Month: January 2013

Lack of training and compassion shows in airline’s weak crisis management

When Dave Schneider was asked by Delta to check his baggage, including a $10,000 Gibson ES-335 guitar, he went along with it because, well, how else is a traveling musician supposed to get around?

Upon arriving at his destination, Schneider was devastated to see his guitar severely damaged, and even more upset when Delta personnel offered him a measly $1,000 for repairs. While Delta officials hemmed and hawed about handing over a proper settlement, Gibson guitars swooped in to boost its own reputation on the back of Delta’s failure. Here’s a quote, from a Ragan.com article by Matt Wilson:

Gibson guitars, on the other hand, scored a PR coup by inserting itself into the story. Though it had nothing to do with the incident, it stepped in and offered repairs on the old guitar as well as a brand new one.

“Gibson reaching out to me, that’s the cherry on top of the best musical nightmare ever,” Schneider told Yahoo news.

Delta’s failure to react properly is even more jarring in light of the fact that another major airline had a recent, and extremely public, experience with the same issue. In this quote, from the same Ragan article, Bernstein Crisis Management president Jonathan Bernstein explains:

Jonathan Bernstein of Bernstein Crisis Management says airlines ought to be acutely aware of problems that could arise from damaging musical instruments after musician Dave Carroll’s song “United Breaks Guitars” went viral in 2009. The YouTube video for that song is approaching 13 million views.

“All airlines should know how to respond quickly and compassionately to such an incident,” he says. “But apparently Delta didn’t.”

After weeks of back and forth Delta did cough up for the guitar and offered Schneider two free passes, but how eager is he to hop back on a flight with the company that just gifted him with a month-long headache?

Learning from the mistakes of others in your field is perhaps THE premiere way to bolster your own crisis management ability with no negative consequences. Immediately after the United incident in 2009 all major airlines should have been installing flexible policies and training front-line employees to cope with damage done to high-dollar items that are damaged in-flight. By failing to do so, Delta comes off as uncaring and irresponsible, not traits that we’d like in any organization tasked with carrying us 30,000 feet in the air.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

This post is part 2 in a series of posts dedicated to the committed stakeholders I’ve worked with over the past year, who continue to inspire me to follow their example of helping others. This post continues where we left off from my previous post on tips to build relationships with stakeholders, inspired by lessons learned and a recent fundraising letter I received from my alma mater.

Share a vision

Remain positive and communicate a central idea—a vision that will take your program

onward and upward. The fundraising letter gradually built up to this vision: “everyone deserves

a chance.” Build relationships and talk to participants and staff to help build a mutual vision

that resonates and revitalizes.

Encourage participation in the evaluation, regardless of amount or type.

Every bit counts. Key stakeholders can participate in different ways.

Encourage stakeholders to give the gift of time. Seek new ways to involve them. Invite them to share their responses to evaluation-related drafts such as surveys, evaluation plans and especially evaluation reports. Offer evaluation-related training to increase your organization’s capacity. I have found our community partners and volunteers to be incredibly valuable allies in planning evaluations. They have experienced the needs that the programs address. They are experts in their own rights. I am so thankful for their heartfelt advice and the gift of their time.

Time it right.

Isn’t timing everything? The letter arrived in my mailbox during the holiday season, when some may be more inclined to give. Consider signs of readiness to participate in evaluation-related activities. What is the energy level of the group?¹ How enthusiastic are people?

Be willing to listen.

The fundraising letter related a firsthand account of a student’s story. Do your best to hear from program participants directly. Evaluation offers a more objective and systematic way of collecting this information. I appreciate the value of gathering evaluation data from interviews and focus groups, that is, qualitative data: such methods offer a glimpse into participants’ lives and can lead to insights that a survey cannot. This is what I enjoy most about the work I do—getting to know the real people whom we serve.

“Stop, look and listen.”

I’ve been learning recently the need to:

1. Stop! “Stop myself”—my own preconceived notions, plans and ideas¹.
2. Look! Observe body language and context of people’s comments¹.
3. Listen! Stopping and looking helps me to listen to what is really being said and to what is not being said.

Sharing the stories of people we’ve listened to has the potential to impact program decision-making.

These are 7 ways that a fundraising letter’s message stayed with me. I hope these seven tips also help us strengthen our relationships with our own evaluation stakeholders.

Many of us desire to give back to our communities in some way. We desire to reach out and touch the future—to play a part in bringing about tangible outcomes that make the world better place. Let’s nurture that desire to give in the stakeholders of all our evaluations.

¹ Krueger, R. (1988). Focus Groups: A Practical Guide to Applied Research.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Nonprofit Capacity Building.

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Priya Small has extensive experience in collaborative evaluation planning, instrument design, data collection, grant writing and facilitation. Contact her at priyasusansmall@gmail.com. See her profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/priyasmall/

Dangerous glitches create nasty crisis management scenario for plane manufacturer

Boeing’s Dreamliner 787 has been billed as the marquee aircraft for passenger lines the world over, but a recent string of scary electrical errors has led authorities in many countries, including Europe, Japan and India, along with our FAA, to ground the planes.

Crisis communications at work

To its credit, Boeing’s crisis management has been strong thus far. In a statement, CEO Jim McNerney expressed his intention to be a part of solving the problems alongside the FAA:

“Boeing is committed to supporting the FAA and finding answers as quickly as possible. The company is working around the clock with its customers and the various regulatory and investigative authorities. We will make available the entire resources of The Boeing Company to assist.”

McNerney also reiterated his faith in the Dreamliner, and offered assurances regarding the craft’s return to service:

“We are confident the 787 is safe and we stand behind its overall integrity. We will be taking every necessary step in the coming days to assure our customers and the traveling public of the 787’s safety and to return the airplanes to service.”

He even included a frequently overlooked aspect of crisis communications in his statement – a dose of compassion for the affected airlines and their passengers:

“Boeing deeply regrets the impact that recent events have had on the operating schedules of our customers and the inconvenience to them and their passengers.”

Others in the company are speaking out in support as well. Chief engineer Mike Sinnett told reporters that he flies on Dreamliners all the time, and is 100% confident the plane is safe.

As far as communications, Boeing is doing well. However, despite claims that they will stand behind the company, its customer base may already be shrinking. Only 24 hours after stating it would not change its existing order of 15 Dreamliners, Qantas airlines has dropped its order down to 14. Not yet an extremely worrying issue on its own, but Boeing execs have to be praying that this isn’t the crack in the dam.

The weeks ahead

There will be endless questions asked of Boeing over the course of the FAA investigation, estimated to take several weeks at best. In order to avoid the introduction of damaging rumor and innuendo the company will have to maintain a strong presence, sharing as much information as possible with its anxious customers, the traveling public and the media that serves them both.

Stock up on coffee and call in the reinforcements, Boeing PR, the next month could be rough.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]