Crisis Leadership Blog
Insights and perspectives on being the lighthouse during a crisis.
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.
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
To Spoke Or Not To Spoke, That Is The Question
Critical Takeaways Individuals or families caught up in a crisis should engage a spokesperson to help them manage the media as this is something they are ill-equipped to do themselves. This course of action has some pros and to consider while making the decision and I address these here. The benefits of professional support - insulation from the press and...
Crisis leader + crisis manager = a critical partnership
Critical takeaways Crisis Leaders and Crisis Managers are different roles but both are required for crisis success. Understanding the differences between the two roles - and how they complement each other - will help build a powerful partnership Here are three key distinctions between the two roles to help you select and prepare the right people for these...
Crisis simulations as planning tools
Simulations are the most valuable planning and preparedness tool available to an organization and should be a routine part of every company’s training regimen.
Consulting Success: Consulting When The Stakes Are High with Bill Coletti
Sometimes, it is exactly the comfort that keeps us from pursuing what we really want. Bill Coletti, founder of the crisis communications and reputation management firm called Kith Consulting, has stepped out of the comfort offered in working for an established organization as a consultant to starting and running his own consulting business. When the stakes...
Overcoming shell shock in a crisis
Critical takeaways ‘Shell shock' is the effect of trauma on individuals leading to paralysis and an inability to think and act effectively. We see similar results in boardrooms where a crisis causes the company to freeze. Our formula for crisis success - Core Values + Chain Of Command = Speed - can help overcome boardroom shell shock Stick to your...
Black Box Theory
Critical Takeaways It is easy to attribute crisis success as simply being lucky when in fact companies have earned this ‘luck’ through hard work and preparedness. A concept in sailing is that of a ‘black box’ into which a Captain deposits ‘points’. They can then draw on these points to give them a little bit of extra luck in tough times. Companies can...
The Risk of Patagonia Envy
Critical takeaways When asked about “high reputation” firms, one that always comes to mind is the outdoor retailer Patagonia which has a very high reputation due to its commitment and authenticity to its mission. You can learn a lot from Patagonia but don’t just copy their approach: a good reputation is based on being authentic to your own beliefs. There...
Noah and Augustine: a crisis history lesson
Critical takeaways The story of Noah’s Ark reminds us of the need to actually take action in response to risk. This story is quoted in a 1995 HBR article by Norm Augustine who lays out six points for crisis success based on his experiences in government and business. Despite the article’s age, Augustine’s six points are still highly relevant to crisis...
Courage and conviction in crafting an op-ed
Critical takeaways Op-eds are a powerful way of telling your story in a crisis and should be in every communicator’s tool kit. Op-eds written by a committee will fail to make your points clearly. Communications should write the piece with input from the subject matter expert. This guidance note is based on our experience using op-eds in a crisis or...
Crisis on the edge – Part II
Critical takeaways Nature doesn’t have clear-cut edges and neither do crises. Taking an edgeless, long-term view of a crisis improves our ability to learn after an event and also helps us prepare and improve our actions beforehand. Here are five ways that an ‘edgeless’ mindset will help you better prepare and give you a significant advantage in the period...
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.