Crisis Leadership Blog
Insights and perspectives on being the lighthouse during a crisis.
A time for Grace and Gratitude
This will more than likely be our last post for 2021. And what a year it has been. For those of you that follow along in this space, you know that in July, I had a pretty severe accident and spent a week in the ICU. Last week I had the final of 4 surgeries on my right...
What would your company look like if you did not fear crises?
Confucius tells us that "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." What is fear, and why do so many corporate leaders fear crises? Fear is a concern, rational or not, about your well-being. In this context, it is a concern about the reputation...
In Crisis, Do You Need a Craftsperson or Mechanic?
There's an interesting article I read recently about the notion of how to master a craft, and I was thinking about it in the context of the way we manage crises. In the article, Julian Shapiro notes that becoming a craftsperson requires more focus on the process than...
Checklists: Simple Tools for Complex Situations
I love checklists. I also love Thanksgiving. What could be better than combining the two? As you get ready for the holidays coming up, I want to remind you that checklists are critically important...
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...
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
A Lot of Extra Work
Critical takeaways: Communicators will have to do a lot of extra work to tell the story of how we come back from COVID-19. Specific audiences should receive specialized messages that address their particular needs, but those need to be consistent and fit the themes of your main messaging. Ease that extra work by using tools like a Message Triangle and our...
Communicating and Defending a Mask Policy
Critical takeaways: Setting customer expectations is critical to maximizing acceptance of COVID-19 policy changes, and communicating clearly is the key. The reputation risk of mask policies should be evaluated as a balance between the strategic risk of requiring a mask and the preventable risk of someone getting COVID-19 if you do not. Do not over-index...
Along Those Lines: Co-op Communications in Times of Crisis
Stephen Bell, NRECA’s senior director for media and public relations, and Bill Coletti, CEO of the reputation management firm Kith, talk us through their advice on how to plan for, respond to and recover from events that interrupt our normal course of business. LISTEN HERE
Everyone Is Just “Over It”
Critical Takeaways Communicators do not have the luxury of being “over it.” We have to figure out what to say next. Learn to surf when you are stuck in crashing waves. Ask three questions to help create a bigger future. In the spirit of being real, let’s just start here: everyone is just over it. COVID-19 is a drag. I’ve noticed it with our clients, in...
Kith’s COVID-19 Crisis Communications Playbook
Over the past eight weeks, we have hosted a series of webinars sharing our insights, observations, and recommendations for responding to the COVID-19 crisis. We sincerely hope the content we have shared has been helpful to you and the organizations you serve. Our goal from the beginning has been to be of service to our “kith” and generously help as many...
Creating Value as Strategic Communicators
Critical takeaways As a crisis recedes, a strategic communicator needs to focus on how we create value for our organization’s leadership and our teams. Especially now, we receive an overabundance of information, but there’s very little wisdom. Strategic communicators are looked to for clarity in a crisis. Three components – leadership, relationship and...
COVID-19 Crisis Q&A with Bill Coletti
In this webinar Bill Coletti hosts a live Q&A session to answers questions related to COVID-19 crisis communications strategy and tactics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNIqFPlHtcg&feature=youtu.be You can download the PDF version of the deck here. In the webinar, Bill references a toolkit from Johns Hopkins for businesses considering...
Kith’s 6+2 Framework: Keys to Telling a Reassuring Reopening Story
Critical takeaways Communicating about reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic is proving harder than messaging about closing. Kith’s 6+2 framework can help communicators tell a story that reasonable people expect a responsible organization to tell. In times of uncertainty and anxiety, placing a particular emphasis on empathy, reassurance and transparency...
Kith’s Crisis Frameworks: Real-World Application in the Age of COVID
In this webinar Bill Coletti and Jeff Blaylock : Recap the crisis response models and framework we shared in the past six webinars as part of Kith’s COVID-19 Communications Series. Deconstruct real-world responses and statements from companies who have followed the frameworks and others who have missed the mark. ...
‘Crucial Conversations’: Lessons for Crisis Communicators
Critical takeaways The book ‘Crucial Conversations’ is a great guide to managing high-stakes conversations but it also provides useful guidance for crises. Many of the same techniques the authors advise for critical conversations can be used by crisis communicators to shape messages - externally and internally. Crucially, self-awareness and introspection...
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.