[MUSIC] To begin our module on storytelling in crisis, I'm going to make four seemingly outrageous statements. First, crisis is the ultimate marketing event. I say that, because a crisis test every brand value to the max. It represents that singular moment in your relationship with a customer when you have an opportunity to prove that the things your brand stands for are actually the things your brand stands for. Second, crisis is not about what you say or what spin you put on a story. The idea that you can talk your way out of the crisis is one of the most widely held misperceptions about crisis communications management. In fact, companies that successfully navigate threats to the reputation are the ones that do the right the things an then use their actions as the core for the narrative that they used to explain those access. Third, crisis management isn't about protecting the CEO or the directors or the institutional investors. In truth, it's all about seeing things through your key constituents's eyes and protecting them. Companies that use this premise for their crisis decision-making tend to have much higher success rates than those that don't. And the Catholic church, Penn State University or General Motors, for example, responded to their crises in ways that lived up to their customers's expectations. There probably wouldn't have been crises to report. The church would have prosecuted priests. The university would have prosecuted Jerry Sandusky, General Motors would have fixed the ignition switch. Finally and this is where the storytelling comes in, the role of communications in a crisis is footed in principles of journalism. You need to hunt down the facts. You need to ask the tough questions. You need to insist on truthful answers and you need to report the facts as clearly and succinctly as possible. By the way, this doesn't mean that you can't have a point of view on the facts. So let's take a look at what constitutes a crisis and what characteristics a threat to reputation might evidence. A crisis is really any unplanned event, situation or incident that when made public is a threat to your reputation. With the advent a social media and a near obsession with political correctness, the nature of crisis has evolved. Growing are crises that are social rather than operational. Misspoken opinions can cut into sales as much or more than a quality defect. Witness the effect of the Lululemon CEO saying, the brand's pants don't work for all body types. That's why over the past four years, the categories for crisis have evolved toward activism, discrimination, cyber crime and the like. For our purposes as chief story tellers, we need to understand that crisis has several incontrovertible characteristics. Crisis is all about people and emotions. Consume news from any delivery channel, television, radio, the internet and you can't avoid the conclusion. There are victims, perpetrators and bystanders. There is grief, dismay and outrage. There's love, hate, tragedy, conflict and misunderstanding. It is all of the stuff that you want to read about, watch and listen to and report on. Next, reporters absolutely love crisis. Companies, organizations or celebrities in trouble inspire their journalistic instincts. They want to know the who, what, where, when and why. And when the trouble is big enough, they will go to great lengths to get their answers to these questions. And we have to say, because reporters are people too. A crisis represents a terrific opportunity for a front page byline. Then of course, there is the matter of time and speed. A crisis is what your local 10 o'clock television news refers to as breaking news and it can be as easy to ignite as a tap on a smartphone. In the age of social media, news cycles are matters of minutes, perhaps even seconds. That old axiom that bad news travels fast, certainly is true when it comes to a media-driven crisis. Crisis is also about stress and uncertainty, the chief enemies of business. As a result, the organization gets turned inside out from the standpoint of management decision-making. You can only imagine how much distraction a major crisis causes in the executive conference room. Operating managers should be operating. Financial managers should be counting the money. During a crisis, top people can loose sight of there rolls while they're trying to get out trouble. All that said, there are several key principles to crisis response adhering to them establishes a frame work for an initial response to a crisis situation. The first of these has to do with leadership. Companies with leaders who subscribe to and work to sustain a culture, which anticipates failure and develops contingencies to deal with failure has a much better chance of surviving threats to reputation. The same is true of organizations that have a culture of transparency. There really is no substitute for openness when you think about it in the context of news coverage of which there is going to be plenty during a crisis. This premise makes sense. A crisis is part and parcel of the news, so the objective for any crisis communicator has to be to stop making news. It the easiest, quickest way to halt the presses. In the military, they use a fancy phrase to describe this idea, maximum exposure minimum delay. In civilian organizations, we boil it down to tell it all and tell it fast. Next time, we'll take into prioritizing audiences for your crisis story. We'll also talk about the role of allies, partners and influencers who can help deliver messages credibly to critical stakeholders. [MUSIC]
