Crystallizing Moments
Whether you act, or fail to act, the moment will define you. What action will you take?
Crystallizing Moments – A Crisis Road Map
When crisis (read: opportunity) strikes, the natural, human response is to hunker down and wait for the arrows to stop flying. But what brands, individuals, organizations may not realize is that sometimes, being in the national spotlight even for negative reasons, is equally an opportunity to define their own narrative.
Now, if done incorrectly, say, defensively, or dishonestly, the organization would have been better off staying silent and taking its licks. But if done mindfully, attentive to accuracy and humility, the organization might just emerge from the crisis or opportunity with a reputation stronger and bolder than before.
So how does an organization do it right? I’ve mapped a few steps that serve as a roadmap to an intelligent, effective and enduring response, allowing it to crystallize its own reputation in that key moment.
What’s True? In today’s 24/7 news cycle of citizen journalists and viral phenomena, speed IS of the essence. Wait and enough of the 250M daily X users can define your brand for you. But respond without the answer to this question, and you’ve thrown fuel on the fire of controversy, making recovery difficult. That’s why the intelligent executive pauses and asks the question, “What’s true?” Now, what’s true is not necessarily the information that’s out there. It’s not what your CMO thinks is true. It’s not what the individual at the center of the crisis wants people to think. “What’s true?” is the unvarnished, unemotional, unbiased who, what, where and when of what has occurred. Notice the missing word, “why?” In 99% of crises, you probably cannot factually answer the “why” without speculation, and in PR speculation is the punishing mother of disaster. Look for words like “it appears,” or “we believe,” as dead giveaways that you’ve stepped outside of “what’s true.”
Courage Under Fire Now, while you apply your very best discipline to whittle down the situation to only “what’s true,” there’s little doubt that your board, perhaps your employees, most certainly the athlete or artist you represent, are at your throat, demanding to say too much or say nothing at all. Both are incorrect, and you need to employ courage to hold off the reactionary public long enough for you to respond with the facts.
Now that doesn’t mean duct tape over your mouth for the painful first hours. You can ask the public for patience. You can express an intent to say more when you can. You can express Humility and lean on the power of grace. The PR term, “holding statement,” helps dull the roar of silence in the critical first hours of a crisis. Stakeholder, media and yes the public will become slightly less rabid with something to chew on. Even if your statement is simply, “We ask for patience as we gather accurate information and expect to provide a more robust response tomorrow,” you’ve given something, while protecting the sacred pursuit of “what’s true?”
After securing your “what’s true,” there’s another step before you step into the bright lights of publicity. That step is realizing that Your perspective is always incomplete. Much like law enforcement trains on unconscious bias, communicators must also dig deep to identify their own. Sometimes bias exists in the company culture. Sometimes bias comes right from your CMO or CEO themselves. And most times it is echoed by those in your inner circle, which is what makes it so tricky to identify. So test your message. Test it on a friend who knows little about the situation. Afterall, your reading public probably knows a fraction of the truth. A good question for that test friend to ask is, “Have you considered…?” or “What about …” This will help fill in some of the blanks in your perspective and force you to think bigger. Does your message lack context? Does it assume too much? Does it reveal defensiveness or arrogance? Once scrubbed clean of the sneaky biases around you, you’re ready for primetime.
Up Next… Crystallizing Moments- seizing the news cycle