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In
my line of work, I'm often working directly with the CEO of an organization
that's either in crisis, or wants me to help them stay out of crises. In the
former situation, at some point, I conduct an analysis of why the crisis
occurred; in the latter, I engage in a vulnerability audit to see where and how
crises MAY occur. Here's
what both processes have revealed, consistently: CEOs, most of whom are honest
and have every intent to be law-abiding and ethical, often have no idea what's
"really happening" in certain areas of their organizations. They know
a lot about the operational end of the business, but they don't know what they
aren't being told -- and don't realize the need for an internal communication
system that makes sure they stay "in the know" even when bad, or
unethical managers are trying to block information flow. ALMOST
EVERY COMPREHENSIVE VULNERABILITY AUDIT in which I've been involved in the past
two decades has uncovered information that the CEO should have known, but
didn't, information that foretold future crises. Some
examples: ¤
After a client company was hammered by the legal and PR damage
from an environmental incident, I conducted a vulnerability
audit preparatory to creating the firm's first crisis
communications plan. Vulnerability audits are, ideally,
done with the assurance, to interviewees, that
top management will not be told "who said
what," so that they can feel free to speak. During
this audit, I learned that there was plenty of information
in advance of the incident which indicated that it COULD
occur. But one or more managers at this location, one of a
number of company businesses,
sat on the information and didn't pass it on to corporate
HQ. ¤
Conducting a vulnerability audit of another national company,
we found that rumors were spreading rapidly via the
Internet and, unaddressed by management, were taking on a
life of their own which could easily lead to future
lawsuits and negative PR. ¤
A post-crisis analysis of a serious labor and employment matter indicated
that the organization's underestimation of how some of its
key stakeholders would respond led to the situation attaining
crisis status. In
all of these cases and scores more, proper analysis, ideally done jointly by a
PR/legal team, could have identified what I refer to, as "creeping" or
"slow-burn" crises. Knowing that, management could have headed off the
crises or at least have had enough advance time to prepare a response for use
when and if the situations escalated to crisis status. Which
brings me back to the Ken Lays of the world. I have no idea whether Mr. Lay is
or isn't guilty in a court of law, but he is already regarded as guilty in the
court of public opinion. Worse, perhaps, he is regarded as foolish. The public
expects the CEO to know what is happening in his or her own organization. It is
possible to engage in activities such
as vulnerability audits, anonymous internal whistle blowing programs and rumor
control systems, which will help a CEO get the information BEFORE the press or a
prosecutor gets it. If
a CEO takes a blind "I trust my people" approach, he is being
imprudent and naive. If
a CEO takes an "I don't want to know, just get the job done" approach,
they deserve whatever results the law ultimately doles out. If
a CEO says "I want to know when we're screwing up, I want to know it first,
and I want us to do the right thing," then he or she has my professional
and personal respect. And has very little chance of becoming a Ken Lay. The
views expressed here are not necessarily those of frogpondgroup.com. Published
in FPG's March 2002 Issue |
