Month: March 2015

NBC chief medical correspondent learns a hard lesson

Practicing what you preach is vital to crisis management. Now former NBC chief medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman learned that lesson the hard way after breaking a (semi) voluntary quarantine imposed as a result of a crew member falling ill with Ebola while filming in Liberia.

Although the team agreed to the quarantine, Snyderman and members of her crew were spotted grabbing takeout food just days after it began. This resulted in major public outcry and Snyderman being placed on “family leave” from NBC. Her situation was only further compounded after she released a disingenuous statement that made it clear she took zero personal responsibility for the misstep.

“While under voluntary quarantine guidelines, which called for our team to avoid public contact for 21 days, members of our group violated those guidelines and understand that our quarantine is now mandatory until 21 days have passed. We remain healthy and our temperatures are normal. As a health professional I know that we have no symptoms and pose no risk to the public, but I am deeply sorry for the concerns this episode caused. We are thrilled that Ashoka is getting better and our thoughts continue to be with the thousands affected by Ebola whose stories we all went to cover.”

Snyderman did eventually appear on the Today show where she offered a more solid apology, but the damage was done. According to insider reports her relationship with the network continued to slide downhill, and earlier this month she stepped down from her position of nine years.

Whatever your purpose, position, or product, it’s absolutely critical that you practice what you preach. Saying one thing while doing another may work for a while, but when your stakeholders catch on things are guaranteed to get rough.

Training your brain to perform in crisis management mode

There’s no denying that it takes a great deal of skill to successfully run an organization’s day-to-day operations. However, that mindset and ability doesn’t always translate over to crisis management. Even the most competent of managers can find themselves feeling lost when an ugly situation gets out of control, as it really does take a different kind of thinking to thrive in that environment.

Management consultant Lucien G. Canton describes crisis management-style thinking as dependent on pattern recognition rather than a structured decision-making process, and shared three steps to increase one’s ability to recognize and assess patterns in an article for GovExec.com:

Direct experience. While there is truly no substitute for actual experience, crises have a way of involving the people least equipped to handle them. The crisis for many will be an once-in-a-lifetime event. However, remember that we are considering patterns, not identical situations, so experience gained in one situation could be applicable to a different one.

Learning from the experience of others. There are numerous case histories of organizations that have successfully survived crisis. There is even more literature on those that did not. Research demonstrates that reading accounts of other crises and the decisions made during them is almost as effective as gaining direct experience. Reading articles in business magazines, reviewing case studies and after action reports, and viewing documentaries all can increase the patterns available for recall. This is why so many military officers study historical campaigns.

Simulations. Simulations or exercises combine the best of both worlds. They can be based on hypothetical scenarios or actual scenarios found in after action reports or articles. In addition, they can provide direct experience to participants, allowing them to become familiar with the physiological changes brought on by stress. Even something as simple as a short discussion-based exercise can provide additional pattern sets to decision-makers.

What do these all boil down to? Experience. Putting yourself in situations, over and over again, where you see actions and their resulting outcomes is the number one way to train your brain to perform when it comes to crisis management mode. Although you’ll never experience or simulate every single possible situation, hard work will mean you’ll always have similar instances to base your thinking on.

When most people hear about social enterprises that provide training and employment to disadvantaged individuals, they think it’s a good idea. But when they ask what data we have on whether SE’s actually “work,” whether they improve the lives of the people they serve, over the long term, there’s been precious little of it. Fortunately, now there’s a new REDF study that provides some valuable insights on that impact.
Continue reading “Data: SEs improve self-sufficiency, stability”

Refusing to respect the wants of customers is a bad business plan

Is anyone else disgusted that it’s no longer shocking to see a major telecomms provider standing staunchly against the wants of their customers? Online privacy is one of the fastest-rising influences of consumer decisions today, yet AT&T has gone full scumbag when it comes to its new broadband service. Unless you pay an additional $29/mo on top of your standard monthly your every move will be tracked, cataloged, and likely sold off to bolster profits even further.

The Guardian’s Sophia Cope and Jeremy Gillula shared more info on this ridiculous scheme:

AT&T reportedly plans to track and monetize its broadband customers’ internet activity – “webpages you visit, the time you spend on each, the links or ads you see and follow, and the search terms you enter” – to deliver targeted “ads online, via email or through direct mail”.

The tracking and ad targeting associated with the gigabit service cannot be avoided using browser privacy settings: as AT&T explained, the program “works independently of your browser’s privacy settings regarding cookies, do-not-track and private browsing.” In other words, AT&T is performing deep packet inspection, a controversial practice through which internet service providers, by virtue of their privileged position, monitor all the internet traffic of their subscribers and collect data on the content of those communications.

What if customers do not want to be spied on by their internet service providers? AT&T allows gigabit service subscribers to opt out – for a $29 fee per month.

Many will not even notice this options exists, and many more are already stretching their budget to get the high-speed ‘net they need for school or work, making this an even uglier move from AT&T. Not only that, but purely from a business standpoint this move reeks as well. With privacy a top concern for individuals and organizations of all kinds these days, many will likely avoid a service that’s proven twice already it’s willing to violate that right. And, of course, we can’t forget the bevy of bad press discovery of this “feature” has brought about.

Bad show, AT&T. We’ll wait for Google Fiber.

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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 vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]