Author: Jonathan & Erik Bernstein

Hope you deal with conflict defines its impact on your organization

The most successful workforces are often made up of people with very different opinions and points of view, not to mention their own set of outside stressors and ways of coping, making conflict inevitable. Handled quickly and correctly, you can come out on the other side of conflicts stronger than you began. Neglect to plan for and deal with it when things heat up, however, and you’re setting yourself up for crisis.

Staff development org School Training Solutions created an infographic that is, essentially, Conflict Resolution 101, and will give you more insight into this much-discussed but rarely defined topic:

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There is an undeniable connection between customer service and avoiding crisis

Customer service is your first line of defense against crisis, yet all-too-often we see it ignored, farmed out, left to unqualified, untrained staff, or otherwise neglected. As this infographic from Groovy makes clear, the way the people communicating for your organization interact with your stakeholders has a direct correlation to the quality of your reputation:

How Customer Service is Impacting Your Bottom Line and Online Reputation – An infographic by the team at Groovv

Falling down is inevitable, it’s how you stand back up that matters in the long run

Sometimes you run into unexpected delays or out-of-the-blue issues that make keeping specific promises you’ve made to stakeholders impossible. While it’s inevitable that people will be upset (and rightfully so), there is one thing you absolutely must do if you want the people who believed in you to keep the faith: COMMUNICATE!

The folks who make WiFi hotspot Karma presold a new version of their product last September with promises it would be ready by Christmas, but as of today the kinks are still being ironed out. Customers have been told repeatedly it was about ready, only for the manufacturer to fall silent once again.

Finally, facing major backlash and the likelihood of cancellation en masse, Karma let it all hang out in a blog post detailing exactly what had been happening and how things looked for the near future. Here’s a selection from the post:

We’ve been heads down, and we fixed it

Karma Go progress report

First off, I want to apologize for not communicating to you sooner. We wanted to give you something concrete, and now we have something concrete to share. And to everyone who has pre-ordered a Karma Go: Thank you for sticking with us this long.

We planned to ship Karma Go this month, but we can’t ship Karma Go until it’s perfect. We hit a snag about a month ago that threw our timeline up in the air, and now that snag is finally resolved.

What was the problem?

For a while now we’ve been testing Go with about 20 people at our office. One thing that really puzzled us is that it would somehow lose its connection a few times a day. You’d go into an office, or walk out on the street, and the internet would drop.

We traced this to a problem with the handoff between 4G (high speed LTE) and 3G (medium speed CDMA) networks. Karma Go would connect fine to 4G, and then when it tried to transition from 4G to 3G in a lower coverage area it would say it was connected, but it wasn’t. Then, even if it found 4G again, it couldn’t jump back online.

We knew what was wrong, but we couldn’t figure out the why, and so for the past month we’ve been heads down, trying to figure out the cause.

And now here’s the good news: it’s fixed!

While the tone of the message is great, and the content should buy them a little more time from stakeholders, the lack of compassion – demonstrating the Karma team understands and commiserates with the frustration created by their actions – leaves this post feeling less effective than it could have been.

If they’re able to live up to their most recent timeline, and if they keep up the promise to communicate more frequently and openly, Karma can recover from its failure to deliver. If not, well, let’s just say their company name may gain an unpleasant double meaning.

All it takes is an open wallet to have a target hacked

We all know hackers are out there, but did you realize many are selling their skills openly to anyone who will pay a fee? Earlier this month Business Insider’s Cale Gutrie Weissman spoke with security experts to find out just how easy it is to rent a hacker:

“There are multiple pages on the dark web where you can rent a hacker,” Chris Hadnagy, CEO of the penetration testing firm Social Engineer, told Business Insider. Hadnagy has a vast history of knowing the ins and outs of the nefarious cyber world as his firm has been hired by both huge companies and the government to find hacking vulnerabilities.

“It’s done through covert channels,” he explained, noting that his research had taken him to multiple sites where hackers are both selling their individual exploits as well as selling their expertise as a whole.

For example, some hackers have offered jilted boyfriends’ access to their girlfriends’ Instagram and emails, experts have told Business Insider. These sort of exploits have been around for 20+ years, but they are now becoming easier and easier to find.

Hackers are more than willing to help paying customers target businesses as well. Imagine the damage a competitor, or heck, just someone who doesn’t like what you’re doing, could cause by paying for access to your corporate emails or arranging for critical services to go down at the worst time possible and you see the problems this market can create.

As far as crisis management for these types of situations goes, the number one piece of advice we can give you is to stay knowledgeable and be prepared. You can’t always stop a skilled hacker, but you can be ready to deal with whatever trouble they throw your way.

Learning more about a potentially dangerous situation

Workplace conflict is unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean it has to put a crimp in business or leave anyone in danger. Part of tackling any major issue is understanding its core, and this infographic from Conflict Tango will get you started:

28% of crises spread internationally within one hour

Thanks to the Internet and digital communications, crises are no longer local events. Nearly two-third of crises cross international borders, and many become stories in a great number of countries. The below infographic, created by Freshfields Bruckhaus, chronicles a crisis’ journey across the globe, and the damage it can cause in the process:

Never stop looking for ways to give this most valuable asset a boost

One of our core beliefs at Bernstein Crisis Management is that reputation is your most valuable asset, and that statement has never been more true. A good reputation keeps business coming in, and helps existing customers to stick around. It protects against the inevitable crises that any organization encounters, and it keeps your name on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

There is always room to improve your reputation, and one way is by studying what the best companies are doing to polish theirs. We found a few good options in the results of Reputation Institute’s 2015 U.S. RepTrak 100 “The Most Reputable U.S. Companies” study. Here’s their top 10 for the nation:

1. Amazon.com
2. Kellogg’s
3. Lego
4. Fruit of the Loom
5. Campbell Soup Co.
6. Levi Strauss & Co.
7. Snap-on
8. Hershey Co.
9. Panera Bread
10. Briggs & Stratton Corp.

Most people have had good experiences with these brands, and that’s no happy accident. Hard work, and yes, a lot of money, goes into crafting and maintaining the reputations of the organizations on the list. They’re not run by any financial dummies though, the return on that investment clearly makes it worthwhile. If you’re constantly seeking ways to improve your reputation then you’re likely already thinking along the right lines; keep at it, do good work along the way, and you’ll start to see a change.

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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]

This simple step is well worth the effort involved

We all exist in the midst of a flurry of communications, with texts, emails, and social media being processed and prepared by the dozens at the low end and up into the several hundred per day in many cases.

In the constant press for moving ever-faster and increasing volume, one simple step in crisis prevention is being overlooked so often it hurts – the good old fashioned double check. Case in point, a reader recently forwarded us the marketing email screenshotted below. What was the problem? This email was sent on May 22, aka Friday of Memorial Day weekend.

While this isn’t a major crisis, we doubt it left stakeholders feeling they were dealing with a particularly competent company, and it takes only a few moments to imagine several scenarios where sending the wrong message could create a major problem. Consider what may happen if you accidentally sent an email containing sensitive legal documents to your newsletter mailing list, or copy/paste a tirade from an angry customer into the news section of your website instead of the latest promotional material and you begin to see the problems which can arise.

So many of these incidents could be prevented by a simple double check. You look, very carefully, and read your message out loud to make even more certain it’s what you intended. Then (if possible) grab a friend, loved one, or office mate to look things over before you put your communications out there. That’s all. No special equipment, no fancy programs, no crazy fees, just one more step to protect yourself against the damage sending the wrong message can create.

What was she thinking?

Politicians have a long history of making idiotic remarks “behind closed doors”. The difference today is that everyone carries that teeny tiny recording device called a cell phone in their pocket, landing what would formerly be private remarks firmly in the public eye.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif) had barely announced her entrance into the race for a Senate seat when she committed a serious faux pas. NBC News broke the story:

While talking to a group of Indian Americans — people with links to India — the politician was captured on cell phone video mocking Native Americans.

In talking about how she was confused about an upcoming meeting with an Indian American, Sanchez said, “I am going to his office, thinking that I am going to meet with a…” — then she put her hand over mouth and made the noise that is the stereotypical imitation of a Native American war cry — “Right? … because he said Indian American.”

Several of those who were in attendance wasted no time in sharing their shock and outrage with reporters, and Sanchez was left delivering a half-assed apology over and over again as members of the media continued to bring it up in previously scheduled interviews.

The crisis management lesson here is simple – think before you open your mouth. Going off the cuff is great for entertainment purposes, but when it comes to protecting your reputation and pushing a specific message there’s far too much risk of veering into dangerous territory.

Clear communication is key for strong crisis management

Checking for major hurdles to clear internal communications is part of our vulnerability audit process for good reason. If messaging is lost in the shuffle, if employees don’t feel they can pass on bad news, or if the right info isn’t getting to the right people in a timely fashion then you’re risking crisis.

The team at Melcrum posed the question, “What’s the current ‘state-of-play’ when it comes to the digital workplace and internal communications?”, and here’s what they found: