Crisis Leadership Blog
Insights and perspectives on being the lighthouse during a crisis.
Going From Bad To Worse: How To Overcome System Failure During A Crisis
Going From Bad To Worse: How To Overcome System Failure During A Crisis Critical takeaways Things go wrong and, in a crisis when things are already going wrong, it's dangerous to assume that everything - and everyone - you need will be available and working. Instead,...
Small is beautiful: the value of a small simulation
Small is beautiful Critical takeaways A large, incisive simulation is an excellent training vehicle to practice your crisis readiness and put your team through its paces in a realistic environment. But a sort, simple simulation - even discussing a specific topic with...
5 principles for effective crisis training
Critical takeaways "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is particularly pertinent when it comes to crisis preparedness and training beforehand is essential. However, not all training is of equal value, and 'binging' your training once or twice a year...
Great Disruption, the Sequel
Recently, I was speaking with a client in the early stages of bringing the majority of their remote workforce back to the office. He said something that resonated with me and probably would with other strategic communicators: the “pandemic has leveled the playing...
Understanding yourself and your mental committee
Critical takeawaysIn any situation, particularly a crisis, showing up as your best self is key to success. In order to do that, you need to understand yourself.There are many tools to help you identify your key ‘parts,’ but the model we like is based on the internal...
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
Controlling a crisis starts from within you: Are you ready?
Exceptional communicators exercise greater control inside. This understanding and control of what goes on inside them and their organizations is what allows them to be effective – often exceptional – counselors, advisors, and leaders when it is time for them to step up.
On Demand Webinar: Transforming into Reputation Resilience – Your Roadmap
You own your brand, the public owns your reputation. Too often companies are narrowly focused on planning for or responding to a crisis. Some companies spend resources on ERM systems to track and monitor their operational risks. However, they rarely spend time outside of a crisis situation understanding how their known risks could impact their reputation...
Accelerate Your Business Growth: How to Prepare For A Crisis
Bill Coletti joins us to share how to prep your company and employees for a crisis, even if one never happens. If you are prepared for a crisis, the fallout won't be as bad, if there is fallout. Every company should be prepared for a crisis, big or small, in order to keep its positive reputation with the community. Bill Coletti, CEO, and Founder of Kith,...
Communicators, Reputation Managers, …Fear Busters
Critical takeaway One of the first services Kith provides to any client is fear-busting: helping acknowledge and overcome their fears. Once fear is out of the way, we can all get to work on the real problem. A typical call to Kith begins one of three ways. "We just learned from our operations team that [terrible event] just happened. We...
Growth Experts: How to Handle a Customer Data Breach
During our interview we discuss the following and more: - Why it is critical for businesses to manage their reputations both online and offline. - We talk about the risk of a data breach and how it could negatively impact your business. - Strategies on how to effectively manage a data breach crisis. - The debate about apologizing vs not apologizing to...
Effective risk managers need good storytellers
Critical takeaways A large part of what we do at Kith involves reputation risk management but we often see Communications teams excluded from the risk management process. Communications is the only part of the business that can adequately share the risk story. They are also key to understanding what is taking place outside an organization. Ensure that...
Culture is king (as long as it’s a positive one)
Critical takeaways We firmly believe that the key differentiator in a crisis is speed which is a combination of well-understood core values and a clear chain of command. However, a negative or toxic culture can still lead to a speedy response which will only make matters worse. Focus on building a strong, positive culture first. Without this, nothing else...
Kith CReD Snapshot: Is your team crisis ready?
We at Kith are excited to tell you about a new tool that we have developed to help organizations get a better handle on their own crisis readiness: the Kith CReD Snapshot (launched July 25, 2019). CReD stands for Crisis Readiness Diagnostic, but it also takes a cue from the slang word “cred,” which is short for “credibility.” When reputations are at stake...
Krulak’s Law: Managing your frontline risks
Critical takeaways Organizations have to decentralize to be successful but this poses challenges and can create additional risks to the business. These risks can be reduced significantly by empowering, trusting and educating front-line employees. Front-line employees will have the majority of client-facing time so they must be considered in the comms...
Grace: Can you have it in a crisis?
Critical takeaways Discussions around crisis usually employ metaphors for conflict but grace is also a powerful concept. The five elements of grace - generosity, respect, action, compassion, and energy - can guide our behavior in a crisis. Approaching a crisis with grace helps us maintain a values-driven, honorable path. Very often, talk about...
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.