Crisis Management Quotables…on Making Communication Work

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Ensuring communication is effective is core to crisis management success It turns out composer John Powell, perhaps best know for scoring movies like How to Train Your Dragon, Happy Feet and Kung-Fu Panda, knows a thing or two about verbal communication as well, making him the subject of today’s Crisis …

Crisis Management: Through the Lens of Failure

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[Editor’s note: Thank you to our colleague Tony Jaques for submitting this post on how crises tint stakeholder’s views of the organizations involved long after they’re gone.] One of the underestimated impacts of a crisis is the fact that every subsequent event is magnified through the lens of the original …

Crisis Management Quotables…on Thinking Differently

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Differing viewpoints are essential to crisis management success Is there anyone more expert in crisis management than a successful battlefield commander? Not only are they tasked with applying limited information to make life-and-death decisions on a moment’s notice, but they must remain calm and precise, even while taking fire. Today’s Crisis …

Harry Reid Inserts Foot in Mouth, Flunks Crisis Management

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Insensitive remarks and a flop of an apology Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is no stranger to criticism regarding public comments, especially when it comes to race, and he’s getting another lesson in why you should watch what you say after dropping a couple of doozies at the Asian …

Playing Chicken with Crisis Management

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Having a plan in place means you won’t be left scrambling when crises appear In order to be as effective as possible, crisis planning needs to come before a crisis actually hits. While it is possible to create and enact a plan after things get messy, it’s never easy. In …

Crisis Management Tactics: Updates on Updates

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“We’re working on it” can buy more time than you expect When you encounter a crisis, the pressure to immediately make a statement is immense. Not only will your stakeholders be clamoring for you to talk, and angry if you don’t, but you also risk damaging rumor or innuendo taking root …

Chase’s (ineffective) Compassion-Free Crisis Management

Jonathan Bernstein crisis communication, crisis communications, crisis management, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, public relations, reputation management Leave a Comment

Lack of much-needed compassion leaves bank’s communications falling flat Having a debit or credit card charge declined is both frustrating and embarrassing no matter who you are or what you’re buying, something we would expect a bank to be aware of. That’s why, when we spotted the below email from …

Crisis Management Quotables…on The Damage One Lie Can Do

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17th century wisdom that’s even more true in the 21st This time around, our Crisis Management Quotable comes to us courtesy of a 17th century Spaniard who wore many hats, from scholar and philosopher to army chaplain. A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity. — Baltasar Gracián The meaning …

Walmart Takes Control in Tracy Morgan Crash Crisis

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Good crisis management means finding a way to take control Sometimes, there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent negative incidents from happening. That said, just because you couldn’t prevent something doesn’t mean you have no control of the situation. Take the recent crash involving a Walmart company truck …

Good Advice, Badly Delivered

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[Editor’s Note: The following post from Jerry Brown’s Monday Morning Media Minute newsletter addresses the issue of conducting crisis management without creating more risk through the methods and verbiage you put to use.] I think it’s safe to say things aren’t going well when you feel compelled to tell employees …

30 Lessons from 30 Years of Crisis Management

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30 Lessons from 30 Years of Crisis Management Jonathan Bernstein got his start in crisis management when he helped launch one of the earliest crisis communications practices in the U.S. as part of a national PR office. Branching off to form Bernstein Communications, which would later become Bernstein Crisis Management, …

The 10 Steps of Crisis Prevention

Jonathan Bernstein Crisis Prevention, Featured Articles

The 10 Steps of Crisis Prevention In my 30+ years of experience, I have found that 95% of the organizations with which I have had substantial contact are underprepared when it comes to crisis prevention. While the numbers have improved slightly in recent years as awareness of the need for …

Reputation Management Tips from the Financial Industry

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A push for change in the world of finance holds lessons for other industries Preventing reputation threats caused by customer dissatisfaction is a common goal of crisis management, and for the financial world (and many other tightly regulated industries) it has the added benefit of helping you avoid running afoul …

Emerging Info Weakens GM’s Crisis Management Effort

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How should the embattled automaker react? What do you think is one of the most damaging pieces of information that could emerge when you’re in the midst of crisis management for a massive mistake? If you said evidence that you’ve made that same mistake more than once, you must be …

How to Plan for Any Crisis Management Scenario

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Having crisis plans in place will immensely increase your chances of coming out in one piece While we’re seeing an increase in the number of organizations that have crisis management plans, the vast majority of those plans are still woefully inadequate. In a recent interview, NFIB.com’s Adam Wren asked our …