Crisis Leadership Blog
Insights and perspectives on being the lighthouse during a crisis.
Why You Need to Understand the Cost of Crisis
What does it cost to replace a manufacturing plant? How about a flagship store? Fight a lawsuit? How much does it cost to restore your reputation? These are often the questions we ask when asked why protecting your organization’s reputation is a worthwhile...
Beware the Ripples: Sometimes These Are Signs of an Incoming Wave
Last week, executives from all the big oil companies gave sworn testimony to a Congressional committee. Under oath, they were asked if their companies knew that their products contributed to climate change and how long they had known this. Everywhere you turned, the...
Why We Only Do One Thing
When I first started doing crisis management, someone asked me what kind of crisis I handled. I thought that to be an odd question. If you are a patent lawyer, you handle patents not just left-pawed blue schnauzers. If you are a neonatal nurse, you take care of...
Why I Joined Kith
We were delighted to welcome Stephanie Craig on board to be our VP of Consulting this August. This is the first of a series of posts in which Stephanie reflects on her first 60 days, shares her thoughts on crises, and, in this case, explains why she left her own...
Why crisis leadership isn’t the same as crisis management (It’s way more)
A big mistake we see everywhere is thinking that experience in a role or time-served automatically makes you a leader in that space. This thinking mistakes the fundamental difference between management and leadership: one is focused on what needs to be done, whereas...
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
Crafting Hard Messaging: How to Communicate Difficult Decisions
As we continue to face the daily uncertainty of how this pandemic will unfold, there is one thing we know for sure. Companies will continue to make extremely difficult decisions in the weeks ahead and will be faced with communicating those tough decisions to those who matter most. This webinar covers: The importance of conducting a "changed" policy...
Eight Elements of Successful Crisis Response
Crisis Response Fundamentals – our quick reference.
Part 2 Communicating How & When to Reopen for Business
Although some may disagree, we believe we are no longer in a crisis, but instead a critical moment. The response phase is over and it is now time to make decisions for what lies ahead. Two weeks ago we hosted a webinar discussing how and when to reopen for business. As the reality of reopening draws confusingly closer we wanted to revisit that topic with...
Leveraging Stakeholder Research for Your COVID Communications Strategy
Bill Coletti and Karlan Witt, CEO of Cambia Information Group, discuss using stakeholder research so you don't have to guess when it comes to crafting your next COVID-19 response message. The webinar covers: Robust research options: the recipe for strong survey research, message development, stakeholder prioritization, spokesperson optimization and more...
Burden of Command: Bill Coletti
In this episode we have a conversation about leadership and responding to a crisis as well as the impacts it can have on your reputation. LISTEN HERE
What Is & Is Not Working in COVID-19 Communications
We are now entering the third or fourth week of messaging around corporate response - the “mushy middle phase” as we referred to it in our previous webinars. On the third webinar in Kith's COVID-19 Communications Series, Bill Coletti shares observations on how companies are using the A-B-C approach (Always - Be - Communicating) and remaining helpful and...
Purpose 360: Communications in a Time of Crisis with Kith’s Bill Coletti
Listen for Bill’s insights on: The tenets of successful crisis communications: always be communicating, always be listening, and manage stakeholder expectations. The importance of articulating a company’s core values during challenging times, and demonstrating how those values guide the company in standing for something bigger than itself. Three...
Reopening after COVID-19: how to come back when the time comes
Critical takeaways In one of our recent COVID-19 webinars, we tackled the difficult decision businesses are going to face when it is time to reopen and, even though that may be some time off, we feel that this is the time to start planning for that eventuality. Unlike the decision to close, there won’t be a single ‘all clear’ and following the herd won’t...
Communicating How & When to Re-Open for Business
On the second webinar in Kith COVID-19 Communication's Series, Bill Coletti helps leaders and their advisors address the confusion around how and when businesses should come back. More specifically, he discusses the financial, social and moral considerations that come with those decisions - especially in light of mixed scientific, political and...
Turning Inwards: Tips for External Communicators Managing Internal Communications
Critical Takeaways The changes forced on businesses by COVID-19 are placing greater emphasis on internal communications. This is requiring external communicators to turn their attention inwards but this change requires a shift in perspective. We’ve outlined five considerations that external communicators need to have in mind when making this shift to...
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.