Showing you care is critical to crisis communication success
Our “Three C’s of Credibility,” the characteristics you must display if you wish to be heard by your target audience, are confidence, competence and compassion. Executives and CEOs we work with typically understand the first two, but many run into a roadblock when it comes to showing compassion.
Compassion can be a powerful tool with widespread positive impact, so why do leaders so often have trouble conveying it? Harvard Business Review’s Roger Schwarz had this to say:
People who experience compassion feel more committed to the organization and feel more positive emotions at work; when people receive bad news that is delivered with compassion, they remain more supportive of the organization; and acting with compassion can increase your own satisfaction and mitigate your own stress at work.
And yet even if you want to be compassionate with others at work, you may find it difficult. You may find yourself either judging others or making assumptions about what will happen if you are compassionate.
This can be especially challenging for leaders. As a leader, you get paid for your judgment. You are constantly evaluating situations and people. But that strength can become a liability when others need your compassion.
Simply put, if you can’t learn to show compassion, it may be a good idea to get someone else to speak for your organization. Unless you acknowledge how your audience is feeling, be they employees, investors, or victims of crisis, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle with any type of crisis communication. Not only will you instantly plant a seed of negative sentiment, being perceived as cold and callous, but you’ll also cause many to completely tune out.
By showing compassion, you create a bond and put audiences in a receptive state, key components to any successful communication. If you’re a leader in your organization and just can’t figure out why nobody’s listening, try out this Crisis Management Must.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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Scary number of hospital workers not taking basic precautions against spread of infection
How would you feel if you knew your doctor hadn’t washed their hands after seeing the patient before you? Well, according a recent Yahoo News article, if you’ve had a hospital stay in the United States, there’s a good chance it’s happened.
Although washing hands is one of the single-most effective ways to prevent the spread of dangerous infections—ranging from pneumonia to MRSA, a life-threatening staph infection—in U.S. hospitals, hospital workers wash their hands only about 40 to 50 percent of the time, often because it’s inconvenient or they are overwhelmed by other tasks.
With approximately 75,000 patients dying every year due to infections actually picked up in the hospital this is a clear crisis, so why isn’t it being addressed adequately?
Every field has its own predictable, preventable crises, but they won’t be stopped without effort. Look around yourself, do the research, and really think, “what problems are we facing, and what are we likely to encounter?” Find your answers now, or find yourself on the back foot when it comes to managing a damaging crisis.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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– See more at: https://staging.management.org/blogs/crisis-management/2014/07/25/anthrax-scare-blemishes-cdcs-crisis-management-track-record/#sthash.kbdwKgAR.dpuf
Series of potentially deadly failures raises major questions
Over the past couple of years we’ve frequently mentioned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as paving the way for government agencies when it comes to effective crisis communications. The agency has set a fantastic example, making use of information sharing and the latest technologies to keep the public informed regarding dangerous situations.
Unfortunately, the CDC dropped the ball big time in late June when internal failures led to more than 80 lab workers being exposed to live anthrax. Yes, you read that right – live anthrax. That’s not all, though. Investigators also discovered an unreported incident that saw a high-security CDC lab accidentally send samples containing a dangerous strain of bird flu to researchers as the U.S. Department of Agriculture in March. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, this month saw the discovery of six vials of smallpox in an unsecured room at the National Institute of Health, including two containing live strains of the deadly virus.
The CDC has stated that “multiple failures by individual scientists and a lack of agency-wide safety policies” led to the worrisome slip-ups, but there are signs of a deeper issue as well. According to CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden, the bird flu incident was not reported to agency leadership at all. With questions being raised by the legislators and the public alike about the CDC’s ability to ensure the safety of its operations, Frieden is on the hot seat. He did show some serious crisis communications chops with his statement on the situation, which opened with one of the best mea culpas we’ve ever seen:
“We need to look at our culture of safety throughout all of our laboratories, I’m upset, I’m angry. I’ve lost sleep over it and I’m doing everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
That is how you show people you care. Reading that one sentence, you know that Frieden sees how big of a problem these mistakes are, and that he means business when it comes to setting his organization straight. He’ll have to back it up with action, and soon, in order to avoid taking more damage, but it’s an excellent start.
Every organization will encounter crises, whether avoidable or not. The important thing is to step up, admit there’s an issue, and then take care of it, communicating like a human being the whole way through.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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Every year for the last five years I have written a Wishlist of Books for Nonprofit Folk at my blog – Marion Conway – Nonprofit Consultant. This is a curated list with recommendations made by thought leaders covering a wide range of topics including governance, finance, social media, board development, marketing,mergers and more. I also am maintaining a Pinterest Board with this title. For the last two yers I have also featured a giveaway book compliments of the author. Well, both of these resources have become very popular and are viewed many times all year long.
The summer is the perfect time to step back, think a bit, learn new things and plan for us “nonprofit folk. And so here are some ideas for summer reading from the Wishlist:
JD Lasica was the first response to my request for
recommendations saying that this is “The one I always
recommend.” Measuring the Networked
Nonprofit is this year’s Terry McAdam Book Award winner. The Alliance for
Nonprofit Management confers the Terry McAdam Book Award to the most
inspirational and useful new book published which makes a substantial
contribution to nonprofit management. It
is the most prestigious book award that a book for nonprofits can receive. Well deserved by Beth and Allyson, this book
should be on the bookshelf of every nonprofit executive.
I personally recommend Amy’s book –
it is both inspirational and practical. Amy and Allyson advocate integrating multiple
channels into your communications strategy and they use lots of excellent
examples and case studies. Social Change
Anytime Everywhere was a Terry McAdam Book Award finalist – recognized as one of the best
nonprofit books of the year. See all I
had to say at this blog post: Social Change Anytime Everywhere – Think MultichannelStrategy
Heather Carpenter, PhD, Assistant
Professor, Grand Valley State University recommendations:
Heather is a young PhD already with a wealth of practical,
academic and research experience in the nonprofit field. Heather is using these books as texts in her
courses this term and this is what she had to say about them: “These books are practical and provide
concrete help for successfully running a nonprofit… the research I’ve done
shows that nonprofit managers still need the core financial management and
fundraising skills to effectively run their organizations.” Hey, Heather,
I completely agree and this is an excellent set of current books which
address both basic and more advanced skills for nonprofit leaders.
Another important fundamental for nonprofits is marketing and no one knows more about nonprofit marketing than Kivi Leroux Miller. Amy Sample Ward called this booksimply “Great.” And that’s the word from the reviews at Amazon. This is a must have for nonprofit marketing. Update since the wishlist was written: This is a terry McAdam Award nominee for this year.
I was so proud to be a contributor to this book. Terrie Temkin and Debra Beck offered these comments:
“This anthology is comprised of 38 strong, knowledgeable voices from around the world – each taking a different approach to deal with some critical aspect of governance. The reviews have been stellar. One reason is that the book speaks to governance as it exists today, not last year or even yesterday.” Debra says of Terrie: “She picked the brains of some of the great governance writers and practitioners, offering from-the-field wisdom about what it takes to support and inspire nonprofit boards to perform to their highest potential (and their greatest aspirations). Advice is highly practical as well, and infinitely do-able. “ See my post for more on this volume:
You and Your Nonprofit Board – Just Published
Debra Beck recommends these two additional books with
governance topics:
Debra Beck comments: “Cathy provided the desperately needed
follow-up to Chait, Ryan and Taylor’s seminal “Governance as
Leadership.” She offers practical, grounded approaches for applying GAL in
the field, based in large part on her own research and her work in the sector.
Those of us who responded to Chait et al’s work with, “Wow! Now
what?” now have the “Now what…”
Debra is a contributor to this volume and she describes it as, “articulate, inpractitioner-friendly ways, the best and latest research that has the potentialto impact board practice. Each chapter explores a different study and a different aspect of what actually happens in nonprofit boardrooms. It offers insights into some of the more pressing “how” and “why” questions and research that attempts to address them.”
Most of us “technology-minded” people think we are connected to the world, but we aren’t. Not really. Not in what matters. Now, that’s the real question. What matters?
Little things like humanity, a caring, giving society, right? Isn’t that what we hope for? Then, the stark reality sets in. Humanity be damned and survival of the fittest begins yet again.
In today’s economy, it’s not unusual that my students are generally older and already working… They are not always at the jobs they envisioned or credible at the level in which they wish to be perceived. My students seek jobs in IT, business management and medical records and technical support. Practical jobs. There’s the problem. Humanity is all around us, not just at work.
I hope what I said to my students via email resonates with everyone, especially trainers who may have to do the same job, will find the approach useful. It was one of the those moments when I felt I was on a roll and that my message might be useful to others. So, here goes:
Please don’t take this as a scolding. It’s more of a philosophical discussion to help you understand why we approach things as we are doing.
You are a great class. I love your enthusiasm however misdirected. Sometimes it gets off point and it seems we waste time, but we aren’t. We talked about me a lot last class. We need to talk about you. Personally, I don’t mind; I’m an open book. That’s just who I am. Because I have a lot of experiences I share them with you, and I apologize if you don’t think they are always on point. I try. Give me some credit; many of you are otherwise engaged and not listening (hearing doesn’t count, remember) to me. Your persuasive speech is about you. What you think, how you put relevant facts together and communicate your idea to us.
This is all for you. I am fully engaged in helping you improve on what I think is one of the most important aspects of work and life. People who communicate well generally do better than those who don’t. Not all us have the luck or the heritage or money or even guidance to have had the early breaks to success. Now’s time to make up for it. The world has so much to offer that to exclude anything because you don’t know much about it just seems wrong.
The group evaluations were particularly telling about you as a class. You support each other. You care that everyone gets a good grade. You even make excuses for those not there. None of this is bad, but there are times to see yourself as part of a group, and times when you are an individual. There are times to step back and look at what it really takes to do a job as an individual with a past life of experiences. That will make you a compelling communicator.
If you work hard and take advantage of what is offered, you can’t fail. On its appearance, most people assume this is an uncomplicated subject and easy class. Wait ’til these people come in to take it.
You know how complicated and intricately woven communication is. I try to make it basic because it is basic–perhaps so basic as to be overlooked and taken for granted. People just say “I can’t do that,” or “That’s not my skill set,” or “I don’t do Sushi.” What happened to, “I’ll try it,” “I’m game,” or “Gee, that’s interesting, tell me more?” Do you understand the subtlety here? One group is passive and the other active. It’s not introvert and extrovert; it doesn’t matter. It’s how you approach whatever it is you want to do.
You should know by now that I don’t break down into little pieces what we do and “spoon feed” them to you; still, I simplify the process as much as I can. I don’t want someone to answer specific questions because there are no specific answers, and so there is very often no wrong answer. This is one of those subjects. (Think softer skills training.)
Why do I do I not “spoon feed” you the answers? It’s simple. I want the ideas and processes to ingrained in you forever, not forgotten after the tests. It doesn’t matter if you know what something is called specifically–only if it works and you do it. It becomes a part of you. Then, you have learned it.
We learn what works well when it comes to work. To be successful at anything as you should already know, we need to do more than the expected to be noticed in the workplace. Sometimes having a novel idea will rocket us to the top, but not that many of us do that. I could give you tiny details like someone telling you exactly point-by-point how to do your job, but I don’t.
You can see that in the speech evaluation sheets you get back from me. You can see I look at areas and how hard you tried to accomplish the general task. I give you general guidelines for a specific product and leave a door wide open for you to discuss if you have an issue or a problem. I try to make common sense out of what we are talking about and relevant to you because, after all, there no hard and fast answers.
Enough of the motivational speech (I wrote this here and now–not previously). I really want you to see that giving you examples and being human like you is to make you a human presenter. If you only fill in the blanks and get them right, you lose in the end.
You may have thought this isn’t a class for everyone (at least in everyone’s mind), but it really is. Not so much “philosophy” next email. I have some helpful additional sources and precautions I need to share relevant to the next two speeches.
That’s right. This is coming at the end of the class. It has taken this long to pull many students into the discussion, into the idea that communication is as important as the details.
Hopefully, they see for themselves now the very idea that humanity is losing touch unless we start communicating personally as well. Our current lack of communication skills has been extrapolated and commented on in many recent films and novels, all of which are usually very dark, where people are dull-witted, despairing and fearful of the future. In dystopias–not utopias. We know our society is on a wrong path, and we ask the question: how are we going to survive? If we aren’t, we should be.
Are we falling into Internet Space? No, but we’re holding on to the proverbial edge of reality.
By the way, this is not all I do. I believe in connections. Information and communication is applicable in training and development as well as education. If you are interested in my approach here or in other offerings on the site, you might also be interested in my book, The Caveman Guide to Training and Development. “Cave” and “Man” can be separate on purpose, I think. And more meaningful.
The “cave” is simply where we train. I promise there will be a II and III based on my articles here. If you like what you see here, I have a blog site, Shaw’s Reality, where I look at the world’s reality from a variety of perspectives. I have also published a young adult science fiction dystopian novel, In Makr’s Shadow.
By all means though, check out The Free Management Library’s complete training section.
Some simple daily steps to protect this valuable asset
Establishing and maintaining a positive online reputation is not only beneficial to your bottom line, but also an incredible aid to crisis management when the need arises. While sticky situations or special circumstances certainly call for professional assistance, there’s no reason you can’t be doing some basic, day-to-day online reputation management of your own right now.
– See more at: https://staging.management.org/blogs/crisis-management/2014/07/25/anthrax-scare-blemishes-cdcs-crisis-management-track-record/#sthash.oHbLWuD5.dpuf
[Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from Justin Belmont, founder of Prose Media. With so many customers flocking to social media to have their problems resolved, it’s absolutely critical that you’re prepared to meet them there.]
Are you missing out on opportunities to stop crises before they start on social media?
Maybe you’ve been neglecting your company’s Twitter and Facebook pages, and it has suddenly hit you that that your business isn’t doing so great. Coincidence? Maybe not.
The days of waiting on hold for the next available representative are coming to an end, and social media is taking over customer service. If you’re not replying to all customer tweets and posts online, you may be losing business and damaging your reputation.
1. Why You Need to Respond
One million people viewed a customer service related tweet per week, and 80% of the tweets are negative or critical, according to a desk.com infographic. Imagine you run a coffee shop in Manhattan, and prospective customers are reading tweets about botched espressos and dirty tables. The odds of them stopping by have just taken a hit. Of Americans aged 18 to 30, 38 million said that social media influence their purchasing decisions; keeping up with your customers online is a must for business success.
A few weeks ago my friend wanted to buy a shirt from Nike that was released on presale. He was bummed that that he couldn’t click fast enough and had just missed their last shirt. He decided to ask the Nike store in a tweet if any more would come out. In less than an hour he got a response. They not only apologized but sent him a link where he could directly order the shirt! He was so amazed and happy with the customer service that he tweeted about the positive experience.
The moral? Responding to your customer matters.
2. Engaging Better
Once you recognize how important it is to be up-to-date on social media, you’ll be in a position to harness their marketing power. It’s amazing how many businesses haven’t caught on to this. In one survey, 58% of customers who tweeted about a bad experience with a company never got a response! If a customer in your store was complaining loudly about your products or service, and no one came to assist him, you certainly wouldn’t have his business for much longer. Your customers want to be heard, and your job isn’t simply to listen, but to engage.
When you’re considering how best to respond, keep this slogan in mind: quick and correct. In the digital age, people don’t just want answers. They want answers now. Social media never sleeps, and you should always be responding in real time. But don’t let quantity trump quality! Your answers should have information and links that fully satisfy the customer. Companies have certainly learned not to frustrate the customer further by skimping on information. Of the few surveyed respondents whose Tweeted complaints were answered (33%), 75% were happy with the response. In the customer service world, that second number isn’t so bad! (Maritz Research and Evolve24 Twitter Study) If Nike hadn’t sent my friend the link for the next shirt, they definitely wouldn’t have gotten his business.
3. Ways to Get it Right
Use whatever strategy you need in responding to your customers. Some businesses, like Best Buy, have made multiple Twitter accounts for customer service, and have since been providing quicker answers for frustrated customers.
If you still doubt the impact this can have on your business, consider an experiment by Zappos clothing shop. Zappos decided to put their customer service to the test and leave no tweet behind. The results were staggering. Zappos garnered over 600 positive tweets per month and an overnight reputation for responsive customer service. The market has spoken, and manning the social media is definitely good for business!
Whatever the size of your business, keeping up with your customers is crucial, and mastering social media is always worth the effort.
Justin Belmont is the founder of Prose Media (prosemedia.com), a custom content writing service for brands, from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Offering solutions ranging from blog posts and social media to web copy and white papers, Prose (@prose) employs top professional journalists and copywriters with expertise in a variety of industries.
One measure that impact investing is gaining more traction is the growing collection of books written about that topic. Most of them focus on international investing, but now there are some that address domestic programs as well.
“Impact Investing 2.0: The Way Forward” By Pacific Community Ventures, Impact Assets, and Duke’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (41 pages)
Chris Christie caught in another bridge-related tangle
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
That’s precisely the attitude held by many after revelations that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was (allegedly) part of not only the now-infamous “Bridgegate” closures, but also some less-than-honest dealings regarding the Pulaski Skyway, a bridge connecting Newark and Jersey City.
The inquiries into securities law violations focus on a period of 2010 and 2011 when Gov. Chris Christie’s administration pressed the Port Authority to pay for extensive repairs to the Skyway and related road projects, diverting money that was to be used on a new Hudson River rail tunnel that Mr. Christie canceled in October 2010.
Again and again, Port Authority lawyers warned against the move: The Pulaski Skyway, they noted, is owned and operated by the state, putting it outside the agency’s purview, according to dozens of memos and emails reviewed by investigators and obtained by The New York Times.
But the Christie administration relentlessly lobbied to use the money for the Skyway, with Mr. Christie announcing publicly that the state planned to rely on Port Authority funds even before an agreement was reached. Eventually, the authority justified the Skyway repairs by casting the bridge as an access road to the Lincoln Tunnel, even though they are not directly connected.
While a close look at the facts will tell you this scenario is completely different from the George Washington Bridge closures Christie stands accused of orchestrating, to the average news consumer it appears as if Christie is smack dab in the middle of Bridgegate Part Deux with the Skyway revelations. In fact, a poll on New Jersey news site NJ.com shows 84% of the nearly 2,000 readers polled believe the second bridge-related investigation will hurt Christie’s chances should he make a bid for the presidency in 2016 as expected.
A key aspect of crisis management is dragging all of the skeletons out of your closet before someone else does it for you. After the furor surrounding Bridgegate left supporters and donors shaken, Christie made the rounds telling everyone they had nothing to worry about, but now that new accusations have emerged how do you think those stakeholders are feeling?
We’ve certainly had presidents involved with more scandalous incidents than this, but if Christie’s reputation continues to slide downhill he may never get the chance to make a run at the Oval Office at all.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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If you’re not using social media for customer service, you’re asking for crises
Without a doubt, upset customers are one of the leading, and most preventable, causes of crisis. While social media should be enabling organizations large and small to communicate on a personal level with the people who hand them their hard-earned money, too often it’s used purely as a marketing vehicle, if at all. Today, a customer tweet that gets no response is as bad as someone calling your office number and getting no response. Oh, except there are no “office hours” for social media.
The most successful businesses in the world have dedicated people working their social media customer service departments, and this infographic by Bluewolf will help you understand why:
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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by
by Kim Klein
by Lynne A. Weikart and Greg G. Chen
by Kivi Leroux Miller
edited by Terrie Temkin
by Cathy Trower
