Crisis Leadership Blog
Insights and perspectives on being the lighthouse during a crisis.
Don’t Let Your Crisis Plans Remain Buried Like a Time Capsule
Many of us found ourselves abruptly working from home during the Covid pandemic. For some, a return to the office did not occur for months or even years. If you were one such person, you may recall the cognitive dissonance you experienced when you found it exactly as...
Stakeholders: Reach Them Where They Are
Let’s talk about precision. In a crisis, speed is critical ... but speed without clarity and accuracy is just noise. When you’ve taken the time to get to know your stakeholders, you understand where they get their information. Even if you just know the age range, you...
The Shockingly Long Tail of Crisis
Around here, we warn clients about the long tail of crisis. It’s when the effects of a crisis can drag on for a long time, with unexpected problems, and damage, popping up well after things seem like they’ve settled down. It’s also known as “the ripples,” and can pose...
Trust Carriers & Credibility
Here’s one of the most overlooked truths in crisis communication: The messenger matters as much as the message. You can have a perfect statement, a perfect plan, and a perfect rollout. But if it comes from someone your stakeholders don’t trust, it will fall flat. Or...
More on Knowing Your Stakeholders: Seeing the World through Their Eyes
In our last post, we discussed the importance of mapping your stakeholders. Now it’s time to really understand them. And the whole thinking for this series was spurred by this column about where people get their information. While Kith is politically agnostic, all of...
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
How Colleges and Universities Can Handle Reputational Risk Better
Higher education is seemingly in an increasingly perilous spot. As the job market shifts — 47 to 54% of jobs will likely be lost to automation by 2030, or roughly 800 million jobs globally, according to McKinsey Global Institute — higher ed also needs to reinvent itself to remain a value-add in the modern age. Into this confusing time comes a lot of...
Far from a Textbook Year for Higher Ed Leaders
Thousands of colleges and universities around the nation are back in full swing for a new academic year, my daughter among them (Sko Buffs!). The beginning of a new college semester heralds many things on college campuses. The sight of students burning the midnight oil in the library. The sound of roaring crowds at a football game. The smell of stale...
Don’t Lie
We are all professionals. As professionals there is one cardinal rule of talking to the media (or if you ask my grandma, anyone): never lie. Don’t outright lie. Don’t tell a half truth. Don’t try to be cute. Don’t parse the truth. Don’t lie. All that does is make your audience mad and make them trust you less. And if you are lying to reporters, lying...
Putting a Positive Spin on a Bad Break
It was an SNL skit that wrote itself. Australian breakdancer Raygun was thoroughly lampooned for her amateur performance at the 2024 Summer Games, called a disgrace to her country, and criticized for “making a mockery” of the sport. She went viral in all the ways a person or company doesn’t want to go viral. The athlete, Australia, and the sport of...
The Perils of a Shallow Apology
It can be incredibly difficult as a business to publicly admit that you made a misstep. Savvy executives and communicators know the importance of making a timely mea culpa statement that demonstrates ownership and empathy, and clearly outlines steps being taken to support impacted consumers and stakeholders. Less savvy leaders may fumble an apology,...
Who Matters the Most in a Crisis?
Stakeholders has become a term we hear bandied about all of the time. And it's an important one. Whether internal or external, the people who buy from you, work for you, or champion your brand matter. But, it is critical to ask, “ Who matters most to you and your organization?” When thinking about a crisis and the issues that are most vital at a...
Owning a Mistake that’s Not Yours
Do you remember Chi-Chi’s? If you do, you are probably wondering what happened to them. If you don’t, then take this as a cautionary tale. Chi-Chi’s was a Mexican casual restaurant chain that was all the rage in the 80s and 90s. With more than 200 locations in five countries as well as a supermarket line (which still exists), the future was bright. Until a...
Holding Statements: What Are They and Why Are They Critical to Effective Crisis Response
Speech is silver, silence is golden. According to this proverb, saying nothing is more valuable than saying something, even if the something itself has value. As a crisis management expert, I believe those are backward, and I’d add one more phrase to the proverb: rapid response is platinum. Speed is the key differentiator between good and great crisis...
Scaling Your CEO for Better Crisis Response
At Kith, we have seen CEOs rise during a crisis and we have seen others stumble. The difference often comes down to what they focus on during the crisis at hand. As your most senior leader, a CEO can be one of the most important assets your organization can deploy when responding to a crisis. However, just because he or she may be first in command does...
How to Dig Out of a Mess of Your Own Creation
The headlines were unsettling, not shocking at first. But when UnitedHealth, the healthcare behemoth responsible for processing 50 percent of all US patient medical claims annually, revealed it was the victim of a ransomware attack described as “the most serious incident leveled against a US healthcare organization,” alarm bells went off everywhere. ...
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.