Avoid absolute statements in a crisis

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that his government still plans to hand more responsibility for food inspections to the industry, “to change the system to make sure that we have greater responsibility on those who ultimately market the product." He will regret sticking to his guns.

The advice I give clients in crisis includes a warning against making absolute statements. “There’s no possible way that listeria contaminated product could come from our processing plant.” In the early stages of a developing crisis, put emphasis on collecting evidence and facts. Information is incomplete in the early phases of a surprise event. It is important to be able to confront opinion with facts. Making a statement that you eventually have to repudiate can destroy credibility.

In this case, the Prime Minister should have left his options open. Regardless of his faith in the policy of devolving responsibility for product quality to industry as “right”, he has painted himself into a corner. When the federal inspection system at the plant is found to have been inadequate in the perception of the Canadian public, being “right” will be dead wrong.

Addressing emotions trumps logic

Maple Leaf Foods and Michael McCain have earned respect and a measure of praise for the response to the listeria crisis. That may change.

A class-action lawsuit against Maple Leaf Foods in the wake of the listeria crisis that has claimed six Canadian lives to date, accuses the company of telling its commercial partners about the contamination four days before warning the public. The suit alleges the company was aware of the potential toxicity of several of its food products four days prior to informing consumers but chose only to inform distributors, placing consumers at risk. During this interim period hundreds of Canadians likely consumed the suspect food products and many may have fallen ill.

The assertion has not been proven and it is likely that the company and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have an explanation that is reasonable to them. The test will be whether their response to the allegation – not yet addressed by either the company or the CFIA – will be acceptable to Canadians processing information with emotion more than logic.

Maple Leaf Foods Following Good Advice

Many companies in crisis get good advice. Fewer follow it.

Maple Leaf Foods, in particular president and chief executive Michael McCain, has taken most of the steps to ensure that there will be a better day for his company.

While in the early days of the issue, corporate spokesperson Linda Smith took the point and did a professional job, when it became clear that the issue had escalated to crisis, McCain took the hot seat – with the full-page ad in daily newspapers (guarded but laying out the corporate response as an action plan) and followed by a flurry of communications vehicles including a national media conference call, another full-page ad and a youtube video clip.

Less effective was Michael Vels, vice president and chief financial officer, who in a teleconference with financial analyst, backed away from accepting responsibility for the listeria outbreak by asserting that there is “no definitive proof” that the listeria that caused the deaths came from the listeria known to have tainted Maple Leaf products. This hair splitting is a departure from the “not listening to accountants or lawyers” of Michael McCain. McCain knows or has been counseled that people don't want to hear this kind of response to their genuine fear. Such comments increase the gulf between the company and the news audience.

It is also clear that Maple Leaf is not relying on the media alone to communicate to the stakeholders critical to its success. While the share price of the company stock dropped 10% in response to the news of the exploding product recall, the bulk of the shares are closely held by the McCain family and the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund. It is a safe bet that an early heads up meeting from Vels and McCain has solidified the support of the majority shareholders. Politicians and government officials also had spoken directly with McCain or a senior representative of the company and were able to say that they were in the loop.

Sales staff and customer service representatives have been busy with direct and indirect customers, helping in the logistics of the recall.

The industry Blogs were quick off the mark with factual information about the recall and health issue. However, by far the most pervasive were the class-action lawyers lining up to attract possible victims. The first was a US firm on the west coast, followed quickly by three Canadian companies who announced their intent to launch immediate legal action on behalf of those injured by the food-borne contaminate. While McCain may not have been thinking about lawyers, they were clearly thinking about him.

Perhaps the only other crack in the veneer was the assertion that the company would re-open the processing plant early in the week. Health authorities -- federal and provincial -- have come up with new regulations specific to the processing plant, new hoops for Maple Leaf to jump through. The announcements by the government officials have demonstrated that they and not the company are in control of the timetable.

The spate of public apologies merits examination.

Tony Blair apologized for the Irish famine; the Japanese prime minister apologized for the Second World War; the Pope apologized - or repented - for the behaviour of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust. And, Bill Clinton, as president of the US, apologized - in Africa - for slavery. But it is not quite clear who is saying sorry to whom. Or on whose behalf. Or how sorry they really are.

It’s a little more clear in the recent flurry of apologies by the Prime Minister of Canada “on behalf of the Canadian Government” for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident in which hundreds of Indians seeking a better life in Canada were turned away; to Maher Arar for any role Canadian officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that he experienced; and for the Canadian government's role in a century of isolating native children from their homes, families and cultures.

Generally, the Harper apologies have passed muster as real. They adhere to the simple rules for publicly showing remorse and trying to repair relationships -- with the possible exception of being personal. But then, Mr. Harper offering a personal apology would not have been accepted as sincere.

Apologies should be succinct, specific, and detailed. They must be clear about that for which the offerer is sorry.

Apologies cannot and should not offer explanations (that can come later), defenses, deflections, or blame. Too often, like a school child in the principal’s office, the offerer of an apology muddies the waters with excuses. However relevant these may be, they make matters worse and, unfortunately, a poor apology may be worse than no apology at all.

Apologies should be personal. “I apologize on behalf of the Giant Corporation,” just doesn’t feel sincere, heartfelt, or real. On the other hand, when a high-level Air Force official came to a community dramatically affected by groundwater pollution from an Air Force base, he said in a large public forum: “I am sorry we polluted your water. I am sorry we have not dealt with investigation and cleanup in the way we should have. I will take responsibility for ensuring that the Air Force makes your community whole again.” The statement was personal and filled with “I” language.

Apologies must be genuine. Perhaps the most important word of advice to any CEO, politician, or spokesperson is this: if you are not really sorry, don’t pretend to be. Apologies do have important functional value for one’s shareholders, constituents, or others. But they cannot and must not be false. The public can be surprisingly forgiving. But, they can also see through half-hearted apologies, wording that looks like a lawyer or publicist wrote it. If it isn’t felt, it isn’t real, and if it isn’t real, that will be conveyed one way or the other.

There's a powerful reason for the most senior person – the CEO, president, prime minister – to apologize. The public doesn't forgive corporations. What do they care about the alphabet soup of power: IBM or NCR or ADM or AMD? But they do care about people. It is people they're willing to forgive. No matter how high and mighty, whether you're the Minister of Defense or a CEO, being human personalizes the relationship with public jurors.

The First Two Minutes of a Bomb Threat

The vast majority of bomb threats are hoaxes. But not all.

When you or an employee of your organization receives a bomb threat, record as much information about the call and caller as possible. Your receptionist should have a form like the two-pager we've created below. It could save lives and property.

Bomb Threat

ASK

1. What building is it in?

2. When will it explode?

3. Where is it right now?

4. What does it look like?

5. What kind of bomb is it?

6. What will cause it to explode?

7. Did you place the bomb?

8. Why?

9. Who are you?

DO NOT HANG UP THE PHONE

PUT ON HOLD AND USE ANOTHER EXTENSION OR DIFFERENT PHONE

EXACT WORDS OF THE THREAT:

Gender of caller: ______Race: _________

Age: ______ Length of call: ________

Call Display:______________________ Cell?________

Number at which the call is received: _______

Time: _________ Date: _____/_____/__________

BOMB THREAT

BOMB THREAT

CALLERS VOICE

______ Calm _____ Nasal

______ Angry ______ Stutter

______ Excited ______ Lisp

______ Slow ______ Raspy

______ Rapid ______ Deep

______ Soft ______ Clearing throat

______ Laughter ______ Deep breathing

______ Crying ______ Cracking voice

______ Normal ______ Disguised

______ Distinct ______ Accent

______ Slurred ______ Familiar

______ Squeaky ______ Whispered

If voice is familiar, who did it sound like?

______________________________________________

BACKGROUND SOUNDS

______ Street ______ Factory machines

______ Crockery ______ Animals

______ Voices ______ Clear

______ PA System ______ Static

______ Music ______ Local

______ House ______ Long distance

______ Motor ______ Booth

______ Office ______ Other

THREAT LANGUAGE

______ Well Spoken ______ Incoherent

______ Tape

______ Foul ______ Message read

______ Irrational threat maker

Remarks

REPORT CALL IMMEDIATELY TO:

Police Tel: 911

Date ___/____/_________Time____________________________

Name ____________________________________________

Position _________________________________________

Phone number __________________________________

Bomb Threat

We Learn by Studying the Past

The crash of 1929 cut the total value of the New York Stock Exchange by 12.8% and it was followed by what we refer to as the “Great Depression.” Yet the much larger drop of 1987 produced barely a ripple in time. The Dow Jones Average actually finished higher at the end of 1987 than it had started and had recouped its losses within two years. There was no “Second Great Depression.”

To be sure, the 1987 crash took its toll on people and their finances. But, it could have been a lot worse.

Why wasn’t it? The 1987 crash had less severe consequences because major financial organizations had made plans for how to deal with a similar disaster if it occurred. When the Stock Market collapsed, the Federal Reserve Bank and related organizations, took steps immediately to lessen its effects. Their plan was put into action.

We Knew It Was Coming

Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest and the costliest hurricanes in the history of North America. Nearly 2,000 people lost their lives and damage topped $80 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. More than one million people from the central Gulf coast have been redistributed elsewhere across the country in displacement greater than that of the civil war or any other single event.

Business came to a sudden halt as the storm made landfall on the Louisiana coast and more than 40% of the businesses in New Orleans and the surrounding area closed, never to reopen again.

For more than a century, it was known that New Orleans faced catastrophic flooding in the event of a large hurricane. Governments have planned, exercised, budgeted, and staffed for catastrophic flooding. The question still being asked today is: in the face of certain knowledge that New Orleans would be flooded by a hurricane, where was the plan to deal with it?

But, let’s look closer to home.

At 5:40 on the afternoon of June 4th, William Macdonald boarded a bus at the corner of Spring Garden Rd. and Barrington, in Halifax, on his way home from his job at the naval dockyard. The bus proceeded toward the terminal at Mumford Road, picking up and discharging passengers on the way. When the bus arrived at the terminal, all passengers disembarked – all but Bill Macdonald. He remained in his seat, his dead body propped against the window.

The year was 1918. Halifax was still reeling from the explosion that had devastated a major portion of the city and left 2,000 dead, more than 9,000 injured, 6,000 homeless and another 25,000 without adequate shelter. Government officials were loath to compound Halifax’s problems by imposing quarantine or a ban on public gatherings. The flu – misnamed the Spanish Influenza – spread in the city virtually unchecked.

Worldwide, the three waves of influenza of 1918-1919 were responsible for between 50 million to 100 million deaths – 2.5% to 5% of the entire human population.

In Canada, more than 50,000 people died as a result of the influenza virus.

The 1918 Influenza was the first of three pandemics in the last century. There will be other influenza pandemics, perhaps soon. They are recurrent events but the timing and severity of influenza pandemics are unpredictable.

Will our lack of preparation for a pandemic that can be foreseen today, have others our competence? Will our businesses be among those that close, never to reopen?

Governments – in particular, the infection control officials of Health departments both federally and provincially – have been preparing for such a pandemic. They have stepped up planning and response capability since the SARS outbreak in Toronto.

But what about private industry? What about your company? What about your family?

We overly concentrate on media

Many public relations professionals tend to think of a crisis in terms of the negative news coverage that it may generate and they consider news organizations to be the primary stakeholder group. In my experience, that is a mistake.

Public Relations is about relationships – it’s why I prefer the term used in French, relationist, to practitioner, communicator, or any of the myriad terms used for a professional in our industry.

Our business is establishing, improving and nurturing relationships -- not just with the media -- but with all individuals and groups critical to the success of the organizations we represent. These include employees and unions, customers, shareholders, partners, the financial community, suppliers, governments, neighbours and many others – including the media.

The stakeholder groups who are affected by the crisis need to be prioritized in terms of their importance to the future of the organization. Unless it is a disaster that results in property damage and/or casualties, the news media should be a secondary consideration.

Your crisis plan needs a strategy for trying to reach those key people with information on the crisis before they hear about it second hand from the media or someone else. In that way your organization will have the chance to explain its side of the story first. These key people, who count most in determining the future of the business, then are likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when they hear about the crisis later from some other source.

Flexibility is Key

Over the past couple of years, I’ve reviewed a number of crisis communications plans developed for private companies, non-profit organizations and government departments. Most of them tried to anticipate every possible scenario by developing prepared templates for such things as "Plant Explosion News Release," or "Chemical Spill Statement." I even saw one that had a template to be used in the event that the business was closed by a power failure due to a snow storm and another if the power failure was caused by a lightning strike.

Someone who opens that kind of manual at the onset of a crisis (if they can find it) will most likely find that the specifics of the situation are unique and then trash the template and start from scratch anyway.

Rather than trying to cover all bases in a manual that will sit on a shelf and gather dust, I help clients to concentrate on the processes: getting clear what are the values and principles that will guide decision making; who are the individuals who will play a role to ensure that the company survives; what will they need, and whose support will be critical?

Then we create a modular system for communications and detailing how the team will be brought together, how they will communicate with each other, gather information, process it and approve it, and how the communications team will disseminate it.

One of the most important elements of the plan is that people know their role and have the resources to perform it. When I was working with investigating team of the Swissair disaster, a senior investigator from National Transportation Safety Board, the US counterpart of our TSB, told me a story about a crash he had investigated.

A plane crashed in the Florida everglades. The NTSB investigating team determined that there was a fire in the cockpit and the plane crashed because everyone was fighting the fire and no one was flying the plane.

Even in a crisis there must be a division of labour. Companies must find a way to "fly the plane" and "put out the fire" at the same time.

The Real Crisis of Swissair

On September 2, 1998 Swissair flight 111, en route from York City to Geneva, crashed into the Atlantic, southwest of Halifax Airport. According to seismographic recorders in Halifax and Moncton, the aircraft struck the ocean at 10:31 at night, 8 kilometers from shore, off Peggys Cove.

All 229 people on board were killed.

The resulting investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) took more than four years and cost $57 million.

Engaged within hours of the crash, I was the senior public relations consultant to the TSB team during the first year of its investigation.

A month after the publication of the final TSB report on Flight 111, Swissair ceased to exist. Perhaps surprisingly, the fatal crash had nothing to do with the demise of the company.

For most of its 71 years, Swissair was one of the world’s major international airlines. Known as the "Flying Bank" due to its financial stability, it was regarded as a national symbol and icon. Nearly 30 percent of Swissair stock was owned by the Swiss government.

However, a corporate buying spree created a major cash flow crisis. It had been left vulnerable after a $3B cash surplus was turned into a $14B debt, mainly through a strategy of buying smaller European airlines.

On the last day of operations, pilots were given envelopes stuffed with cash to pay for fuel, because no one would accept Swissair's credit. Swissair crews around the world were turned out of their hotels because they were unable to pay their bills.

The collapse of Swissair shook the country's confidence in its business leadership and damaged its reputation for business efficiency. Nineteen Swissair executives faced criminal charges of mismanagement, false statements, and forgery in Switzerland's biggest corporate trial. They were eventually exonerated legally but never forgiven by employees, shareholders, customers or ordinary citizens of Switzerland.