organizational decency accomplishment checklist.
  • Make other additions to this list of things you have already been doing
  • Make this list become a living instrument to help you and those you know, and organizations you belong to commit to a broad array of decent behaviors and higher levels of civility.
  • Develop examples and illustrations of each of these and the ones you add from your own experience.
  • Keep a log.
  • Find opportunities to talk about these activities, beliefs, and ideas where they will motivate others to emulate what you’ve learned to take such pleasure in doing.

Remember, the reverse of any of these words, ideas, or behaviors only lead to trouble, problems, and delayed mitigation and resolution; plus revictimizing those who have been injured.

Let’s talk about it. I’m always interested in helping colleagues perfect their own personal decency pathways. Reach out to me at 203-948-7029 or jel@e911.com.

James E. Lukaszewski
Americas Crisis Guru®

ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus (2015) 


Mainstreet Village, 7601 Lyndale Ave S, STE 32, Richfield MN 
jel@e911.com 
203-948-7029 

    Jim’s Wisdom #39: Communicate Intentionally

    Word Count: 673 (4 minutes, 35 seconds)

    Over the years, I’ve developed, taught, coached, and advocated a very powerful and helpful communication philosophy. At the same time, this approach defines my ethical approach to life, to work and to trouble. I call these “intentions” because this is how I seek to operate my life, intentionally, every day, teach others to do the same. These intentions build trust, respect, and confidence.

    1. Candor – Truth with an attitude, delivered now (the foundation blocks of trust).
    • Disclose, announce early.
    • Explain reasoning and reasons.
    • Discuss options, alternatives considered.
    • Provide unsolicited helpful information.
    2. Openness, accessibility – Be available for the disasters as well as the ribbon cuttings.
    • Be available.
    • Be willing to respond.
    • Get out front fast.
    3. Truthfulness – Truth is 15% facts and data, 85% emotion and point-of-reference.
    • Point of reference matters more than facts.
    • Factual overload victimizes people and makes them feel stupid, angrier.
    • Too many facts irritate and revictimize.
    • Unconditional honesty, from the start.
    • Get good at reducing emotionally negative situations, subjects, and people behaviors.
    • Emotions always outweigh facts.
    4. Empathy – Actions that illustrate concern, sensitivity, and compassion.
    • Actions always speak louder than words.
    • Act as though it was happening to you or someone you care about.
    • Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes in any way is literally impossible, from the victim’s perspective. Avoid it.
    5. Responsiveness – Answering questions relentlessly in every situation validates your integrity and preserves your reputation.
    • Every concern or question, regardless of the source, is legitimate and must be addressed.
    • Answer every question; avoid judging the questioner.
    • Answer questions as many times as they are asked.
    • Avoid taking any question personally.
    • Remain calm, wage peace, build followers and be nice, even in the face of anger or aggressive negativity. You anger and arrogance create plaintiffs.
    • Answer questions patiently and repetitively until questions stop being asked.
    6. Transparency – End the secrets (because important things and stupid stuff always come out).
    • Our behavior, our attitude, our plans, even our strategic discussions are unchallengeable, positive, and explainable.
    • Our families would be comfortable reading about our actions, decisions, and discussions on the web or the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper.
    7. Engagement – Face-to-face is the communications approach desired by just about everyone and every victim.
    • Take aggressive positive interaction with those who challenge us.
    • Our base and those who give us permission to operate expect us to deal with unconvinceables and victims.
    • Prompt direct interactive response, even negotiation, empowers the initiator.
    8. Small Decencies
    • Small, voluntary, freely offered acts of courage, kindness, helpfulness.
    • Given, provided, or done without expectation of reward or acknowledgement.
    • A life pattern of simple, spontaneous, utterly decent actions.
    9. Destiny Management – It’s your destiny, which only you can manage in your own best interest.
    • Manage your own destiny, or you’ll find someone waiting on the sidelines to do it for you.
    • Relentlessly correct and clarify the record.
    • Prompt, positive, constructive elaboration of the facts preempts critics and empowers employees, supporters and those who give us permission to operate.
    10. Apology – The atomic energy of empathy. Apologies stop bad things, and bad things from starting.
    • Acknowledge personal responsibility for having injured, insulted, failed, or wronged another.
    • Explain what happened and the known reasons for the circumstance.
    • Talk about what you and your organization have learned that will help prevent a recurrence.
    • Humbly ask for forgiveness in exchange for more appropriate future behavior and to make amends.
    • Make restitution.

    You can call this anything you like: communications policy, guidelines, or manifesto. I like the word intentions because it signifies that we are fully engaged in communicating in the most effective, honest, empathetic, and open manner possible, all the time.

    By publicly professing these intentions you will set a standard to which you can be held accountable. This behavior can lead to an extraordinarily interesting, useful, and trustworthy life, and besides, you sleep better at night.

    Let’s talk about it. I’m always interested in helping colleagues develop their own personal principles. Reach out to me at 203-948-7029 or jel@e911.com.

    James E. Lukaszewski
    Americas Crisis Guru®

    ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus (2015) 


    Mainstreet Village, 7601 Lyndale Ave S, STE 32, Richfield MN 
    jel@e911.com 
    203-948-7029 

      Wednesday Smart Shibboleth #8: Lukaszewski’s Civility and Decency Manifesto: Stopping Incivility In Its Tracks

      Word Count: 399 (2 minutes 42 seconds)

      16 Ways to STOP Incivility Before or After It Starts

      The true test of civility is a commitment to verbal and written communication that are predominantly positive and declarative and behaviors that are simple, sensitive, sensible, constructive, positive, helpful, humble, empathetic, and always benefit the recipient more than the giver. Any other pathways lead only to trouble, prolong problems and delay mitigation and resolution. Empathy means positive deeds that speak louder and more constructively than words.

      How to STOP Incivility in Its Track

      1. When your words, deeds, actions, or intentions turn to vilification, STOP.

      2. When you use sarcasm to ridicule and damage, demean, dismiss, diminish. or humiliate, STOP.

      3. When your words are arrogant, causing needless but intentional pain and suffering, STOP.

      4. When your words clearly express anger and irritation, STOP.

      5. When your words, deeds or actions are demanding and bullying, STOP.

      6. When your words are just plain mean, STOP.

      7. When your words insult, STOP.

      8. When your words become corrosive and disrespectful, STOP.

      9. When your words become disparaging and tone deaf, STOP.

      10. When you speak and behave without empathy, STOP, reconsider.

      11. When your words mindlessly injure, STOP.

      12. When your words, deeds or actions intentionally injure, STOP.

      13. When your words spread accusations and suspicion, STOP.

      14. When your words exhibit overbearing and overzealousness, STOP.

      15. When what you propose is negative, punitive, defensive. and harmfully restrictive on others, STOP, choose another pathway.

      16. When your words exceed the boundaries of decency, civility. and integrity, just simply STOP. Choose another path.

      There are so many pathways to civility, decency, and integrity, pick as many as you can.

      Start with Powerful Civilities & Simple Decencies: Actions That Defeat Indecency.

      – How can I help you?– Please let me help you.
      – How nice of you.– Please forgive me.
      – I can do that.– Thank you. What can I do for you?
      – I’m sorry.– What would be more helpful?
      – My pleasure.– Yes.
      – Please ask me, I’m ready to help.– You’re welcome.

      Let’s talk about it. I’m always interested in helping colleagues develop their own personal principles. Reach out to me at 203-948-7029 or jel@e911.com.

      Coming up in Shibboleth #9: “39 Pathways to Decency”.

      James E. Lukaszewski
      Americas Crisis Guru®

      ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus (2015) 


      Mainstreet Village, 7601 Lyndale Ave S, STE 32, Richfield MN 
      jel@e911.com 
      203-948-7029 

        Wednesday’s Smart Shibboleths #7: The Platinum Rule: Provide the Help Others Need to Achieve Their Goals and Aspirations

        Word Count: 378 (2 minutes 30 seconds)

        The Platinum Rule is a big step beyond the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule gives you a better today. The Platinum Rule helps you move someone else into their tomorrow. The Ethical and Practical principles I follow support both rules. Share your own version of this approach with others who work with you and people you’d like to work with. Find ways to discuss these ideas, explain them, and ask and answer questions about them. Everyone you care about or those who care about you should be aware of ideas like these. Help them live and learn from their own principles.

        The Ethical and Practical Principles That Guide Jim’s Practice

        1. Act ethically, promptly, and urgently.

        a. Ask better questions than anyone else.
        b. Be 15 minutes early.
        c. Consistently challenge the standard assumptions and practices of our profession, build its importance, and enhance the ability of all practitioners to better serve others from their perspective. Raise your hand.

        2. Do the doable; know the knowable; get the getable; arrange the arrangeable.

        a. Expect to be helpful and useful.
        b. Focus on what really matters. Apply your ethics audit analysis.
        c. Go beyond what those you work with already know or believe.
        d. Intend to make a constructive ethical difference every day.

        3. Intentionally look at every situation and circumstance from different helpful perspectives

        a. Look out for the real victims.
        b. Remember, it’s your boss’s “bus.” They get to drive it wherever they want. If you don’t like it, or can’t deal with it, hop off and go to somebody else’s bus, or drive your own.
        c. Clarification: Your role on “the bus” is to help the driver drive better. Taking the wheel is out of the question. If you want to take the wheel, get your own bus.

        4. Remember that every issue, question, concern or problem is a management or leadership issue, question, concern, or problem before it is any other kind of issue, question, concern or problem. Always start where management and leadership are. Starting somewhere else only leads to trouble, confusion, and failure.

        Let’s talk about it. I’m always interested in helping colleagues develop their own personal principles. Reach out to me at 203-948-7029 or jel@e911.com

        James E. Lukaszewski
        Americas Crisis Guru®

        ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus (2015) 


        Mainstreet Village, 7601 Lyndale Ave S, STE 32, Richfield MN 
        jel@e911.com 
        203-948-7029 

          Wednesday’s Smart Shibboleths #6: Establish Your Personal Credentials Quickly with A Useful Professional Profile

          Word Count: 528 (3 minutes 33 seconds)

          The Purpose of A Personal/Professional Profile

          One of the most important steps in crisis work is quickly establishing a connection with senior people. Many years ago I developed a personal/professional profile which briefly and succinctly explains: who I am, what I do, how I work, and what I believe. It has always been a conversation starter. Each topic leads to me sharing relevant recent experiences and talking about next possible steps for the client’s problem. It generates questions you need to hear and promptly respond.

          Establishing connections at any level, but especially at senior levels, is up to you and the sooner you accomplish it, the more quickly serious work can begin. Fail to connect early makes progress difficult, maybe even impossible.

          My Profile

          Purpose:Through helping resolve the significant troubles of others, find and do what will be the most important things I will ever do in my career and life.
          Vision/Aspiration:To be an authentic trusted Communicator, Coach, Counselor and Strategic Thinker; to be the first call when leaders and managers face their toughest, touchiest, most sensitive and devastating situations. And the last call before taking action.
          Mission:To be the table, truly strategic; promptly finding those exceptionally achievable, ethical, honorable, powerful, and sensible ingredients for solutions to the most challenging leadership, management, and organizational problems.
          Disciplines:Trustability; Verbal clarity; Management Perspective/sensitivity; Findable, Gettable, Doable, Achievable, Knowable approaches; Tomorrow focused; Thoughtful, incremental advice; Intuition-Pattern Sensitivity; lifelong learning; Teach, Coach, Counsel to inspire and expand Management and leadership influence and success.
          Values:Constructive approaches; Curiosity; Honesty; Inconsistency*; Positivity; Pragmatism; Promptness; Truthfulness.
          Principles:Candor; Communicate Promptly-Intentionally; Destiny Management; Empathy/Compassion/Apology; Engagement; Openness; Responsiveness; Transparency; Truthfulness.
          Passion:Help all staff functions i.e. PR, HR, Law, Security, Strategic planning, etc. be more effective, have critical access, influence, and impact; be sought after earlier and have more productive successful impact and influence on events.

          This connection step is so important that if a technique like this one fails to work for you, it’s likely best to help your client find someone they can connect and work with. Be prepared to get out of the way.

          Remember, in true crises, where victims are caused, usually only the boss’ job is in jeopardy. They know it. Early connections must happen fast. That means to always act in the client’s best interest rather than yours.

          *Inconsistency is the greatest hallmark of strategy and a strategist. It can also be one of the greatest roadblocks to executive decision-making. Most solutions to serious problems involve intentionally thinking differently about results, decisions, and outcomes.

          Remember, every senior person believes that they are a better communicator than anybody, even you. They also believe that their communication skills are why they have the job they have. Remember, too, if all you have is information about how the news media works and how reporters behave, most senior people have made up their minds about these topics already. Focus on finding useful, appropriate, and often inconsistent options for them to choose to develop the solutions their problems require.

          James E. Lukaszewski
          Americas Crisis Guru®

          ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus (2015) 


          Mainstreet Village, 7601 Lyndale Ave S, STE 32, Richfield MN 
          jel@e911.com 
          203-948-7029 

            Jim’s Wisdom #38: Waging Peace, Avoiding Incivility

            Word Count: 656 (reading time: 4 minutes, 20 seconds)

            Bad news is caused by intentionally chosen negative language.

            Peace and civility come from intentionally chosen positive language and behavior.

            • How to build a constructive, positive, and happy environment at work, in the community, and home.
            • How to remove the negativity of snipy, nasty, and upset people from your workplace, community, and even your home life.
            • Become obsessed enough to wage peace, eradicate bad language, and have a civil, decent, and productive life.

            Waging Peace

            The crucial ingredients in civil, decent, helpful, and important communication are positive language and behavior. Yes, it’s that simple, but still extremely hard to accomplish every day all day. Experience shows that one of the most powerful drivers of leadership success is a relentless reliance on positive language. Talking about what to do rather than what not to do.

            What’s required first is the eradication of negative language. This step eliminates negative behavior, decisions, and attitudes. How does one really do that? Can peace, tranquility, civility, and decency be that simple to achieve? A passionate commitment to positive language and behavior is challenging and persistently difficult for human beings to commit to. But help is here.

            Eradicating Negative Language

            When I’m teaching leadership how to get themselves out of trouble our first stop and constant commitment is to remove negativity of every kind from our daily lives, and the lives of others. This is a discipline that requires constant attention. The systematic removal of negativity from our lives will have immediate impact on everyone around you. They will notice. They will notice more when you insist that they too be positive as well and eliminate negativity. And you help them do that every day.

            Getting started is the hard part but here’s a tool to help you do that.

            Introducing The Bad News Eradicator

            The Bad News Eradicator was designed to help eliminate defensive words and negative phrases from your speech, writing, decisions, and actions.

            1. Keep the Bad News Eradicator near you. [Click here to see the complete list of bad news eradicating phrases]
            2. Take it with you when you travel. 
            3. Collect your own set of habitual negative phrases and words to eradicate
            4. Add your negative habits to the eradicator sheet, then create their positive equivalents.
            5. Get a whole new life. Give a whole new life to others.

            How to use the Bad News Eradicator

            Examples of Bad News Eradication

            Negative StatementPositive Change
            1. “I can’t comment on what hasn’t happened.”1. “When it happens, I’ll comment.”
            2. “I can’t speak for them.”2. “They can speak for themselves.”
            3. “I don’t know.”3. “Here’s what I know…”
            4. “I wouldn’t say that.”4. “What I would say is…”
            5. “It didn’t happen that way.”5. “Here’s what happened.”
            6. “It’s never been done before.6. “This is the first time.”
            7. “It’s not too expensive.”7. “It’s affordable.”
            8. “Let’s not kid ourselves.”8. “Let’s stay focused on what matters.”
            9. “Nothing is impossible.”9. “Everything is possible.”
            10. “Please don’t hesitate to ask.”10. “Please Ask.”
            11. “That’s not a bad idea.”11. “That could be a good idea.”

            We’ll publish more soon.

            Click here if you’d like to receive all 189 negative language CHANGE examples.

            Click here to read: Time to Eradicate Your Bad News.

            Click here to read: Time to Eradicate Your Bad News Volume 2.

            Click here to read: The Seven Corrosive Powers of Negative Language.

            James E. Lukaszewski
            Americas Crisis Guru®

            ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus (2015) 


            Mainstreet Village, 7601 Lyndale Ave S, STE 32, Richfield MN 
            jel@e911.com 
            203-948-7029 

              Wednesday’s Smart Shibboleth #5: A Trust and Credibility Shibboleth for Leaders and Organizations

              Word Count: 270 words (~1 minute, 40 seconds reading time) 

              When it comes to credibility and trust, the fundamentally trustable behavior of organizations is reflected in its leadership’s behavior and leadership’s commitment to trustable decisions and actions. 

              Management’s Credibility Mantra: Credibility is Conferred On Us Based On Our Past Behaviors. 

              These six actionable tasks or assignments, if executed by everyone in the organization, especially by leadership example, will foster trust and credibility, as well as demonstrate extraordinary integrity. 

              1. “When problems occur, we’ll be prepared to talk openly about them and act quickly to respond to them operationally.” 
              1. “If the public should know about an issue or problem which could affect them, we will voluntarily talk about it as quickly and as completely as we can.” 
              1. “When the problems or changes occur, we will keep the community posted on a schedule they set until the problem or changes have been thoroughly explained or resolved.” 
              1. We will answer any questions the community may have and suggest and volunteer additional information on matters the community has yet to ask questions about.” 
              1. “We will be cooperative with the news media, but our primary responsibility is to communicate directly with those most directly affected by our actions as soon as possible.” 
              1. “We will respect and seek to work with those who oppose us.” 

              James E. Lukaszewski
              Americas Crisis Guru®

              ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus (2015) 

              *Shibboleth, Jim’s Definition: practical information you can use today and tomorrow, and lasts a long time. 
              Mainstreet Village, 7601 Lyndale Ave S, STE 32, Richfield MN 
              jel@e911.com 
              203-948-7029