There’s no shortage of corporate drama. Our news feeds have been clogged with an endless parade of companies unraveling before our eyes. Just a few examples: Uber, Tesla, that notorious Pepsi ad, United Airlines, and a string of corporate security breaches.
The minute I see news about companies in trouble, I send good thoughts to the PR team. It’s their lot in life to tend to any issue that gets public attention—planned or unplanned. And let me assure you, those unplanned emergencies are tough. As a veteran of Google and Twitter’s communications teams, I’ve been privy to a variety of corporate flare-ups. In both places I was the editorial lead, and worked closely with the PR folks to plot the timing and the message of company statements, follow ups, and employee updates. When a final statement (or apology, or explanation) was ready, I would apply the final polish to the copy—which had, of course, been vetted and revised by umpteen others—before hitting “publish” to the company blog.
Given the near-incessant stream of corporate gaffes we’re seeing lately, it’s easy to assume that clueless PR teams are behind the ham-handed responses—or more aggravating, the radio silences. So consider this a peek behind the curtain of how crisis management operates against the clock and through news cycles.
First, do not assume that all crises are the same. The main flavors:
- Self-inflicted. Bad behavior, neglect, bad hires or fires, or bad customer experience. These often start with leaks, public accusations, or real-time reports that are difficult to ignore—we won’t soon forget that passenger video on United.
Unanticipated data error. This may be financial, or a technical data blunder that has some consequence, but is not based on malfeasance. (i.e.: Google Street View data collection in 2010)
Public misinformation. Incorrect information originating from outside the company— say from a misguided politician, unhappy users, or incurious reporters. (i.e.: This 2004 Gmail case)
Outside forces. Some problems come from outside the company. (i.e.: Hacks and security breaches—Sony 2014 data breach, Yahoo’s 2014-17 woes—executive kidnappings—Adobe, 1992—or the effects of terrorism.)
Each of these has its own playbook, but they all share a process. Each situation is a race against the clock—the longer you do nothing, the more chances increase that you can’t regain control of the story, and will helplessly watch it cascade into more bad press and public hubbub.
The minute a serious problem surfaces, suddenly a lot of things happen in parallel.
Do internal fact-finding, stat. Whether a problem is internal or not, one team or another will know that something is out of whack. Employees might start seeing Twitter light up, or they might start getting pinged by reporters. Ideally, the communications team gets wind of the issue, because it’s theirs to handle no matter the origin. Good PR people must very quickly find the internal people in the know and dig through lots of company chats and threads to understand exactly what’s happened. They have to be investigative reporters, asking questions until they’ve amassed a decent amount of detail. They need as much intel as possible to figure out the best tack to take. This intel informs any decisions about what to say—including the decision not to say anything.
Convene the right people quickly. A budding crisis is not the time for turf wars or finger-pointing. Save the arguing for a post-mortem. This is the moment for the PR people (and C-level execs, and legal) to get the right in-house expertise to talk through the situation, hammer out a plan, and draft an initial statement. If it’s a big enough incident—an international security breach, for example—a chosen few will probably work out of a war room, maybe even for a few days. This is a secure area likely to be off-limits to anyone but this small group. In a very serious situation, they may even be issued separate badges to access the temporary space. Inside the room, some will work to hammer out a plan, while others will reach out to trusted third parties (regulators, attorneys, influencers, and other affected companies) who should be in the know. Some will monitor reaction and coverage, which also helps to shape the company’s response. (Later, when the time is right, the PR people may also contact a few trusted reporters to give them more color on what happened.)
Say something publicly. When the United passenger-being-dragged video first went viral, many people noted that United had not yet responded. Worse: The CEO's first statement appeared to blame the victim. That’s why, even before you have answers, the default should be acknowledging awareness of a problem. That move can save the company’s reputation for years to come. I’ve watched PR teams sit on their hands as others (engineers, lawyers, etc.) got bogged down in details before releasing any public statement.
Even as internal fact finding proceeds, this is probably the time to send out a quick “We are aware of the situation and are looking into it” statement. (Note to panicky companies: If you go this route, you have to also tell the public later what did happen and how you’re resolving it.)
Talk to the troops. A smart company will work on a plan to inform employees as all this is going on. Employees are critical to maintaining a company’s reputation—so it can’t take too long to get them up to speed. If they get ignored during a crisis, it can take a long time to restore their trust. A cardinal rule is, don’t let employees get bad news from outside sources first. (If it can’t be helped, they should hear within an hour or so from their leaders.)
What gets shared with employees depends a lot on the nature of the crisis. If it’s a legal matter, a lot has to remain secret. But it pays to be as candid as possible—including telling them why you can’t say more. Generally, employees will need TLC and check-ins post-crisis beyond immediate public attention. It’s a time when managers must keep their word, follow up on everything discussed, and be more transparent than usual.
Rapid response with reporters. Meanwhile, on the PR side, if the strategy is anything other than “no comment,” the team is busy directing all incoming queries from reporters to the approved statement, blog post, or tweet. They may also choose one reporter for a deeper dive story to follow. Since there’s no guarantee on the outcome of any story, it’s critical for the PR folks to have a solid relationship already in place with the journalists with whom they work.
But sometimes bad news comes in the form of reporters seeking the official take for a story they already have in hand—about an inappropriate employee party, say, or an unintended “official”-seeming comment. This is important: Often, the PR team knows nothing about the problem beforehand. When the requests for comment come in, the team has to beg for time to assess the facts or tease out the gist of what the reporter has in order to figure out how to respond.
Maybe get some extra hands. There’s a world of consultants who specialize in crisis management. Sometimes a company will need legal, political, or other expertise to work with Wall Street or the Feds. (A hostile takeover comes to mind, as does executive malfeasance or material harm to customers.) In those instances, it’s imperative to bring experts in-house to fend off the kind of damage that affects the future of the business.
All of this is to say that a solid crisis communications effort requires a lot of internal collaboration and parallel processing. And further—in defense of beleaguered PR people everywhere—I’ll state the obvious: Crises don’t occur because of a “PR problem” (as Kara Swisher has noted). PR problems are the result of company problems. It’s the PR folks who get handed the mess and with luck reduce the damage. If management empowers PR to do its job, the company will make it through the battle with fewer scars, able to heal.
Special thanks to Aaron Zamost, who’s been on plenty of front lines, for being my reality checker.
