PUBLIC RELATIONS
Honesty is always the best crisis policy
As PR disasters go, perhaps few in history have been worse than
the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal.
In 2002, John Whitney, a Jesuit, took over management of the
regional order of Jesuits in Oregon and four other Northwest
states just as sexual abuse lawsuits against several current
and former Jesuits (as well as priests in the separate regional
dioceses) were beginning to rain down. “I got the upside
down rabbit’s foot,” says Whitney, who’s
based in Portland
Whitney has overseen the settlement of several dozen cases
already and still has more than 50 outstanding (most of them in
Alaska). He’s tried to bring a measure of honesty and
openness to handling his cases by sitting with victims and
listening to their stories.
“I want to talk to them and see what a just solution
is,” Whitney says. “If people just get money,
there’s still bitterness and hurt. This isn’t a
liability lawsuit, it’s a deeply personal hurt and the
solution needs to reflect a level of a humanity.”
It’s a somewhat unconventional approach and one
criticized even by some in his own organization, but one that
is ultimately part of successfully tackling and eventually
solving PR nightmares.
“I’ve always thought honesty was the best
policy,” says Julie Edwards, of Davis Elan in Portland,
who serves as director of public relations for McDonald’s
of Oregon and Southwest Washington. “It’s about
doing the right thing. If you try to be slick, it’ll blow
up in your face.”
She advocates having a written resp-onse plan for emergencies
(when “the client freaks out, and PR people tend to freak
out”), but also has learned to feel out situations and
not always navigate by a predetermined route.
For instance, doing the right thing in a PR disaster may mean
keeping a low profile. Earlier this spring, a McDonald’s
worker was fatally stabbed while on the job in Vancouver.
Edwards says that after talking with the woman’s family,
she decided the company should wait before making a gesture of
support.
At other times, openness may mean taking some responsibility
even when a PR nightmare only tangentially relates to your
company. During a mad cow scare several years ago, Edwards
chose to talk to the media about the disease and
McDonald’s safeguards even though she says none of the
company’s regional meat supplies were in danger.
In the 1980s and ’90s, when a Union Carbide plant spill
poisoned residents of Bhopal, India, and Exxon botched the
response to its massive Exxon Valdez oil spill, a whole
industry of crisis man-
agement experts was spawned, along with a playbook on how to
deal with major crises. The advice? Keep it honest and:
-
develop a crisis management
team among top executives.
-
anticipate what sorts of
things your business is vulnerable to and run through a few
practice scenarios.
-
minimize any health dangers
without delay (see Bhopal disaster).
-
keep in touch with legal and
communications specialists throughout a crisis.
Businesses can establish a good corporate citizen record
through charitable giving and volunteering, but a crisis
is a moment of truth where a company’s true character is
on display. “If the PR is rooted in an old-fashioned way
of doing things,” Edwards says, “it’s always
better.”
— Oakley Brooks
RESOURCES:
ONLINE
For more crisis management tips, go to
www.aboutpublicrelations.net/crisis.htm.
BOOKS
Crisis Management: Planning
for the Inevitable by Steven Fink ($19.95,
Backinprint.com)
Harvard Business Review on
Crisis Management ($19.95, Harvard Business School
Press)
Managing Crises Before They
Happen: What Every Executive and Manager Needs to Know About
Crisis Management by Ian I. Mitroff with Gus Anagnos
($19.95, Amacom)
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