Crisis Leadership Blog
Insights and perspectives on being the lighthouse during a crisis.
Gone, But Not Forgotten
The damage of a crisis is not always immediate and not always front-page news. A couple of months ago, CTV News/Bell Media fired Lisa Laflamme, a national icon and trusted news source in Canada, because she stopped coloring her hair. It was sexist or ageist or both...

We Need to Talk About Potential Litigation
If you’re ever looking for a way to kill a conversation, raise the specter of litigation. It’s more effective at ending a conversation than feigning death, belting out “Don’t Stop Believing” or pulling the fire alarm. Worries over litigation can stymie productive...

Values Are the Bedrock of Your Organization
Many of us will have rolled our eyes when we've received an invitation to join our colleagues in a meeting room to discuss our values. Writing the same tired old tropes on a whiteboard or flip charts can seem like a waste of time. The values are written up at the end...

How to Make Decisions in a Crisis
Speed is at a premium at the outset of a crisis, and being able to trust your gut and having good pattern recognition helps you move fast when facts are scarce. However, once you get farther into the response, the challenges are more complex, and patterns become less...

Your Crisis Beach Body
The sun is shining in Austin, Texas, and many of us are thinking about plans for the beach this summer. I've written before about the notion that a healthy body is a combination of diet and exercise, and the equivalency that I see with healthy organizations, which...
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

Social Risk Webinar Recap
The public’s expectations of corporations and brands are higher, and writing a check to a cause or saying “that’s not our lane” won’t cut it anymore. Even a well-crafted statement is not enough. Actions must follow words.

Top Tips for Running Crisis Management Simulations
Crisis simulations are a sure fire way to build “muscle memory” of response and action that can be deployed during an actual crisis impacting you or your organization. We believe simulations are one of the most effective tools in a communication team’s toolbox. Here are some Top Tips for running your own crisis simulations.

Be Prepared for What Comes after Election Night
Election Day is next week. Tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots in states where early voting is permitted. Tens of millions more will vote on Tuesday in their local polling place. Most years, elections just kind of happen. People vote, wait for results to be announced, celebrate or not, and go on with their lives the next day. The 2020 election will not follow that script, and high levels of anxiety will last for a while.

The Marketing Expedition: Crisis Response and Reputation Management
In this episode, Tony Richards interviews Bill Coletti, a reputation management expert, about his COVID-19 Crisis Communications Playbook.

Beyond a Crisis – Better Helping You to Prepare and Avoid the Worst
We believe it shouldn’t require a disaster to formulate your defensive position and build a more resilient reputation. Here’s how we help our clients simultaneously prepare for the unexpected and avoid them all together.

Take It Easy: Bad Things Happen to Even the Best Prepared Communicators
Bad things sometimes happen to the most prepared, best informed and experienced communicators. Here’s how to handle it.

Find Time for Strategic Thinking
Communications leaders are being pulled in many directions here are some tips to ensure you make time for strategic thinking.

Are You Warm Blooded or Cold Blooded?
Awareness of how you best show up is a first step toward developing and reinforcing patterns of behavior that will make you even better as a communicator.

The Next Frontier of Crisis Readiness
Social risk is the next frontier of crisis readiness. There is no turning back.

Purpose Is More Than Living Your Values
Purpose is not just a bold statement and a mic drop. Actions must follow, and businesses will be judged on those actions, not their statements.
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.