Crisis Leadership Blog
Insights and perspectives on being the lighthouse during a crisis.
Strategically Speaking, Slow Down
You cannot rush the things that produce the best outcomes. A Super Bowl–winning team is not built in a single practice, sourdough bread cannot rise in an hour, and consumer trust can take months and years to earn (and keep). The same is true for strategic thinking —...
For Starbucks, History Repeats Itself
Starbucks has done it again. Another preventable fumble, this time in their third largest market. Each one of the things that went wrong when Starbucks launched “Tank Day” to promote a new line of “tank” coffee tumblers was preventable. While the stores in South Korea...
Formula for Distrust: What the Nestlé Recall Reveals About Stakeholder Confidence
* We’re foregoing any puns this month with the serious topic. Nestlé and Danone are facing scrutiny following widespread recalls of infant formula products due to the presence of cereulide, a toxin that can cause vomiting and diarrhea and poses particular risks for...
Leaked Comments, Public Consequences: What the Live Nation Story Reveals About Crisis Culture
This one is not music to the ears. Newly unsealed court documents tied to the federal antitrust case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster revealed internal Slack conversations in which employees mocked concertgoers and joked about aggressive pricing practices....
Not on the Menu: Was Dress Code Enforcement Strategy or Mistake?
A recent online flare-up involving Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Chili’s is a clear example of how quickly a routine decision can become strategic risk. And how fast things can go from a quiet dinner to a full-blown food fight. It started with a posted dress code....
By definition, Kith means a cadre of peers who shape opinions and attitudes while instilling sophisticated habits for action. As a way to live this value, we like to share resources that are building blocks to good crisis management and can help you start the path of protecting your reputation.
More Recent Insights
Don’t Just See, Observe: How to Prevent Blindspots
“You have not observed, and yet you have seen.” – Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia Pattern recognition is a superpower of strategic communicators. In the midst of a crisis, we have the ability to connect the dots out of a cacophony of signals, personalities and data. We see a pattern. We recognize it as something we have seen before. We already know...
Pedaling Hard, Moving Backward: When Peloton Lost Its Balance
A while back, premium exercise bike brand Peloton learned a hard lesson in how quickly perception can overtake intent. They ran a holiday TV ad featuring a husband gifting his (very thin) wife a Peloton bike. The spot follows her documenting a year of workouts and ends with her thanking him for giving her “the journey.” But what may have been designed as...
Feeling Umwelt: A Mental Framework for People Who Aren’t Listening
I’ll bet every one of us has said something like, “I kept telling them this was going to happen, but I guess it just fell on deaf ears.” Their ears were tuned to another stimulus. German biologist Jakob von Uexküll defined the unique sensory environment an animal experiences as its umwelt. It is a “self-in-world” perception that enables an animal to read...
When a Missed Shot Costs $800,000: The NHL’s Own-Goal Moment
Hockey is having a moment. Between Olympic excitement and controversy (which we’re not touching), the success of the PWHL and the buzz around the television show Heated Rivalry, the sport is lighting up the scoreboard. (Remember, this is not a pun free zone!) So why did the NHL hand critics the puck? In early February, the league outraged fans by reducing...
Be on the Lookout for Crisis Pretenders
Maria Stagliano had the backbone to say what I’ve been thinking when she wrote this column in O’Dwyer’s. I have found it fascinating to see how many different people in communications say they do crisis management. You don’t hear me say I do fashion PR or CSR. This is why I have a vast network that I regularly refer work to. It’s been a privilege to be a...
Not All Outrage Is Real: Lessons from Cracker Barrel’s Rebrand Storm
Do you remember the Cracker Barrel outrage when they tried to evolve their brand? It was their first logo update in nearly 50 years. They rolled out a cleaner, text-only look and dropped the iconic “Old Timer.” There was a lot of customer outrage, right? That’s what it looked like at first. It looked like a typical wave of customer grumblings hitting...
A New Year’s Resolution Your Business Can’t Afford to Skip
As a new year begins, most of us are thinking about personal goals and ways to hit the ground running, whether it’s finally tackling that pile of unread books, decluttering the basement once and for all, or flossing daily to silence the dentist’s scolding. But businesses need resolutions too, and one of the most important is often overlooked: being ready...
Never Write if You Can Speak; Never Speak if You Can Nod; Never Nod if You Can Wink
I used to work for a remarkable woman named Sharon Carstairs. She has been in Canadian politics since she was a child and her dad was premier of Nova Scotia. She followed his footsteps rising all the way to a cabinet member in the Chretien government. To this day, she is one of the smartest people I know and certainly one of the smartest politicians I...
Mmm, Mmm …. Bad: Taking a Bite Into the Campbell’s Soup Crisis
When leaders go off-script, even the most comforting brands can suddenly feel cold. That’s exactly what happened a few weeks ago to Campbell’s Soup after a senior executive referred to its products as being “for poor people,” and also made a racially insensitive comment about employees. The remarks, which were made in a meeting between the executive and...
Don’t Be Afraid of Being Called Chicken Little: Why Great Leaders Share Hard Truths
As a leader, you’re expected to have vision – not just for opportunities, but for risks too. But what happens when you see something concerning on the horizon, and you're not sure it will materialize? Do you hesitate? You don't want to be seen as that leader, the one who always sounds the alarm, the one others dismiss as overreacting. You don’t want to be...
The Kith Method
Good crisis management comes from a plan. Great crisis management comes from capability – and starts before you even smell smoke. That’s why we developed the Kith Method. We can help build and maintain a flexible capability that works for you.
Your reputation is an investment; time-consuming and costly to build and expensive to repair. Protect it.