Building A Solid Crisis Team And Communication Plan

We'll be talking about security three tests. Leadership scan tests, all financial breakdowns, and workforce crisis that may have all operations. These are fast moving topics and high consequences. Moments that can define an organization reputation to come for years. My guest is an expert in navigating complex high-stakes quitors with confidence and strategy. And she is a noted international crisis preparedness data. He knows what it takes to guide organizations

Why Crises Define Reputations

through these defining moments. So joining me today from Boston, Massachusetts, is Carol Goodman, founder of Goodman Consulting. Carol, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Peter. Thanks for having me.

Well, look, there are a couple of things that I'm mentioning that I think might be important for our listeners to get some definite information on. So let's talk about some of these things that I've noted. And something that's happened not too long ago. Leadership scandal, for instance. Let's talk about how you help organizations that have had some lead some problems with leadership that uh they're not proud of.

Well, Peter, first of all, when you're dealing with crisis, it's not a question of if, it's when and how severe. So it's not saying that you'll never have a crisis because you will. The question is how you show up and how you handle it that actually makes the difference of whether you succeed or fail. And as you mentioned in the introduction, the stakes are incredibly high.

Mm-hmm. So let's take now that uh they understand, hopefully they do understand, what are some of the steps that you take? If you are brought in to help them with this problem, how do you go about initiating the questions that you ask, the strategies that you plan? How do you put all of that together?

So the first thing that I do when I sit in front of a group of leaders is ask them two questions. And the first question is, how many of you inside your organization have a dedicated crisis team that you could assemble at a moment's notice should your worst case scenario occur? So then you see about a quarter of the hands go up. My next question is, how many of you inside your organization have a dedicated crisis communication plan that actually lists your risk profile

Two Questions That Expose Readiness

and what you would do from a communication standpoint if this happened to you? Same quarter of hands go up, maybe fewer. And what I do is when I work with leaders, I sit down and make them think of things they don't want to. What are your worst fears? What are your worst case scenarios that could happen to your company? Have you thought about your risks? And you mentioned a lot of them in the introduction. Cybersecurity, leadership misconduct, a reputational scandal, on-the-job accidents. But you know what, Peter? The one that they never think about that gives them pause is their own death. What happens if they don't show up to work tomorrow and die in their sleep or God forbid an accident? Do they have a secession plan? Do their staff know what they need to do? We had a situation a few years ago where there was a young guy who went to a Boston Bruins game. He was a CEO of a startup company. He had three major deals in the pipeline that would impact the trajectory of his company. He came out of the Boston

The Unthinkable: Sudden Leader Death

Bruins game, got into his car, and died of a massive heart attack. No one knew what they were supposed to do. So, in addition to dealing with the grief of losing their leader, we had to go back and figure out how we could help that company survive and save some of those deals. And it doesn't have to happen. And we see this all the time. And that's why I stand on my soapbox and preach preparation.

Now that that's one particular issue.

Yes, 100%. So what we do is we go through what are the most common crisis situations that can occur. So there are legal crises, there are IT crises like data breach. If you have trucks on the road or employees operating machinery, you are prone to accidents. So we do a really deep dive and look at the different categories and find out where the highest vulnerabilities exist. So what we do is we work with leaders and we make them think of the unimaginable, what's going to happen and how you're going to handle that crisis. And it can run a gamut from leadership failures to data breach and IT crisis. If you have trucks on the road and you operate machinery, you can have accidents, financial crises. A lot of times, companies experience embezzlement with partners that have been together for a really long time. So we ask them to think about what that could mean for their organization if they found out that someone that they trusted had been embezzling from them. And they look shocked, or they'll say, you know what, that happened two years ago. And so what we try to do through our exercises to get them to put together a plan is to think of the unimaginable and then take steps, marked steps, planned steps. If this happens, here's the strategy, and this is what we're going to do first, second, and third. And the most important thing from my lens, Peter, is for leaders to communicate to the audiences who mean the most to them with authenticity and transparency. And when you don't see transparency, that's when people start coming at you with pitchforks.

And so so l let's go back to that because when you talk about transparency, you're basically saying the leaders should talk to their audience, be it them their uh uh stockholders, the the public, whoever they deal with, these people should

Transparency Starts With Employees

be informed on a regular basis about here's what we're gonna do to correct this particular situation.

Yes. And the most important and often overlooked audience is your employees. Your employees are your greatest asset, but they can also be your worst nightmare if they are not informed in a situation where there is a crisis. Why? Because the rumor mills start swirling. They start filling in sentences, they don't know what they don't know. And if they're not being communicated to from leadership, they can take that ball and run in an entirely different direction, and then it's harder to control.

Let's talk about some of the elements of some of the crisis communications plans. What are some of the elements of let's say uh I'm thinking about a leadership scandal that I don't know if I'm gonna call it a scandal, but a football coach got uh scene with uh a reporter and it got into the newspapers. That's it's not a financial impact, but it has a uh I guess a social impact, though, a perception impact. How would you guide them in terms of fixing that?

Well, it's interesting because I think you're talking about Mike Vrabel from the New England Patriots and Diana Rossini, who's a

Leadership Scandals And Public Statements

reporter from The Athletic, and this was breaking news over the last several days. And the the interesting piece of this is you look at the fact pattern, they went to Phoenix to a couple's resort that was rather isolated. I think they had to drive several hours to get there. They claimed they were with a group of people, none of which have come forward to corroborate that story. And as as the time started ticking, the only thing that we heard from Mike Vrabel was just straight out denial, and that anybody who thought that there was anything on Torwood going on was crazy. And the last thing that people want to be told, especially when they see facts in front of them, is that they've misconstrued those facts. So you're gonna get the public even more ginned up by not putting a stop to it and issuing a statement. And I know Diana Rossini just recently resigned her position at the Athletic, and obviously journalists are held to very high standards for the work that they do, and fraternizing with somebody that they cover is usually not acceptable. So it makes sense that she did that. But I'm still waiting to see if the Patriots or Mike Brabel issue a statement or if they still stand their ground, because when you dig your heels in and you get stubborn, that crisis doesn't die. It just keeps simmering until another spike occurs.

So so part of what I'm hearing here is that, particularly for an organization like that, is that somebody has to take a stand and or or at least the coach should be should be coached. If the the decision has to be made, are we going to keep him or are we not? If we're not going to keep him fine, that we we'll move forward. If if we keep him, here's what we're going to expect from him, you know, something along those lines. So they can take one or two roads on on something like that.

Absolutely. And many organizations, and I'm not sure the NFL does to a certain degree. Well, I they they do for their players, but morality clauses. Is there a morality clause? Was there anything that could potentially constitute a violation? Those are things that have to be answered. Conversely, the other former coach of the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick, have been rumors and reports with him dealing with a much younger woman who he is in a relationship with and has defended who's in her twenties and he is certainly not. And, you know, one of the things that I've been asked about that situation is whether or not I agree with what he's doing from a media standpoint. And one of the things that I say about that is that as far as your relationship, if you are both consenting adults, have a wonderful life. What I take issue with with Bill Belichick is that he has let this young woman, Jordan Hudson, control his narrative and cast a shadow on his legacy. He did an interview last year to promote his book, and he did it on CBS this morning. She actually was sitting there basically controlling the interview, and the cameras allowed us to see that. And when he was asked a question about their relationship, she piped up and said, We're not talking about that. And they captured that. And he's become a bit of a caricature as a result of this relationship. And I've seen this happen so many times that leaders and celebrities don't think that anything applies to them until something happens. And that's why I work with people to anticipate, okay, you're in a relationship with someone who's much younger. Let's go through and talk about all of the negative things that they can say about you and let's make sure you have a statement that you can come back at a moment's notice. It would go away.

Well, let's also talk about something around cybersecurity because that's a huge issue now. Organizations, foreign organizations, can get into other people's computers and cause some problems. How do you go about helping uh organizations deal with this from a public relations point of view?

So from a PR standpoint, Peter, the most important thing is how you communicate to your audiences. Because let's be clear, Equifax was the start, I think it was 2008 or 2007, of the granddaddy of data breaches with all of the data compromised.

Data Breaches: Communicate Fast

And they waited 45 days to tell people that that data was compromised. That's inexcusable. And now data breaches happen all the time, and with the advent of AI, they're going to happen even more. So it's just a question of when it's going to happen to you and are you prepared to communicate to your audiences? Do you have a forensic IT expert that you can call in to get to the root of the problem? What are you going to do for those people in your organization or in your computer databases that have been compromised? Are you going to offer them free credit monitoring? Are you going to, in addition to apologizing, do something else or let them know when this is going to be fixed as quickly as possible? And those who wait lose the crisis battle. They're not successful and people don't trust them. That's the most important piece. When you issue a statement, you want to be able to tell people what's going on and make sure that they continue to trust you because they can say, hey, Peter got out here, he got in front of it, and he's telling me exactly what he's going to do. I'm going to trust him. But if you wait, if you hide, if you just stay in that bunker, the distrust is going to swirl. And then you're going to have a harder time trying to walk that back.

You know, let me say I certainly agree with you. I mentioned earlier that I had work for a member of Congress, and one of the things that came out about this kite check kiting thing was that he said, well, fine, I had the money. Uh somehow or another wasn't deposited on time, blah, blah, blah. But what I would like to do is I would like to bring in my finance people to paperwork and sit down with members of the media and tell them, here's how here here's what I'm not at fault because I did do ABC and D. Here's my uh bank statement, and here's my uh accountant. So I'd like for you to be able to talk to the I'll be free to I'm open to discussing what they did. I mean that's the negative impact of the public perception. Because they did write that on the problem with that they put it in the back of the paper. He did clarify it because you know, when a broad people make a broad statement about some corruption going on, they need to fine-tune it so it is not a shotgun approach, and some people are not involved, some are involved, and there needs to be some clarification there, so there are not a lot of mistakes being made.

And people want the truth. The stakeholders who have any kind of stake in your company, whether they're a customer, whether they're an employee, or sit on your board of directors, they want to know that the person who is in charge of that company is trustworthy, is transparent, and is doing everything he or she can to manage through that crisis. And if you answer all of those questions and give them what they want, they have an amazing capacity to forgive, but you have to be able to present it in a way that's transparent and authentic. And so many people just want to deny it or have outrage, and that's going to exacerbate the crisis situation. I mean, you know, we talked about the reputational, but remember the KISS CAM that happened actually in Boston again at Gillette Stadium with two executives. Right. And and they denied it and they ducked for cover. And, you know, again, first of all, it's bad judgment. Anytime you go into a stadium or a large public gathering, you automatically give your implicit permission to be photographed and recorded. That's just part of the admission ticket that you purchase. So A, they should have known better. But B, the way they acted when the KISS Cam came on them, if they high-fived each other or gave each other a quick peck, it might have gone away. But when they dove under the seats, it was very clear. And in fact, I I do believe it was said that either they're very shy or they're having an affair.

And they both both lost their jobs.

And two executives who should have known better lost their jobs.

That's that's exactly right. You know, one of the other things I think about, can we go back to the uh the one point about employees? You know, bringing employees into the loop on this because they are your major ambassadors because I mean if they have misinformation, they're going to distribute misinformation. So I'm of the position that uh they need to be some of the first to know what is happening and how we're going about correcting whatever the issue is.

It is so true. And I learned that lesson many, many years ago when I was very young, and I was a chief of staff for a government agency, and the building that we were in had asbestos, and we were trying to figure out, okay, you know, we were trying to learn the facts. And so we let everyone go home, and there was a news crew outside, and there were people standing out there, and they interviewed some of our employees who were saying, the governor is trying to kill us. We're working in an unsafe building, we didn't even have a chance to message it because we were learning it at the same time. And had I known then what I know now, I personally would have handled that a lot better.

Well, those things continue to happen. Some people just don't get those people being those in charge of the organizations trying to handle a crisis communications issue, and and they just seem to make continually make the same mistakes. Even though they see other people do it, they must think somehow or another, well, I can get away with it. And it does not work.

And I guess the good news is at least for now, until AI completely takes over, I have some job security because they do continue to repeat the same patterns over and over, because you really do think it's not going to happen to you, and I will tell you that it will. And that's, you know, I do a lot of workshops and talk to leaders across the country and sit down with them, and I put them in real, or I should say they're mock scenarios, but they're very realistic, experiencing what they might. And you watch their face turn completely pale when you start naming employees and scenarios that could likely happen to their company. And I think that's their wake-up call. And you know, that is my mission, to be quite honest with you, Peter, is to travel the world and to talk to leaders and say this doesn't have to happen to you. Be prepared.

Oh, absolutely. That that is hugely important because if people don't have the right training uh in terms of how to present uh this or you know, positions to take or actions to take, the wheels could still become might come off because they just don't know what to do next. So those that change is hugely important.

Exactly.

Uh now what uh what of a let's say you're something like a workforce crisis. I'm not sure what a lot of those could be. You know, maybe that some of the uh employees walk off because they don't think they've been treated fairly, or you know, they're not being paid fairly, uh the the senior folks are getting too much money, we don't get any. Have you had anything along those lines?

Yes. And you know, a lot of times leaders have to deal with layoffs. Financial situations happen to all kinds of companies, and

Workforce Crises And Humane Layoffs

the reality is sometimes you have to make very hard decisions. But the question is how you do it. There are leaders who will lay off employees rather callously and they will do it online with one or two sentences. You know, you're done, turn in your computer, security's at your door, and there are others who will explain what is happening and then offer them some kind of not only package, but showing that you care. We're going to work with career counselors or we're going to give you a wonderful reference. I'm very sorry that this and and you know, the the question is there's a lot of discussion about whether or not you say you're sorry. And I always err on the side of being human. How would you feel if you were on the other side of that desk? And that's what I ask leaders. How would you communicate? Not just see uh, you know, you've given your career here. Well, guess what? You're done today. That's not what people want to hear. They want to hear, first of all, I want to thank you for everything that you've done for this company. You know, you've you've brought us to a whole new level of success, but unfortunately, the last two quarters have been very, very difficult for us. We're struggling to do X, Y, and Z. We have to make some difficult decisions. You know, it's talk to them like they're a human because then they'll walk out and say, you know what, that was a horrible situation, but you know, at least he did it with some class and grace. And that's how you have to do it. And I I always believe that. And even when you have large groups of employees, do a CEO message and train the managers so that they can have meetings with their groups of staff and deliver the news in an empathetic and understanding way. Because it's just missing from our culture these days.

What has been your most difficult uh crisis situation and uh whatever that was, how did you go about resolving it? And were there any extra special hurdles you had to clear to to to reach a you know satisfactory conclusion?

So sometimes, Peter, crisis wins. And it's an unfortunate reality. One of the most difficult ones in my career was working for a Massachusetts state senator named Brian Joyce. And Brian Joyce was a Democratic senator

When Crisis Wins In Politics

who was very affable. He had Had great collegial relationships as a thank you to his colleagues. He would get something for them as a gift from his district. In one case, it happened to be sunglasses. The Boston Globe, for whatever reason, decided that he was a dirty politician and they wanted to do an expose and they wanted to out him. And for several months, I was his spokesperson and he had ethics investigations, he had public investigations. The reporter would call his children's coaches, like soccer coaches and baseball coaches, and say, Did he try to use his power as senator not to pay the fee for registration? I mean, they he would they would call local restaurants. It was just, it was a hip job and it was horrible. And I worked with the State Ethics Commission. He was found not culpable for some of the things that they were saying that he did because he showed that he had paid for sunglasses, even though he got a discount. It went on and on and on. And eventually, I had only worked for him for a couple of months while doing this, but eventually they had the FBI come to his law office and investigate. So you can imagine the TV crews that had helicopters shining down as FBI jacketed agents were removing boxes and boxes and boxes. And a few months later, he had like a hundred and twenty-something count indictment against him. And anyone who knows the legal system knows when there's an indictment with that many counts, it's a fishing expedition. So anyway, he was dragged through the court of public opinion. We kept trying to give them everything that they needed to prove that he wasn't what they said they was that he was. And eventually, I think a couple of years later, uh he was found dead in his home. And that was a really hard one for me to handle because you think about how people can destroy a reputation and sometimes no matter how hard you fight back and try to let people see what is real, they don't or they won't. And it's it's a very sad situation. And I've seen reputations like Brian's and others be ruined because of the court of public opinion or for not responding accurately in a crisis and just letting it faster.

Well, that sounds like one of your more challenging uh experiences. I'm just wondering if you have any sort of closing remarks for the audience here that they should certainly heed if a crisis uh comes their way.

Well, I would tell you that, you know, crisis is about you taking control of your own narrative and coming out in as transparent and authentic a manner as possible. But at the end of the day, what you say and what you do must earn the right to be believed. And so when you think about your communicating in a crisis, the first thing that you want to do is self-preservation or denial. But think about it from a different lens. Look at the people who mean the most to your

Take Control Of Your Narrative

company and figure out what would they want to hear from me most. And that's the starting point of developing a plan that's effective for your company.

Well, Tara, I want to say thank you so very, very much to her for uh bringing this uh you know information that I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate. And, you know, being a guest on the Public Relations Review podcast. So thank you so very, very much. I'm sure our listeners will certainly appreciate it and gain something from your wisdom and um engaging in what they have to do to move forward in the crisis communication situation.

Well, thank you, Peter. It was a pleasure talking to you and your audience.

Uh my guest today has been Tara Goodwin to you as well with Goodwin Consulting in Boston, Massachusetts. And we have gotten a lot of good information in terms of crisis communications. And uh I've certainly hoped that you've taken some notes and your institutions. I'd also like to thought you'd like to find the podcast. And don't forget to join this podcast.