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Protected: 7 Ways to Bungle Your Crisis Response. (and your career if you’re in charge when it happens)

Protected: 7 Ways to Bungle Your Crisis Response (and your career if you’re in charge when it happens)

Getting Past “No”

If you’ve ever read any of my stuff, attended my webinars, speeches, or public presentations, you know of my strong belief in the power of positive language and the destructive nature of “no,” negative language, and negative thinking.

This is a story about one of the most remarkable salespeople I ever worked with and learned from in my life, Andy Johnson.

Andy’s story is quite remarkable. He never finished high school. His first job was moving boxes in the shipping department of the Music Den in downtown Philadelphia in mid-20th century.

One summer there was a brutal flu outbreak that affected thousands of people. In fact, so the story goes, at the height of the epidemic, just a handful of employees showed up to run the five-story Music Den’s downtown headquarters store. Andy was assigned to the first floor – where both sheet music and small electronics, such as radios, were sold.

Andy was instructed by Mr. Schmitt, the founder, to only sell boxed radios and not the display units that belonged to the vendor company. When Mr. Schmitt checked in a couple of hours later, he was stunned to see that all of the radios in the display cases were gone. Before talking with Andy, he took a slight detour and checked the storage rooms where new merchandise was waiting to be sold. Turns out that those rooms were empty, too. Mr. Schmitt then went looking for Andy, who was on the sales floor talking to customers.

Instead of chewing Andy out, Mr. Schmitt asked a question that changed Andy’s life, “What are you doing in the loading dock hauling boxes when you can sell so well?” Andy answered simply, “Nobody asked me.” Andy’s career was a bit meteoric after that.

When I met Andy in 1966, he was selling stereo components and breaking all previous sales records in the department. After reading his personnel file and reviewing his sales records, I was very curious about his award-winning sales methods and being the busy father of seven children.

Andy’s approach was quite simple. At the beginning of each year, he sat down with his wife and figured out how much income they would need. Andy would write that number at the top of a sheet of paper, and using a formula the company gave him, he converted the commission rate into a gross sales number for the year. Seven and a half percent commission from every sale – from a $25 headset to a $3,000 stereo system – was subtracted from the big sales number he had to reach. When I saw this, I made the remark that it was a pretty negative way to motivate himself to make his sales goals. I was 24-year-old learning how to be a department manager. I will remember his response for the rest of my life.

Andy said that every single year, he made his sales quota and his commission quota by the end of August. That left September, October, November, and December, the heaviest selling months for musical instruments and musical anything. His way over-the-top sales in the last four months of every year made him the super salesman that he was.

Despite his truly amazing and systematic approach, and great memory of his customers, his batting average at the point of sale was average for retail sales, about 10% to 15%. I asked Andy how he handled all the “no” responses he got as a salesperson. His answer was quick. With a laugh he said, “I believe that a no is simply a short stop on the way to yes.”

Andy had learned that he could have a longer-term relationship with many customers. Even those who said “no” were likely to buy from him eventually. He stayed in touch with everyone he talked to periodically. Andy Johnson showed me that even “no” can become a powerfully positive and constructive “Yes!” “No is just a short stop on the way to yes,” has been a major driver of my career, my attitude about life, and my optimism about most everything that happens to me and those I care about. Who knows, it could probably work for you.

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting is forbidden.

Top Executives Often Torpedo Their Own Communication Programs

Why Do Bosses Think So Highly of Their Comms Skills?

Let’s be honest, very few upper and senior executives are actually good communicators.

A question I always ask our colleagues when I am teaching or speaking is, “Does anyone in the room work for a boss who thinks they are a bad communicator?” Always gets a huge laugh. Where do these boss beliefs come from?

It’s because executives, even supervisors, believe:

They got where they are because of their communication skills.
Their communication skills and intentions improve over time. The reverse is often more the case.
The higher they are, the less they actually feel they need to communicate. (Others do that.)
The higher they rise, the more powerful they believe their words become. So, they say less, avoid repetition.
The higher they rise, the more they assume the words they say one time have enormous power penetrating throughout their organization. Balderdash.

New ideas fail because the boss only talks about it once or twice. It’s generally to give the order to succeed . . . or else.
Or worse the orders seem to mean, “Do whatever it takes to win.” This is a toxic instruction. Someone will actually try. Trouble is the result.

What a Successful Executive Communication Strategy Looks Like

The senior executive communication day needs to look like this:

Decision making	5%
Articulating decisions	30%
Coaching, teaching, inspiring, and motivating others to carry out decisions	30%
Forecasting (guessing) the next decision	5%
Admiration \ Loyalty building	6%
Reputation Repair	4%
Repairing yesterday’s minor communication glitches*	20%

* Fixing a bigger mistake costs a lot more.

As you can tell by this distribution of time, the CEO, senior leadership, as well as line managers and supervisors need to spend significantly more time explaining, coaching, interpreting, reiterating, and monitoring the progress of strategies, plans, decisions, outcomes, and instructions.

The communication success lessons are:

Management and leadership that is about teaching, reminding, re-emphasizing, inspiring, repeating, and re-explaining to get it right will likely succeed. Starting big new shiny decisions or initiatives without the above will likely fail.
Mindless change, new ideas, looking backward, or picking apart old problems are disruptive, distracting, interruptive, time wasting, and costly with little, if any, return.
In a word, “It’s repetition, repetition, repetition, stupid.”
For the strategic adviser, resist the urge to suggest big new ideas. See number two above. The bigger the idea, the more disruption it causes. Delays, errors, and failures follow. Experience shows that most communication solutions lie among known, successful, existing programs.

BREAKING NEWS – What the CEO Says Is Often of Little Value to Most Employees

Most leaders and managers assume that once they’ve spoken, their words are reliably spread out and sink in, and things start to happen . . . which rarely actually happens.

The higher up in leadership you are, the more isolated you become. Every day becomes less and less about what’s spreading and sinking in, and more importantly, about what fails to get there.

Here’s how internal communication generally flows (or stalls) in organizations of any size.

You or the boss makes an announcement and . . .

Enter Lukaszewski’s Immutable Realities of Communication Failure That Operate 24/7

Reality 1: Information only reaches its target when the target reaches out for it.

Reality 2: Whatever the original communication source, targets always seek local sources.

Reality 3: The higher the source of communication, the more distorted, truncated, and misinterpreted it becomes on its way down to the target.

Reality 4: Toward the bottom of the communication pyramid, the target invents or imagines (makes up) what’s missing or unintelligible and proceeds only if what they imagine seems plausible.

Here’s How Employees Value the Information They Get to Help or Direct Their Work by Source

CEO	5%
Upper Management	6%
Middle Management	7%
District Management	8%
Firsst-Line Supervisor	30%
TGNTM*	24%
IMIU**	20%

* TGNTM: The guy or girl next to me
** IMIU: I made it up

The Lessons

First-line supervisors are the most critical communicators in the lives of employees. How much time is spent training them, coaching them, and acquainting them with what those higher up seek to accomplish?
The person at the next bench is the one people rely on to validate what the first-line supervisor is saying, and what an employee thinks they heard, saw, or read.
This estimate is probably low, but almost every employee (if they told the truth), makes up at least 20% of what they do every single day, and their supervisors are unaware.
Folks at the end of the communication chain rarely really know what’s going on, so (as you can tell by the analysis) they fake it until they make it or break it.

The Grand Lesson: Remember the Monkey Tree

You’re on the Monkey Tree, in the hierarchy of your organization, and you are above employees. Whenever you look out the window, down the stairs, or down the hall, you see a bunch of smiling faces looking up at you. They are probably pretty frustrated at the communication that they’re getting.

Now put yourself on the Monkey Tree looking up. It’s a very different view.

The 7 Ingredients of Happiness, Help From the Sunshine Girl

My wife of 56 years, Barbara (we met in high school), and I had an extraordinary life together. I called her The Sunshine Girl because she was always happy, and she taught me how to be happy, too. To our surprise, our unintended example seemed to have a powerful effect on so many of those around us. Barbara died in 2019. This is her legacy.

Happiness begins with decency. Decency is the critical ingredient in achieving and maintaining happiness. Happiness and decency come to those who help others create it for themselves. It begins with those closest to you. Barbara and I committed ourselves to helping each other first, and then found happy ways for others to improve their lives. The way it worked out, we found that helping others achieve those things they feel are meaningful, helpful, and important to yet others, often need help completing what they hope to accomplish. Our relationship revolved around our constantly doing good things for each other first. This created a beautiful life for the two of us.

Live by Barbara’s happiness ingredients every day. And act now whenever unhappiness is threatening – do it now, fix it now, question it now, make it better now.
Or, just let it go, which we often did.

Barbara’s Legacy:

7 Ingredients of Happiness, and maybe yours, too.

Throughout much of our life together, we deferred talking about how our happiness occurred. Frankly, we figured that if we talked about it, we’d probably mess it up. But toward the end of her life, people pressed us to talk more about our relationship and how it came about. The result of our conversations is the list below. They can help you as they helped us.

Intentionally say nice things about and to each other in private and public every day, everywhere. Spend part of every day thinking of nice things to say and do.
Avoid saying the two or three divisive, corrosive, “Get-even” things you might really want to mention every day. Let them go.
It is always better to be positive or blah and avoid being negative or inflammatory.
Rid your lives of negative, irritating, and intentionally abrasive people. Walk away. Skip the goodbyes. Immediate happiness will break out.
Make every day simple, sensible, and satisfying for yourself then for others.
Maintain a genuine respect for those you care about 24/7.
Give the credit for your success to those closest to you or who really care about you.

I’ll always remember the day when Barbara was confronted with a truly major, personal decision. She kind of clammed up, so I knew something was up. One morning, she was very talkative and had made quite interesting decisions. Out of curiosity I asked her, “What took you so long to make this logical decision?” Her answer was immediate, “My decision was pretty simple. I had three choices: Do nothing and suffer, surrender to the problem and be miserable, or be happy and see how things turn out.” Throughout her entire life, Barbara subjected big decisions and circumstances to her “Happiness Barometer.” It had to be happy, or we walked away.

2026 New Year’s Resolution 1 of 2

Resolved:
To Thank, Applaud, Congratulate,
Recognize, or Honor One Person Every Day
Do it now! Keep doing it.

You Will Benefit Immediately

Each Recipient You Remember Will Remember You, What You Did For Them, and Tell Others. Some Will Thank You.

If you are one of the very many waiting around for the spontaneous outpouring of recognition for the good things you have done for others and maybe larger groups, the wait could be long. Only a handful of us, a very tiny number, will ever experience spontaneous, magical recognition in our lives.

If You Want People to Remember You, Remember Them First, and Some Other Powerful Realities of Giving and Getting Happiness

Recognize the accomplishments of others first.
Take some time every day to find people you know, or don’t know but should know, to thank. And do it now.
As you develop this habit, you will find that each recipient of your gratitude will remember you, what you did for them, perhaps what you did for others, too. Many will thank you. Some will even tell others about you.
My personal belief is that every supervisor, senior manager, and leader has an obligation to look for those who are doing outstanding things, and then take the trouble to personally recognize their accomplishments. These powerful communications often have lifelong impact. Recipients gain what so many of us would like to have, happiness.
Do things that are memorable, things you know are special or above and beyond the call of duty. You have to force people to help them remember you.
Bottom line: Being remembered is a very intentional personal behavior. No thank you, no gratitude, no memory… no happiness. Change your behavior now.

Your happiness is your responsibility.

Remember, “Thank You” are two of the most powerful words in every culture, every language, and every relationship. Be specific about what you are thankful for and make these two words more powerful, memorable, and actionable.

My Introduction to the Power of Thank You

The first professional thank you note that came my way occurred shortly after the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) published a couple of my short essays in 1974. The notes came from people I didn’t even know, Chester Burger and Robert Dilenschneider of New York City. Just short notes on special stationery that said essentially, “Dear Jim, liked your piece, especially A, B, and C. You need to write more about these things. Thank you, sincerely.”

In almost every month of my career from those days to these, I receive thank you notes from people. Here’s how it all began.

The Power of a Thank You, My First Lesson – A Personal Story

I was 26 years old and a junior manager in a Minneapolis retail music store. The way they trained was to put junior managers in charge of something real. One of my first “real” management jobs was to oversee the stereo components department in the company’s downtown store. I had a pretty tough, old-fashioned supervisor who had only a few requirements for my first month as manager: Conduct a sales meeting on Tuesdays at 7:30 AM presenting a new selling idea to the group of five super salespeople. Next, write at least one complimentary note to a sales staff member during the month. More than one note was encouraged.

One day, one of the long-time top salesman, let’s call him Tom Wilson, passed away. It wasn’t my fault. But, my manager came down and asked me to go through his desk to make sure there was nothing embarrassing to him or the company. The family was coming in to spend some time in the department where the salesman had spent most of his working life.

I went through his desk, an old-fashioned World War II surplus desk with deep drawers. Way in the back was a big box of papers; I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but I soon noticed that everything inside the box was in chronological order, with the youngest documents first. As I was trying to figure out what it was all about, I noticed that on every piece of paper, going back more than 30 years, there was a handwritten note from somebody making a nice comment about this gentleman’s work, behaviors, pleasantness, and success.

There were even several notes from more than 30 years ago, from the company’s founder. Some were just scribbles, “Great job with the Wilsons, we couldn’t crack them, you sold them,” “Thanks,” “You really did a great job resolving the concerns of the Olsons, they kept the merchandise after all. Nice going.” Then it struck me that he had likely saved every positive piece of paper he had ever received.

There, at the front, was my recent handwritten compliment. I kind of teared up.

When the family came, I put the box on the top of his desk. His family members crowded around and began going through box, excitedly talking about how many of these notes they knew about. Seems he talked about them at the dinner table whenever he got one. As I think back over that dramatic day, in the context of my career, something I could have done a lot more is consistently and constantly thank people, compliment people, congratulate people, and remember people.

In 1986, twelve years after his first of many notes, Chester Burger invited Barbara and me to come to New York City and work for him. We lived and worked in the New York area for the next 25 years.

Today, now, is the best time to start. If you want to be remembered, remember others first.

What Makes a Fellow, a Fellow?

2026 Edition

The Personal Search for Ideal Behavior

Now is the time of year when senior public relations practitioners are beginning work on applications for selection to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) College of Fellows. As I begin my 32nd year as a PRSA Fellow (I’m also an International Association of Business Communicators [IABC] Fellow), it’s interesting to reflect on the experiences of all those I have coached and mentored over the years, on my way to becoming a Fellow in both organizations. Just about everyone comes to the Fellow’s process with few clues about what being a Fellow is.

It’s About Your Footprint.

Becoming a Fellow is really all about the footprint applicants leave and have left on our profession, the community, and perhaps in even larger communities. There are Fellows who worked their entire careers in a single market and left a powerful footprint. There are Fellows who worked in a single state and left a significant footprint. There are Fellows who worked regionally and nationally and, in the process, left meaningful footprints everywhere they practiced.

What Are You Leaving Behind for Those Who Follow?

Gone are the grades, points, likes, ratings, gold stars, and constant competition and competitiveness of the applicant’s former daily practice. Your life becomes about what you leave behind through your time, talent, energy, and choices invested in, but often not acknowledged, the success of others… and the success they invest in the achievements of yet others. Now your best of show is about the best of show others achieve with your guidance, interest, energy, and coaching.

Step Out of the Limelight to Make Room for Others.

Your career’s focus shifts to taking a step out of the limelight so others can take or own their share of success, just as you did yours, and likely better because of you.

Find the Most Important Things You May Ever Do.

You’ll routinely be doing some of the most important, interesting, and personally rewarding career work known only to those you help and those they help.

A “footprint” is about the quality of practice and the level of influence rather than how many projects are done, for whom, or for what organizations they are completed. This is the hardest part of understanding what becoming a Fellow really means. It is such a mindset shift from counting projects and activities and raising your hand for recognition to really understanding personal impact, ideas, behaviors, and ethics that help others become better practitioners, citizens, public officials, leaders, more honorable advisors, and people of professional and personal substance.

Understand Your Personal Impact and Influence.

The footprint goes beyond activities within the public relations profession. It is about the impact and influence of the applicant in their vicinity, marketplace, industry, and profession. It’s about how applicants use their influence, experience, insights, and presence to make change happen – bringing reality and/or sensibility as well as reducing contention and bringing peace to contentious parties. It’s about helping start things that matter and often about stopping those things that don’t. It could be the preservation or introduction of core community values and interests. Or it could be finding and applying ideal behavior through the guidance of the PRSA or another organization’s Code of Ethics.

The Shift Is from Proficiency and Skill to Leadership and Impact.

I think sometimes it’s easy to mistake proficiency or expertise for leadership or impact on others. Those who wish to analyze their careers, to assess and develop their footprint, ultimately go through an interesting and introspective analysis of their lives and work. These are the steps I recommend:

Examine one’s life for the lessons that were shared with others. What did others learn from the applicant?
Reach back and contact those whose lives the applicant has affected. What value came from knowing the applicant?
Ask those who have known, worked, and benefited from the applicant’s efforts, presence, and insights to answer five basic questions:

What is/are/were the most important things, ideas, or concepts that these individuals learned from the applicant?
What is/are/were the most interesting things, ideas, or concepts learned or remembered?
What is/are/were those things these individuals feel they might never have learned had the applicant been absent from their lives? What do they know now that mattered that they didn’t know before because they met the applicant, whatever the circumstance?
What meaningful questions did the applicant help others to confront, consider, or explore that might not have happened had the applicant not been present?
How has knowing the applicant changed people’s lives?
How has the applicant’s life sought, found, and applied Ideal (ethical) Behavior? *

Your Impact and Impressions on Others Will Grow.

These questions matter because once a practitioner becomes a Fellow, all of these impacts and significant impressions on others continue and intensify. It is more than an honor to be selected as a Fellow. This selection is a personal and public recommitment to helping our profession and our professionals find ways to improve their skills. Yes, but also to begin to look at their practices and their practice circumstances from larger and broader social and cultural perspectives.

You Will Reinterpret Your Achievement Metrics from a Deeper Perspective.

Becoming a Fellow is about reinterpreting your professional metrics from entirely different and deeper perspectives. It’s about understanding what matters, what is helpful, what is sensible, and often, what is powerfully simple and true. Helping others do the same. It is about intentional professional integrity, honesty, and having a truly meaningful personal and professional life.

It’s your advocacy and modeling of ideal behavior that earns the distinction of being a Fellow.

You know who you are. Reach out to those who really know you and a Goodfellow to help.

So, go for it!

Get an application. Start your application today.

Feel free to share this document with anyone you think should apply to be a Fellow.

Stop Asking People to Ask Questions, It’s Mean

(And You’re Missing an Enormous Credibility, Trust, and Integrity Building Opportunity)

Asking people to ask questions often is irritating and disappointing to clients and audiences. No matter how sincere you are, this question implies laziness or feels like you don’t care. Worse, to some you appear to be holding back information you know that they probably should have. To be a better leader or a truly successful and important Trusted Strategic Advisor, take control of all question opportunities. Rather than asking people to ask questions, suggest questions people should be asking and, if you can, answer them. Clients and audiences will be totally surprised, pleased, and grateful. They will remember you.

Asking people to ask questions shuts off the conversation, and a powerful opportunity to communicate, educate, and energize the people you’re helping is lost. As a leader or Trusted Strategic Advisor, you want to do more in every aspect of your work for the people you’re advising. This is a powerful moment for recipients.

Ending a conversation with, “Let me know if you have questions,” happens so frequently to just about everyone that we are only slightly angry or irritated when it happens. We shrug our shoulders and make our way through our lives without the information we were hoping to obtain.

My wife of 56 years, Barbara, had cancer toward the end of her life. She had two really wonderful oncologists – one was medicine-related and the other was a surgeon. Barbara really loved these two people as she worked through the terrifying cancer experience.

It is hard to believe how accidentally callous smart people can be. “If you have any questions, just call me, I’m available 24/7.” Shame on you.

In my case, it was very stressful. We were new to the cancer trail. We were always left sucking wind, not knowing the questions we’re supposed to ask. Out of frustration, I called our helpful general practitioner. These doctors leave the scene when the experts show up. I complained that we just don’t know what questions to ask. His response was, “Do you have a pencil?” He gave me 54 questions, none of which we would ever have thought of. The way he structured the questions, we could see how helpful it would have been had we known and expected these questions and answers earlier in the process.

At our next oncologist appointment, I mentioned our concern about not knowing what questions to ask, and that, perhaps, our experts could think about what we should be asking. They instantly responded and were quite generous in helping us know more sooner. They were constantly suggesting things we should think about.

I tell this story because it gets the point across clearly. Barbara survived her cancer.

I’ve used this technique in all the consulting that I’ve done. I anticipate the fact that potential questions may be building up in the minds of the people I’m helping, but that they are reluctant to voluntarily interrupt what we’re doing to get the questions answered. Or worse, they can’t listen because they’re preoccupied trying to figure out what they should be asking.

I want to replace that frustration with the surprise that someone could actually be so thoughtful.

Here are some of the personal interrupters I use as a speaker or presenter to help the audience with questions:

“At this point in the conversation, I almost always get these three questions. You might want to consider them as well.” Then I provide the questions. And since I know what the questions are going to be, I already know what the answers are. You can actually pull a double surprise – you help them resolve their stress about having questions and answer the questions, or tell them how you plan to get those questions answered.
Another technique I use is to say, “If you have a question, please interrupt me so we can respond, answer, or work on them right away. I love being interrupted.” The most important reason I use this technique is because it almost always triggers additional questions, which I might never have heard and they might never have asked. People almost always comment on how unexpectedly helpful what we’re talking about became when I interrupt myself with my little Q&A gambit.
At some point, I do ask if there are any more questions. If no hands go up, I say, “Well, I can think of a few more.” Then I ask and answer them.
Another way I interrupt myself is to do just that, pausing and saying, “Let me share how I think about this or how I came to these ideas to help you better remember why they might be valuable for you in your situation.”
Take control of the questions. Use them to build confidence in you.

What you’ll find if you behave this way is more access, more impact, more cooperation, and more trust. It’s a simple way to wear your empathy, integrity, and trustability on your sleeve.

You Are The Table

Part Four

What Bosses Expect

Lesson One: The better you are organized, prepared, and rehearsed, the better your advice will be remembered.

Lesson Two: Reduce the flow of “new ideas.” New ideas often delay settled processes and approaches. It might be better to help the boss get things done that should have been done yesterday or last week.

Lesson Three: Edit mindfully rather than mindlessly. Think before you edit. Editing should first and foremost preserve and protect the truth. Too often editing obscures the truth.

This Is What Bosses Expect.

Real-time advice (on the spot): Rehearse your option suggestions.
Candor… “The truth is”….
Candor is truth with an attitude delivered right now.
Candor shortens all discussions.
Candor is the way up and the way out of trouble.
Candor saves the day, and maybe you.
Candor avoids saying things that can’t be taken back.
Candor is the most powerful strategy.
Coaching at every encounter
Consequence analysis, “This said or done will lead to that”
What matters
Early warning of critical or adverse events
What to do next
Pitfalls and potholes to avoid
How to help colleagues improve
Option selection, remember The Three Minute Drill