Posts Tagged ‘crisis communications’

Johnson & Johnson, the huge personal products company, apologized to a congressional committee this week after they got caught in a drug recall scandal.  Can this be the same company that set the gold standard for crisis response during the 1982 Tylenol tampering scare?  What happened? What were they thinking when they decided to do what’s called a “phantom” recall, where they hire people to go into stores and buy up all the inventory on shelves and they never reported problems with over the counter drugs including Children’s Tylenol?

It’s sad to realize that even companies who know what the right thing to do is, get caught doing completely the opposite.  Johnson & Johnson recovered quickly last time because they did the right thing.  Their customer base rebounded and actually grew because people felt the company could be trusted.  And they got years of free publicity when public relations professionals and media experts held them up as a shining example of how to handle a crisis and work with media in the middle of it.

There’s a new chapter in the Johnson & Johnson story and it’s not pretty.  Time will tell how much they have damaged their brand.

If you want to know how to handle the media in a crisis, take a lesson from Thad Allen.  It’s rare to have someone who can completely corral the media in the middle of chaos and turn things around.  And that’s exactly what he did.  Watched him last night on the PBS News Hour.  In response to a question about how he viewed BP’s response to the disaster he said BP was used to dealing with big contracts and big projects.  When it came to dealing with people individually and handling disaster claims, that was “not their core competency!”  What a wonderful way to say their response to people living and working in the Gulf was crappy!!!  Kudo’s to you sir!  I will miss your steady hand and direct communication.

The furor over the proposed building of Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero has reached a fever pitch, now that the President had weighed in, at least it has in the media.   Freedom and democracy is messy and more importantly, our freedom does not mean bupkis if we don’t stand by our principles when it is hard.  There are many millions of people who will be against whatever this President says or does.  I’m familiar with that feeling because I have felt it when someone I didn’t vote for got elected to run this country.  However this principle is bigger than politics.  And if we allow the haters to win on this one, we have truly handed our enemies a gift wrapped victory and more propaganda to use against us.  And if this organization is somehow tainted by extremism, which I seriously doubt, what about the idea of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?

So Tony Hayward is out as CEO of BP.  No surprises there.  He’s being shipped off to Russia.  Wonder if he’ll ever get his life back?  Robert Dudley is taking over and is the first American to do so.  Dudley has already had a positive impact.  He seems to get it when it comes to understanding how the “small people” feel about BP.  However it doesn’t mean BP now gets a free pass or a do-over with the public.  The company’s reputation will be forever stained with their initial response and Hayward’s bungling of the situation.  Like the oil in the water, it may take generations before there’s a clean feeling about BP in the public’s perception.

I saw the news stories featuring Steve Jobs’ press conference Friday about the new iPhone’s antenna glitch.  The clip that caught my attention showed Jobs pacing in front of a large screen and with a click of a his remote the words “We’re not perfect.” appeared, followed by “Phones are not perfect.”  Underneath those two sentences came “We want to make all of our users happy.”  That seemed to be the media’s favorite sound bite, capturing the story and the tone…sort of.

My question is was it really necessary to put those words up on the screen?  Did having those sentiments written out on slides help Jobs make his case?  Seems to me it was a classic misuse of Keynote, Apples equivalent of PowerPoint!  And I think it diminished his credibility.

When you have something important to say, you want the communication to be between you and your audience, not between the slides and your audience.  Just because you have all the bells and whistles, it doesn’t mean that’s the best way to deliver your mea culpa!  Get real, stay connected to the people who are important to your company.  Don’t do a “dog and pony show” when you are addressing problems. You risk insulting your audience at a time when they are not happy with you in the first place.  Resist the temptation to let your slides do your talking.

Jobs has a great reputation as a speaker. He’s cool under pressure, never uses notes, and connects extremely well with his audiences.  But you really get a clear picture of a person’s true personality and sensibilities when they are responding to negative press.  If Apple has a few more public difficulties and Jobs continues to react defensively, he could join the pantheon of superstars who fall hard because they lost touch with the integrity that attracted followers, customers, and all the accolades.

I was very saddened to read the Helen Thomas story yesterday.  After a groundbreaking, glass ceiling shattering, brilliant career she left the job she loved because she said some really dumb and offensive statements which were captured on camera.  She is like the superstar baseball player who stays too long and leaves the game a shadow of his peak years.  We had a little taste of that this year with Ken Griffey, Jr. who abruptly left the Mariners because, his public statement says, he didn’t want to be distraction for the team.  Unfortunately he was having a lousy year and no true Mariner fan wanted to see him leave the way he did.

The same is true for Helen Thomas.  I met her in the mid-1990′s when she was covering the Clinton administration.  She was a great guest on our morning news show when we broadcast from the White House lawn. I had the pleasure of talking with her before and after her interview.  She was knowledgeable, feisty, and never afraid to ask the tough questions.  She was a trailblazer who made it possible for many more women journalists to move beyond covering the society pages.  But maybe she stayed just a little too long.

How do we know when it’s time to hang ‘em up?  It may be a bit easier for athletes to know, because the body often gives out before the heart gives up.  For the rest of us, I don’t know.  Hopefully we’ll learn something from Helen Thomas, not the least of which is not to say dumb and offensive things in public!

You may recall hearing about the catch phrase “duck, cover, and hold!”  It was a strategy taught to millions of school children in the 1950′s to protect themselves in the event of a nuclear attack.  Some of you may be old enough to remember the drills, the rest of you may have seen it in documentaries about the Cold War.  Looking back, it seems like a totally ridiculous idea, but it seemed to give a fearful public something to do and distract them from asking tough questions about the threat of nuclear war.

I’m reminded of that phrase as I watch the current sex abuse scandal that is enveloping the Vatican and the rest of the Catholic Church.  And just as idiotic as it was in the 1950′s, “duck, cover, and hold!” is not going to work in this instance.  There is no way of stopping the momentum that abuse victims have worldwide.  The only thing that works in a crisis is truth and transparency, and the sooner the better.

And the response has to have more substance and authenticity than the formulaic public apologies we are now seeing from celebrities and public figures like Tiger Woods.  Get real people…and Your Holiness!

Yes, it’s difficult to come clean, admit wrongdoing and shine a light on the ugliness, but attacking the media or the advocates of the victims only exacerbates the problem, it’s throwing gasoline on the fire!

How many institutions and individuals insist on stonewalling or lashing out when hit by a crisis?  How many leaders will continue to insist they are above scrutiny or the law?

Given Pope Benedict’s history and personality, it’s not likely he’s going to bend on this.  I hope I’m wrong.  However, watching what he and his defenders are doing is a great example of how NOT to handle a crisis!