A friend of mine just returned to his office for the first time in more than two years. It was exactly how he left it – albeit cleaner – when he abruptly left work on a Thursday afternoon in March 2020 to retrieve his sick kid from school. He stayed home with the kiddo Friday. The world shut down...
Mobilization simply means getting the right people in the right place with the right information to allow them to start managing the event taking place. The term 'mobilization' can sound very operational and, therefore, a little out of place in a communications environment, but that's the point....
Procedures have a terrible reputation amongst communicators for stifling creativity and limiting the freedom needed to respond to a crisis. We'll often say that we can't plan something as complex and instinctual as a crisis in advance. In many ways, I agree. My dislike of shelves of binders is...
Procedures have a terrible reputation amongst communicators for stifling creativity and limiting the freedom needed to respond to a crisis. We'll often say that we can't plan something as complex and instinctual as a crisis in advance. In many ways, I agree. My dislike of shelves of binders is...
You've probably seen the Abbott and Costello sketch 'Who's on First?' (and if not, you're missing out) where the team's names - Who is on First base, What is on Second, Why is in the Outfield - make for a lot of confusion and a great skit. But take a moment and think back to the last time you were...
The final component of our speed, clarity, and trust architecture that will transform you into a Crisis Confident organization is trust. The simple quote from Santosh Kalwar, "Trust starts and ends with the truth," helps us think about the truth and the trust that's necessary for superior crisis...
Two quotes help me think about the concept of clarity and its importance in crisis response. The first is from Henry Kissinger. "If you don't know where you're going, every road will get you nowhere." And the second one is from the always quotable Yogi Berra. "If you don't know where you're going,...
In my last blog post, I introduced the concept of Crisis Confidence, and that confidence is born out of speed, clarity, and trust. Over the next three weeks, I want to dig in on each of those elements and give them context and specific recommendations on what you can do to improve all three. Being...
"The crucible of crisis doesn't develop your skill sets; it reveals them." I've said these words to many leaders over the years, and as people pause and reflect on it, it dawns on them: if they're honest with themselves, they don't think they'll like what the crucible will reveal. Deep down, they...
COVID changed so many of our lives in dramatic and also small ways. For me, one was watching TV. I’ve never been a huge TV person so I’ve been fortunate to have great programs to watch as I focused on sticking close to home. The other night I started to watch a show called Suspicion. It’s...
Like my Kith colleagues, I cut my proverbial teeth in politics. Not as a candidate, but as a campaign staffer and, later, a political consultant. Campaigns are great places to train for reputation management and crisis communications because everything is a crisis. The latest mud your opponent...
Have you ever stood at the grocery store trying to decide which pasta to buy and thought about the CEO of one pasta company making a political statement? You remember you didn’t appreciate what she said, but you really prefer how that pasta cooks. Or maybe you agreed with her, but their pasta...
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