American Bar Association. - Chief crisis officer: structure and leadership for effective communications response

Why in the world would my company need a Chief Crisis Officer?

Good question; heres the answer: In the modern, media-saturated business and social environment, crisis response is most often dominated by communications concerns, i.e., ensuring the public, media, employees, and other stakeholders know (1) what has happened; (2) what may happen next; and (3) what you are doing about it. And the stakes have never been higher. In this new web and social media-dominated era, a fumbled, ineffective public response can mean the difference between a crisis you manage and one that manages you. In ways not imaginable previously, a public-facing crisis can have devastating and long-lasting consequences for an organizations goals, success, and even its existence.

Chief Crisis Officer is built on the premise that every company and organization must identify a leader and a structure for effective and efficient crisis communications response. Using real-life examples, analysis, and tactical guidance, this book will break down crisis events into their component parts and provide both a strategic approach and proper tools to enable a Chief Crisis Officer to assemble his or her team and respond when an inevitable crisis occurs.

Shit happens.

When it does, you need the right plumbing in place to deal with it. And you need a plumber who knows how the system works, and how to clear a drain when things get clogged.

This, in essence, is what Chief Crisis Officer is all about.

Eww! my wife remarked upon hearing this comparison. No one is going to read a book that starts off talking about poop!

I hope shes wrong, and that youll excuse my vulgarity. Im not someone who throws around such language casually, but in all honesty, theres no more apt analogy to describe the main theme of this book and no reason to sugarcoat it. A crisiswhether its an accident, workplace incident, product recall, data breach, lawsuit, or investigationis, more often than not, what we call in the old neighborhood a shitstorm. Effectively cleaning up the mess is what this book is all about.

But lets put my thesis in more dignified, business-like terms: In Chief Crisis Officer , we will examine two premises that are essential to public response when negative events or issues threaten to do reputational harm to you, your company or organization, or your personal or business goals:

First, you need systems and procedures in place that respond when a crisis hits (the plumbing).

Second, you need a Chief Crisis Officer who understands those systems, how they work, and when to use them (the plumber).

In the chapters to come, we will explore the structure and protocols you need to respond appropriately when a crisis occurs, and the particular skills and expertise of the Chief Crisis Officer to ensure you come through a crisis or other sensitive reputational event in the best possible shape.

Reached for Comment, Company X Could Not Get Its Act Together

Weve all seen it before, whether on local television, in your daily newspaper, or in the pages of The Wall Street Journal: Company X could not be reached for comment.

The story in question is often highly negative in nature, involving either an immediate crisis event (product recall, workplace incident or data breach, to name a few) or, perhaps, a longer-term crisis like an investigation or lawsuit. The lack of response only makes things worse. The audience doesnt know the facts, so they speculate; they dont know the companys side of the story, so they assume the worst. Allegations or unexplained negatives just hang out there, crying for some sort of explanation, some sort of context that would help the public understand why the company, organization, or individual is the subject of such unflattering publicity. Readers or viewers think: Why isnt the company available for comment? Dont they know how bad this story looks? Dont they care?

Ive been doing this for more than 20 years, so I can tell you the following with a high degree of confidence: When you see a lack of response during a crisis, it is often not intentional, and it is usually not because there was nothing to say, no way to manage the spiraling negatives that threaten both reputation and livelihood. Rather, in most situations, that lack of public response happens simply because the party in question couldnt get its act together in time enough to respond. And more often than not, thats because they didnt have the structure or protocols in place to make such a response efficient and effective, and because no one was identified to lead the effort before media and other audiences.

This is the problem that Chief Crisis Officer is designed to help solve. Although this is a public relations book, it is less about the creative side of PRcute soundbites and images, branding campaigns, media toursand more about process, leadership, and message.

The Curious Profession of Crisis Counselor

You have a corpse in a car, minus a head, in the garage. Take me to it.

Winston Wolfe, Pulp Fiction

Its handled.

Olivia Pope, ABC-TVs Scandal

There is a mythology around the crisis managerthe fixer, the spin-doctor, the operativeforged through movies and television programs over the past few decades. The shady Svengali, moving in the shadows to bury facts, getting the right people to say the right things; the fixer who knows what strings to pull and buttons to push to make a problem go away; the sleek operative dropping an envelope with incriminating photos on a reporters desk, or trading a good story for a better story not involving their client.

Id love to say that my business works that waynot only would my job be easier, but I personally would seem a lot more interesting.

But thats not what we do in the crisis communications business. Rather, consider this quote, from the 2013 George Clooney movie Michael Clayton:

Theres no play here. Theres no angle. Theres no champagne room. Im not a miracle worker, Im a janitor. The math on this is simple. The smaller the mess, the easier it is for me to clean up.

Janitor , plumber very similar concepts. And this quote is an effective distillation of what crisis counselors do: We take steps to make sure the mess is smaller, so it is easier to clean up.

Which is why every company over a certain size needs to have a plan for responding to unexpected public events that can do reputational damage. And a Chief Crisis Officer and team to execute that plan. Only then can you ensure the right response when things get dirty.

Theres nothing tricky, or sly, or cinematic about it most of the time.

This Book Is for You!

This book is not for me, you think. Its for General Motors. Or Toyota. Or Target. Tylenol. BP in the Gulf of Mexico. The Exxon Valdez. Three Mile Island. These are the types of companies and events that need crisis communications: Big companies, with big problems. Companies with oil rigs in the Gulf, ships at sea or thousands of potentially deadly vehicles on the road.

Not me, you think.

Respectfully, you are wrong. Crisis communications planning and execution are vital for every company that interfaces with the public and worries about the negative implications of unforeseen (or at times, perhaps, foreseen) events on their organization and its reputation.