[ On Disasters, Human Nature & Your Media Insurance Policy ]

The difference between a potential PR disaster and an actual one is typically the PR itself – or the lack of it, in 99 percent of all cases. Johnson & Johnson’s aggressive response to Tylenol tampering in 1982 set the industry standard for good crisis PR. But most companies in a similar situation, like Firestone, fail to live up to that standard: reacting slowly, hiding their heads in the sand, obfuscating, taking half-measures, or even lying.

Typically they do so with the best of intentions – they just want to minimize the bad news. But news always gets out, and the resulting fallout is often more disastrous than the original calamity. (Just ask Patricia Dunn, HP’s overly inquisitive former chairwoman.)

When this happens, it’s easy for the marketing communications world to opine. “If only they had done crisis communications planning!” we say. “If only they’d had media training!” “We could have helped them avoid all this!” And we shake our heads ruefully as we switch our Firestones for Goodyears.

What we overlook is the fact that it’s our fault these companies have no crisis communication plans. We’re offering something that nobody wants.

People are cocky. They don’t believe disaster will happen to them. They always believe they are the exception, that their luck will hold.

Take fires, for example. Do you check your smoke detector faithfully every six months? Is there a fire extinguisher on every floor? And does your family practice its escape plan? Be honest– the answer to at least one of these questions is probably “No.”

Or what about driving? Do you always maintain a following distance of one car-length per 10 MPH of speed, or do you occasionally tailgate? Do you always stop at yellow lights, or do you squeak through before the red?

“But my house won’t catch on fire,” we say. “I’m a good driver.” Firms do likewise: “The company’s books are fine.” “Of course we’re environmentally responsible.”

But wait – look again at the above examples. We may not have nine-volts for the smoke detector...but we do have fire insurance. We take chances in cars that we shouldn’t...but by law, we have to have a policy before we get behind the wheel.

If the potential cost is high enough (the loss of all we own in a fire, for instance) we take certain measures... not to protect ourselves, but rather to get other people to protect us. Essentially, that’s all insurance is. And why should businesses behave any different than people?

So let’s call crisis communication planning what it is: media insurance. Media insurance is the guarantee that, when the inevitable bad day happens, you will know what to say and how to say it. Media insurance is the promise that someone will be there to guide you through the thicket of reporters’ microphones. Media insurance is how you make the news, rather than become it.

In short, PR firms need to stop lamenting organizations’ reluctance to do adequate crisis communication planning, because what they are lamenting is human nature itself. Instead they need to invoke common sense: getting media insurance is simply the smart thing to do. It’s folly to get behind the wheel of a car without insurance. It’s folly magnified exponentially to do the same when you’re driving a company.

www.cornerstonemtm.com

[ On Diamonds, Pencils & Corporate Chemistry ]

It’s easy to see why employees and managers get frustrated when the time comes to nail down an organization’s values. No matter how hard you work to capture your company’s unique essence, the values always seem to come out strikingly uniform and bland.

Honestly, who doesn’t value Excellence? Is any company going to say they don’t care about Character, Quality, Partnership, Communication, or Integrity? So what’s going to make your corporate values distinct?

Corporate culture. Personal connections and interactions. In short, chemistry.

The analogy is an apt one. Think back to high school. You learned that when a lot of carbon atoms bond a certain way they form a soft substance that slides apart easily: graphite (the “lead” in pencils). But under a different set of circumstances, these same carbon atoms bond another way, forming the world’s hardest mineral: a diamond.

The elements are the same. What changes is how the bonds are expressed. The resulting substances are radically different.

The same is true for organizations. Instead of chemical bonds, we mean the bonds between people – in other words,your organization’s culture. The values may be the same, but it’s your company’s culture that affects how these values get expressed...and how they get put into action.

For instance, two firms might both name one of their values to be “Communication.” A large computing firm might see Communication to mean having clear email protocols and using online discussion listservs. A small consulting firm might see Communication represented at the weekly round-table discussions attended by the whole staff.

One structure isn’t necessarily better than another, nor will it work equally as well for all companies. A diamond is useless if you’re taking the SATs. And you’d look silly exchanging engagement pencils with your future spouse. Likewise, round-table discussions might be unwieldy in our giant tech firm. And a rigid email chain won’t foster freewheeling brainstorming sessions among our consultants. The goal of clear Communication may be constant, but the path to achieving it is different for each company. The same goes for the rest of your values – Integrity, Quality, Partnership, Efficiency, and so forth.

So when the time comes to define your core values, take some extra time to look at how those values actually play out in day-to-day operations. By understanding your organization’s culture,you can track how its values are put into play,and by pointing to the values as models for behavior,you set goalposts for performance. By understanding your organization’s chemistry...how the bonds between people are forged, broken, and transformed...and how values get brought to life...you can stir up quite a reaction.

www.cornerstonemtm.com

[ On Bullet Points, Shuttle Explosions & Loving the Paragraph ]

“Executives don’t read.” That’s what we’ve been told, again and again. “They don’t have time.” “What’s the gist?” And worst of all: “Can you put it in bullet points?”

We know of one consulting firm that doesn’t even use word processing programs anymore. They do everything – everything – in PowerPoint.

We think that’s a shame. We use bullet points ourselves – in everything from office emails to the work we produce – but it’s difficult to fathom an entire workweek composed of nothing but. Besides the horrific image of flavorless slide after flavorless slide, we think it’s just bad communication...and bad business.

What gets lost with bullet points? Story. Nuance. Shading. Bullets fragment ideas and concepts. Bullets can emphasize or de-emphasize the wrong information. They masquerade as facts, when they are, in fact, just points.

Growing up, you learned to read critically. When an argument is fishy, something feels out of place. But when you read a PowerPoint slide, you have nothing against which to judge what you’re being told. What happens if the person who wrote that slide is misinformed? If they’re leaving something out? If they have an agenda?

Or what if they’re just bad at organizing? We learn to privilege information at the top and left of the page. So what happens when someone delivers a dire warning – say, about a shuttle explosion – in the bottom right?

In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia was damaged during takeoff by a falling piece of foam. Upon re-entry, it disintegrated, costing seven astronauts their lives. Later, The New York Times learned that a significant danger sign – the foam chunk that initially struck the shuttle was 640 times larger than anything NASA had tested for – had been flagged by engineers during a review of the initial damage. Yale professor and design information expert Edward Tufte pointed out that this crucial information was buried at the bottom of a cluttered PowerPoint slide. The alarm was there, but went unnoticed. Three years later, the shuttle program is only now getting back on its feet.

Chances are, the use of bullets isn’t going to cost your company what it cost NASA. But it could mean the difference between landing a client and losing one, or between being a step ahead of the market and being behind. So we hope the next time someone hands you a bulleted list, you don’t take it at face value. Ask to see the research. Take the time to have someone walk you through the analysis.

But it’s the larger assumption about upper-management attention spans we’d like to tackle, too. Maybe it’s true that you only read bullets. But maybe you haven’t had reason to read more.

We’d like to give you that reason. We’d like to give you a break from bullet points. We want to give you something to think about over your morning coffee – with content, conversation, and yes, even whole paragraphs. So we’ll be sending more of these short missives. We believe you have five minutes to pause, read, and reflect, and that as a smart business person, you’re hungry for the chance to do so.

www.cornerstonemtm.com