Snap Wisdom #1: Truth
If your leadership or management is asking you to make recommendations regarding something they are doing that you know is irregular, immoral, monumentally stupid, perhaps dangerous, and even a touch illegal, this is a signal for you to leave. Now.
Too many of our colleagues, perhaps you, have stuck around working for people they like but behave badly, hoping that you can have enough impact on them to move them to a more reasonable course. Almost never happens. In my experience, it never happens. Bad leaders and managers stay bad.
If you are one of those hanging around waiting to be effective again, just look around. Be honest with yourself. Actually look for the last time you made significant changes in their direction or their intentions. What likely comes to mind are lots of promises, stumbling starts, but never specific, concrete, permanent change. It’s just not there. It never will be. Head for the door.
Once you recognize that you’re involved, you have become complicit in everything they are doing. Your loyalty needs to stop. Leave that day. It will be one of the best decisions you ever make in your life, for those you care about and, those who care about you.
The Leader’s and the Spokesperson’s Greatest Vulnerabilities
The activist, the agitator and reporter often intentionally use verbal agitation tools to provoke or inflict consternation, fear, doubt, terror, errors, confusion, and uncertainty. Learn to accommodate, absorb, ignore, or deflect to avoid that crashing and burning feeling. Respond with positive declarative words. These are only words until you succumb. If you take them personally you will crash or be crushed.
Gleaned from hundreds of crashed and burned interviews or confrontations by leaders and spokespersons who failed to prepare for these totally predictable tactics. Be prepared to instantly bridge away from these provocations with simple, sensible, appropriate, empathetic responses, usually beginning with, “Here’s how I would describe that…,” or, ”My view is different . . . ,” or, “A more accurate, helpful view is . . . ,”
Remain calm, Practice, practice, practice.
| Afraid Agitated Aggravate Alarmed Alleged Anger Angry Anguish Antagonize Anxious Apathetic Appalled Apprehensive Argue Arrogant Ashamed Assassinate Attack Awful Bad Betrayed Blame Blasted Bored Botched Brainwashed Bungled Buried Capitulate Catastrophic Collusion Conceal Confused Conspire Contempt Corrosive Cover-up Cringe Critical Crooked Curious Damaging Danger Deadly Deceitful Defeated Defective Defensive | Delinquent Demean Deny Despair Desperation Despicable Destroy Destructive Deteriorate Disappointed Disarray Discontented Discouraged Discriminate Disdain Disgusted Dismiss Disrespect Distorted Distraught Disturbed Dopey Doubtful Dumb Duplicity Ecotage Embarrassed Embattled Endanger Enraged Evil Eviscerate Excessive Exaggerate Exposed Face-saving Fat Fearful Fight Foolish Frightened Frustrating Furious Goofy Gratuitous Greedy Guilty Harassed | Harmful Hateful Hopeless Hostile Humiliated Hurt Icky Idiot Ignorant Immature Incompetent Inept Inappropriate Irritated Lies Litigate Lousy Mad Mangled Mangy Manipulate Mean Meek Messy Minimize Miserable Monopoly Nag Negligent Out-of-touch Overwhelmed Overzealous Outrageous Painful Panicky Petrified Pitiful Poisonous Profiteering Questionable Racist Regret Repudiate Resentful Resigned Rip-off Rotten Sabotage | Sad Sarcastic Scared Scum Self-pity Selfish Sellout Sham Shame Shameful Shatter Sick Silly Sissy Skunk Slander Slash Sloppy Stinky Struggle Stupid Surrender Tampering Tarnish Tense Terrible Terrified Terror-stricken Terrorized Threatened Toxic Tragic Traitor Tumultuous Ugly Unbelievable Uncomfortable Underhanded Undermine Uneasy Unhappy Unimportant Unlucky Unnecessary Unreal Unsure Weird Worried |
Reporters learn that the toughest truths may only come through upsetting, irritating, and provocative questioning techniques. I have never understood how using a technique that is upsetting, insulting, and usually only partially truthful helps get to the truth. The resulting confusion or anger allows the antagonist to use these spontaneous outburst responses as validation of whatever insinuations or conclusions are created, supposed, or proposed.
Be ready. Tough questions and questioning comes with the leadership
territory these days.
The Key to Crisis Management is Pattern Recognition.
Managing emergencies, crises, and disasters successfully means recognizing patterns of success and avoiding patterns of failure, and defeat. Understanding these patterns enables us to coach and prepare management’s actions, emotions, and expectations before and during emergency situations. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Wednesday’s Smart Shibboleth #12:
What I Believe and You Should Too
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
Crisis Truisms
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.
One word: Silence.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Subscribe for powerful insights on Leadership Recovery, Engaging Employees, Ethical Leadership, Reputation Restoration and Building Your Adaptive Capacity**.
** “To the extent that any single [leadership] quality determines success, that quality is adaptive capacity.” - Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas, “Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values and Defining Moments Shape Leaders”, 2008, Harvard Business School Press, page 91
