This week, we continue our series of interviews with crisis communications thought leaders on our online reputation management blog with Caroline Sapriel, founder and Managing Director of CS&A, a global risk and crisis management consulting firm working with multinational clients across industry sectors in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, Europe, and the Americas. With over 25 years of experience in risk and crisis management, corporate communications and public affairs, Caroline Sapriel is recognized as a leader in her profession and acknowledged for her ability to provide customized, results-driven counsel and training at the highest level. [Read more…]
The Occupational Crisis – Smart Strategies for Reputation Management
November 15, 2012 by 3 Comments
If you’ve got a business and employees, you’ve got ingredients for a crisis. Whether it be an employee injury, a government agency inspection or other critical business issue, the steps you take now to manage a crisis will impact your organization’s reputation for the long-haul.
Here is a sneak peek of a seminar I’ll be presenting for the Institute for Human Resources on December 6, 2012 entitled “10 Smart Strategies for Reputation Management after an Occupational Crisis.” I offer a sampling of my top strategies for taking good care of your reputation amidst workplace turmoil.
Strategy #1: Have a media plan. Most organizations are totally unprepared for media calls. Being unprepared can lead to unintended consequences: 1) You say things that are not helpful to your organization; 2) You don’t return reporter phone calls, and, as a result, you never get a chance to participate in the story; or 3) You respond with “No comment,” which can create the perception of guilt or wrongdoing.
Having a plan gives you a model to respond and allows you to be strategic about how you engage the media, if at all. A plan allows you to be organized and thoughtful, instead of chaotic and reactionary. Perhaps most important, however, it avoids inaction—a deer-in-headlights response—which is a reputational death knell. [Read more…]
Interview with Crisis Communications Expert Richard Levick – Part 2
November 5, 2012 by 2 Comments
We continue our in-depth conversation on the Online Reputation Management blog with Richard S. Levick, Esq, President and CEO of LEVICK and a leading voice on the most complex communications and reputation management challenges facing corporations, countries, and major institutions. Click here for Part 1 of our fascinating interview.
How can CEOs help build and repair corporate reputation?
Obviously, the face that a CEO presents to the world, and the language with which he or she publicly articulates the company’s value proposition and corporate good citizenship, is important. Just as important, however, is what the CEO does internally.
CEOs should understand the dangers of silos when corporate reputation is at risk. Input should be solicited, in fact demanded, from multiple quarters: legal, HR, corporate communications, financial, etc. It is then the CEO’s job to ensure that these advisors work seamlessly and disinterestedly. It doesn’t do any good to put five executives in a room, with each one trying to seize turf in making the decision on what’s to be done next. That is why it is so critical, particularly now, in the Internet Age, to integrate silos. Make sure legal knows digital, and that corporate communications knows the crisis communicators. In a crisis, all rules change. Better to know and understand the team when you hit the iceberg. [Read more…]
Interview with Crisis Communications Expert Richard Levick – Part 1
October 29, 2012 by 1 Comment
We are very excited to invite Richard S. Levick, Esq. to share his thoughts on crisis communications and reputation management with our Online Reputation Management blog. As President and CEO of LEVICK, Richard Levick is one of the communications industry’s most important spokespersons and thought leaders, helping to manage global communications and brand protection for corporations, countries, and major institutions. Richard has worked on some of the world’s highest-profile campaigns – including Guantanamo Bay; the Catholic Church; the Wall Street crisis; and the Gulf oil spill. He is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Fast Company and has co-authored four books including, The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis; Stop the Presses: The Crisis and Litigation PR Desk Reference; and 365 Marketing Meditations.
What is crisis communications?
Crisis communications is how companies, countries, and individuals tell their stories to the public when life, liberty – and the brand – are at risk and under siege. It’s the art and science of regaining control of the public narrative about yourself when you have suddenly lost, or are in danger of losing control of that narrative, and when the single most powerful thing that defines the value of your enterprise is in jeopardy.
It may simply be the safety of a controversial product. But it can go well beyond that. Consider the ongoing crisis that has beset the Catholic Church for so many years now. The value proposition of any great religion is faith. The Church abuse crisis has directly threatened that faith, at least for a significant number of people. How the Church communicates a sufficiently resolute position on abuse and, importantly, the actions it takes to implement that position, will have permanent impact on whether or not faith can be maintained or restored if it’s been lost. The dynamic is no less relevant to a commercial brand that appears to have broken its promise. [Read more…]
