Guided Discussion 3: Explain 3 different approaches you have seen to a crisis situation by major companies. Describe a memorable crisis (based upon an organization/company) in which you believed that the truth was not being told. Explain whether you believe that a company should always tell the entire truth or if they should lessen the reality. Why would telling the truth be so important? When writing your discussion, sure to include examples from the assigned readings/videos (In addition, you may also include personal experiences). Your post MUST be at least one paragraph
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1. Watch the assignment video:
https://www.iafc.org/topics-and-tools/volunteer/vws/chiefs-a-rit/topics/community/crisis-communication/resourcedetails/Crisis-Communication-10-Golden-Rules
2. Read:
Sapriel, C. (2003). Effective crisis management: Tools and best Practice for the new millennium. Journal of Communication Management, 1(4), 348-55.
3. Read:
Winni, Johansen. (2012). Entering new territory: A study of internal crisis management and crisis communication in organizations. Public Relations Review, 38(2), 270-279.
4. Read:
Penrose, J. M. (2000). The role of perception in crisis planning. Public Relations Review, 26(2), 155-171.
5. Read: Mitroff, Chap 4 – “Telling the Truth”
6. Read: Mitroff, Chap 5 – “Assuming Responsibility
7. Read: Mitroff, Chap 6, “Detecting Weak Signals”
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Chapter Four—
Should We Tell the Truth?
The Varieties of Truth and
Telling the Truth
”. . . salacious tales of sex, murder, and corruption date back to the founding of the republic. What is[ Getlin’s emphasis] new, however, are the scope and intensity [emphasis
added] of these media spectacles. America has entered
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what some observers are calling an Age of Permanent Scandal—an era when marathon stories like ClintonLewinsky and the Simpson murder are beamed into homes twentyfour
hours a day, for months and even years at a time.
”… Scandal, with apologies to Karl Marx, may be the opiate of the people.
“[As Michael Kinsley put it:] ‘It began with the Gulf War, because fifteen minutes after it was over, nobody remembered it,’ he said. ‘The war begat O.J., and O.J. begat Monica.
These stories create an adrenaline rush that wears off— and we’re all addicted. We need another fix.’ ”
Josh Getlin, “Suffering Scandal Fatigue” Los Angeles Times
1
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The task of CM would be relatively easy if the general framework that was presented in the previous chapter was all that one needed to manage major crises
effectively. Unfortunately, this is far from the case. As the preface to this book indicated, questions of individual and organizational character are paramount. For this
reason, a general framework for CM, while necessary, is not sufficient. In addition, one must confront questions of character at both the individual and the
organizational level.
Telling the Truth
Even a cursory review of the Tylenol crisis presented in Chapter Two shows that telling the truth played a major role in its handling. Indeed, telling the truth plays a
major role in all crises. Consider, for instance, the following three potential, if not actual, crisis situations.
Episode One
In opposition to nearly all of her basic values, and over her strong objections, a young woman is being heavily pres
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sured by her boss to design a Web site that is highly offensive to her and to her coworkers. A highpaying client has commissioned the firm to design a Web site
featuring lewd and degrading images of women. Although her boss does not like the project, given the firm’s extremely precarious financial situation, he feels that he
has no choice but to accept it. (Even though the young woman believes strongly in ”free speech,” this is not enough to persuade her that she is the one in particular
who needs to defend it in this particular instance. The guarantee of free speech does not compel a private person or party to enact it in every case. It merely means
that the government shall make or pass no laws restricting free speech. What a particular person or private company does is part of their management policy, not an
edict of government.)
Episode Two
The loan committee of a major U.S. bank, made up of its top executives, is conducting its monthly review of major loan applications. One in particular is especially
promising. All of the numbers and financial analyses indicate that it promises to deliver extremely high rates of return at an exceptionally low risk. The committee is
therefore strongly predisposed to grant the loan. At literally the eleventh hour, one of the committee members asks casually, “By the way, what is the business?”
Someone digs through a thick pile of papers, and after what seems like an eternity, announces with noticeable distress in his voice, “Oh my God, it’s pornography!”
Episode Three
Charges of impeachment against a sitting U.S. President are successfully voted out of the U.S. House of Representatives for only the second time in American history.
The President is charged with lying under oath with regard to an illicit
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sexual affair with a White House intern half his age. The sordid details are made public by the office of the independent prosecutor a few short months after the
President went on television, stared directly into the cameras, and stated angrily, ”I did not have sex with that woman!” Later, he is forced to admit that he did indeed
have sex with “that woman.” His admission fails to satisfy the political opposition, who successfully vote through charges of impeachment, even though they eventually
fail to garner the required votes in the U.S. Senate to force the President’s eventual removal from office. Nonetheless, the Office of the President is seriously tarnished,
along with nearly all of the institutions involved, including the Congress, the Office of the Independent Prosecutor, and the news media.
Individual members of Congress are also forced to resign after Larry Flynt, publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, reveals sordid details about their past. As
a result, more than one political commentator makes the shrewd and wry observation that, “For all practical purposes, Larry Flynt and Hustler are running the
country, i.e., setting the political agenda!”
What Do These Three Episodes Have in Common?
Besides illicit sex, which for sizable numbers of Americans is apparently no longer a sin, what do these three episodes have in common? They span the spectrum of
situations in which telling, or not telling, the truth plays a major role.
The first episode involves the potential commission of an act for which the chances are almost virtually certain that it will lead to the compromise or the eventual
distortion of the truth. The first episode thus involves a person being strongly pressured to do something for which she will undoubtedly later be greatly embarrassed.
It is also highly likely that the
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person doing the pressuring will also be embarrassed, and hence, will engage in a further distortion of the truth.
The second episode involves the case where a group of senior executives are actually deciding whether to do something that is almost guaranteed to turn into
something highly embarrassing both to them and to their institution. The third episode involves a situation where an individual has already committed an embarrassing
act, and furthermore, has already lied about it.
At some point in our lives all of us will face compromising situations. They most likely will involve not simply ”telling the truth” but “sticking up for
one’s basic values” under the most difficult and trying situations.
Although obviously very few of us will ever be top executives of a bank or a major institution, let alone President of the United States, at some point in our lives all of
us will face compromising situations. Although these situations will differ from the three opening episodes, they most likely will involve not simply “telling the truth” but
“sticking up for one’s basic values” under the most difficult and trying of situations. Even though the particular circumstances of each episode are different, each has the
potential to cause significant and longlasting damage to the individual’s personal reputation, to stain their character indelibly, as well as cause irreparable harm to their
institutions.
In the first episode the potential for selfdeception— in effect, lying to oneself—is especially high. This is particularly the case where one has convinced oneself that
“there are
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no other choices or alternatives that are available.” This is not only potentially true of the young woman’s boss, but even of the young woman herself. This is also the
case with the young woman’s colleagues, since the pressure to go along with the group, to be a “team player,” is always great, especially in times of financial distress.
In effect, the young woman is being pressured to lie to herself, and by doing so, to go directly against some of her most basic values. The situation is made even more
difficult by the fact that in general she likes her job, her colleagues, and even her boss. In addition, this was the very first time that she had ever been asked to do
something inappropriate.
It was only after repeatedly saying “No!” to her boss and being threatened with the loss of her job that she finally hit upon a viable course of action. She said that she
would produce the Web site, but only under one condition. Upon its completion, she would show the site to her boss’s daughter, his wife, and his mother. The boss’s
reaction was instantaneous. The contract was canceled immediately, and the whole incident was never mentioned again.
In the case of the bank, upon learning that the exact nature of the business was “legal” pornography (it did not involve the sexual exploitation of children or acts of
violence against women), one of the senior officers asked the central, and hence, damning question, “Do we want to be known as the Porn Bank? Surely not!” This
one question was enough to completely outweigh all of the projected profits. In effect, the consideration became as follows: “How does it profit a bank if it makes all
the money in the world but in the process loses its most precious thing, its venerable reputation and character? Similarly, what profit will the executives of the bank
have if in the process they lose their most prized and privileged possession as well? How much money does it take to sell one’s reputation and soul?”
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The third episode is potentially the most interesting as well as the most important of all. This is not merely because it involves the President of the United States—
although undeniably this is a strong factor—but rather because over the course of our lives, everyone is guaranteed to do at least one thing that if it were to come to
light, its revelation would cause severe humiliation, guilt, and shame.
There is also another consideration that makes the third episode or situation especially pertinent in today’s world. It shows how far we are from truly learning the
critical lessons of CM.
What Crisis Management Has to Teach
As I pointed out in Chapters One and Two, CM is the study of why humancaused crises occur, and what, if anything, can be done to prevent them, or keep them
from becoming worse once they have occurred. Unlike natural disasters, humancaused crises, such as Bhopal, Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez, Mad Cow Disease, or the
bribery scandals that have rocked the International Olympic Committee, do not need to happen. They are neither inevitable nor ordained.
In contrast with natural disasters over which we often have little control, humancaused crises result because of improper human actions or inactions. Thus, in principle,
they are preventable. For this very reason, the public is often rightly outraged when they occur. True, we can be outraged against Mother Nature for the occurrence of
an earthquake or a typhoon, but it is not the same kind of rage we feel when, say, contemplating the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the resulting
loss of seven lives.
Information technologies, such as email, television, and the news media, play a significant part in the occurrence of
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major crises, as well as in their subsequent management. Public exposure for socalled private behavior can create a megacrisis. However, information technologies
are also responsible for something far more significant.
Because of the explosive growth of information technologies and their intrusion into every nook and cranny of our lives, in effect, there are no secrets
anymore— none, period!
Modern information technologies have radically altered the basic nature of privacy and secrecy in modern societies. 2 As a result, they have rewritten one of the
fundamental, underlying rules of society. In a word, because of the explosive growth of information technologies and their intrusion into every nook and cranny of our
lives, in effect, there are no secrets anymore—none, period!
Technology in general, and television in particular, have altered our lives profoundly in ways we are just beginning to comprehend. 3 Technology has invaded the once
”backstage,” private lives of persons and institutions to such a degree that, for all practical purposes, everything is now “up front and personal” for all the world to see.
As a result, there are no secrets in the strict sense anymore because there are no hard, firm boundaries anymore between public and private acts or spaces.
For instance, consider the case of Rodney King, the motorist whose severe beating by the Los Angeles police was captured on tape and then subsequently played
over and over again on television worldwide. One of the most important aspects of this particular case has received virtually no attention: The widespread use of
camcorders by ordinary citizens
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Today, the world is so interconnected in space and time that any event around the globe can potentially affect other events in ways of which we are
only dimly aware.
has turned everyone into potential investigative reporters! The invention and distribution of camcorders has not only allowed people to record pictures of their personal
friends and families, but it has also allowed them to record events once open only to professional photographers, news reporters, or documentary film makers. Thus,
how the police once behaved ”backstage” in the relative comfort, security, and privacy (i.e., bounded, secluded space) of the station house, or on isolated streets, is
no longer exempt from widespread public scrutiny. Backstage events (private space) have now become frontstage revelations. Indeed, they are now the subject of
primetime news shows around the world.
Peter Schwartz, president of the Global Business Network, has pointed out that humanrights organizations are even distributing free video cameras to the citizens in
countries with poor records of humanrights violations so that they can film the incriminating acts by their governments and send them directly to CNN! 4
If an event is dramatic enough, then it can become news anywhere and at any time. In addition, events that happen anywhere can affect other seemingly unrelated
events anywhere in the world. Chernobyl is a perfect example. It took approximately two weeks for the nuclear cloud of radiation from Chernobyl to encircle the
globe and physically contaminate salmon off the coast of the state of Washington. However, it took less than half a day for the grain markets in Chicago to react
sharply to the catastrophe. If the breadbasket of the
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former Soviet Union was knocked out of commission for a hundred years due to the dangerous radiation released by Chernobyl, then the market for future grain
prices in Chicago was affected dramatically. The end result is that ”business time and space” are now free from the moorings of “physical time and space.”
Today, the world is so interconnected in space and time that any event around the globe can potentially affect other events in ways of which we are only dimly aware.
In light of this fundamental alteration of ordinary space and time, as well as the sheer uncertainty of knowing which improbable events out of thousands will connect to
affect our lives, organizations, and world, how do we manage institutions?
Some thirty years ago, Alvin Toffler astutely observed that we were suffering from “future shock,” a phrase he introduced into the language. 5 Essentially, future shock
is the growing inability to function normally because of the rapid speedup and highly stressful overload of events. What Toffler did not foresee, and is thus still unable to
explain even in his most recent book, Power Shift, is that future shock is itself being exacerbated by a complementary complicating force, which can be called
Boundary Shock. As a result, the effects on people that he foresaw are even more intense.
The point of all of this is that in today’s world, it is truly the height of folly to believe that what one says and does behind closed doors, or in private settings, will remain
there. The constant 24hoursaday, 365daysayear craving for news—everything everywhere is local news—has created a media monster whose appetite is
voracious. What every public figure says is potentially Page One news in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or Washington Post, or a
lead story on CNN or the “Six O’clock Action News.” It is the height of arrogance and foolishness to think otherwise.
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The Johari Window
There is a simple framework that is typically discussed in beginning college courses in group behavior. This framework is extremely helpful in understanding what is so
different about today’s world. After the first names of its inventors, Joe and Harry, it is known as the Johari Window (see Exhibit 41). 6
The Johari Window says in effect that it takes at least two people to know any one person fully. Look at the two rows in Exhibit 41. The ”Known” row indicates
what a person knows about himself or herself. The “Unknown” row indicates what a person does not know or is unaware of about himself or herself. Thus, the
“Unknown” row is meant to stand for all of those things that a person is ignorant about, not conscious of, or is unable to see from the vantage point of others.
Next, look at the two vertical columns in the exhibit. The “Known” column indicates what others directly know or can
Exhibit 41
The Johari Window
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find out about a person. On the other hand, the ”Unknown” column stands for what they do not know about a person or cannot easily find out, if at all.
Now consider the four cells of Exhibit 41. Cell 1 stands for the “Public Domain.” It represents all those things that you know about yourself and that others know
about you as well. It thus represents the case of public or shared information. Cell 2, on the other hand, represents what you know about yourself, but what others do
not know. It thus represents the “Hidden Domain.” Cell 3 represents all of those things that you, as well as others, do not know. It is rightly called the “Mysterious
Domain.” Finally, Cell 4 represents what others know about you, but what you do not know about yourself. It is thus aptly called the “Blind Domain.”
With the incessant rise of the tabloid media, its intrusion into every nook and cranny of our lives, the veritable explosion of exploitative talk shows where apparently
untold numbers of people are willing to shamelessly reveal their darkest secrets, the “hidden” domain has for all practical purposes vanished from modern life. That is
to say, the odds are almost one hundred percent that at some point in time the contents of the “hidden” domain will be exposed. If this weren’t bad enough, then the
constant blare of the media has also greatly increased the odds that the contents of the “mysterious” domain will be ruthlessly exposed as well. Thus, once again, for all
practical purposes, the “hidden” side of life has virtually disappeared. Public knowledge of the “mysterious” side has essentially increased to the point where virtually
anything of consequence can and will be known about us, especially those in public life.
This raises issues and concerns that have not been present to the same degree ever before in human history. It is now no longer a matter of whether the worst, the
darkest secrets, will
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It is now no longer a matter of whether the worst, the darkest secrets, will be found out and revealed about a person, but rather how soon and under
which circumstances, and finally, who will reveal them.
be found out and revealed about a person, but rather how soon and under which circumstances, and finally, who will reveal them. If this is indeed the new order of
things, then the question becomes, ”At the first hint that the worst will be exposed about you, how much, if anything, should you say or reveal about yourself?” Notice
that it is no longer a matter of whether you will tell the worst and the “whole truth” about yourself, but only when and under what circumstances you will tell freely or
be forced to tell.
What Ought One to Do?
The question whether one should reveal completely the deepest and darkest truths about oneself is not the kind of question that can be answered with a yes or no,
since these are not simple black or white issues. Nonetheless, one can still lay out the general kinds of considerations that everyone is well advised to take into account
in fashioning the kind of response that is best suited for the particular circumstances they face.
As an important way of shedding light on the issue of truth telling, I’m going to beg the readers’ indulgence and ask them to imagine Niccolo Machiavelli as a Crisis
Consultant for today’s “Princes” of business. I can hear Machiavelli saying:
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Machiavelli: Don’t you realize that the best way to gain the upper hand over your enemies is by controlling the worst about yourself, by releasing it on
your terms and thereby becoming ”saved again” in the eyes of the public? Don’t you realize that the thing that will confound your enemies the most, put
them completely off guard, is the very fact that you are willing to reveal the darkest, innermost secrets about your checkered past? Don’t you realize that
this is exactly the thing that they are most afraid to do about themselves?
By getting the worst out about yourself, you will have preempted them. You will have also issued a supreme challenge for them to do exactly the same. And
if one thing is true about humankind, it is that one does not wish to do anything that is risky or reckless. Therefore, dear Prince, I advise you to act as
boldly as possible. I urge you to do the exact opposite of the socalled best advice of your trusted advisors.
I know that what I am advising you now is the exact opposite of what I have counseled you to do in the past. Then, I advised you to gain power and to hold
it by whatever means possible. I urged you to act with deceit, cunning, and to employ lying. However, I now realize, and you must too, that these things no
longer work in today’s world. Now you must confound your enemies with frank and brutal honesty. Trust me. If you do, you will win by different means
that are adapted to the spirit of the age. Remember, dear Prince, what those who have not followed my advice have been forced to do:
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In the very end, they have been forced to admit and to say the very things that they said they would never do in the beginning, that is, come completely
clean! President Clinton! Need I say more?
In terms of Exhibit 42, the position that Machiavelli has been arguing is represented by Cell 2, or the ”Preemptive Strike” strategy. However, with a little reflection,
one can see that depending on the particular details of a situation, Machiavelli could easily argue for any of the strategies represented by the four cells of Exhibit 42.
For instance, Machiavelli could argue that if a powerful person knows the truth about someone, then sooner or later one will be “forced to tell the truth.” Nonetheless,
given the good corporate lawyer that he
Exibit 42
Telling the Truth
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is, Machiavelli would still argue, ”Don’t reveal/tell the truth about yourself until you are forced to do so. Anything else is extremely foolish.”
On the other hand, Machiavelli could also argue that even if someone powerful knows the unsavory truth about a person, deny or “stonewall it” as long as possible.
Finally, Machiavelli could even argue the position that as long as those in powerful positions don’t know the unsavory truth about a person, then one is well advised to
“play the odds” in denying the truth.
Depending upon the circumstances, it is possible to employ all of the strategies indicated in Exhibit 42. For instance, one could argue that as the Monica Lewinsky
scandal unfolded, President Clinton not only played out all of the strategies in the exhibit, but he shifted between them as the circumstances changed. In this particular
case, Machiavelli could even claim victory, because by playing the strategy outlined in Cell 4, the President in a very real sense ended up “winning.” It could even be
argued that President Clinton’s accusers ended up losing as much as, if not more than, he did. For this reason, Machiavelli could well contend that he or she who
forces another person to tell the unsavory truth had better be prepared to have “equally unsavory truths” revealed about himself or herself!
Since no single crisis advisor is ever likely to cover all the bases, I can also easily imagine three other important historic characters as prominent advisors: Sigmund
Freud, Mahatma Ghandi, and William James. Each of these characters captures different considerations in fashioning a response that is appropriate for each individual
and the details of their particular situation. At this particular point in the discussion, I can well imagine that our other three “crisis advisors” are no longer able to contain
themselves. Indeed, they would probably blurt out almost in unison something as follows:
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ALL: The thing that we find most detestable about your position, Machiavelli, is the unsavory ethical principle that underlies it. Since you rarely state it
yourself, we’re going to have to extract it ourselves. For instance, take Cell 2 of your Exhibit 42 as an illustration. Here is the ”grand ethical principle”
that underlies your position:
If and only if no one currently knows the “unsavory truth” about a person, but nonetheless there exists the strong possibility that at least one other person
will “know” it, then and only then ought one to tell the “complete and awful truth” about oneself!
They continue:
ALL: We are quite well aware that you don’t think much of ethics. The only ethics that you do think well of, if you think of it at all, are those notions that
are based on considerations of survival and power. But even on your very own terms, your position is precarious. You are advising someone to come clean
only because it will supposedly preempt one’s adversaries. By doing so, you ignore your own insights regarding the nature of what has changed precisely in
today’s world. You advise one to enact a preemptive strike when the chances are very high that the truth will be found out. But if this is the case, why then
wouldn’t people also ultimately find out the strategy that you have recommended, i.e., a “Preemptive Strike”? That is, if there are indeed few, if any,
precious secrets left in today’s world, then why should your own rea
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soning regarding what to do in a crisis situation be any less secret?
Isn’t your strategy like the Ford Pinto crisis? The executives involved never counted on the fact that their strategy of opting to pay the settlement costs of
those killed in a rearend collision due to the faulty design of the Pinto’s gas tank would be found out. They didn’t count on the fact that it would become
widespread public knowledge that Ford’s executives considered it cheaper to pay the insurance costs for the small percentage of lives that would be lost
rather than redesigning the car. When the public did find out, then this caused ”additional costs” that they had not counted on. In short, you are not
calculating the “full costs” of your own strategy.
Our three crises consultants continue:
ALL: Machiavelli, your recommendations are— you have admitted as much yourself—merely a new form of deception that amounts to deceiving people by
telling the truth! However, the fundamental flaw in this reasoning is this: What is to prevent the public from learning of this form of deception? How many
cycles of deception do you think you can engage in before you will be found out?
The worst thing about your strategy, Machiavelli, and why it will really not work, is that it will not stop the underlying dynamics that made a person
engage in embarrassing behavior in the first place. Above all, this is why your
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strategy really is doomed to fail. It fails to treat, and thereby to halt, the underlying disease. Indeed, it merely perpetuates it. In this sense, you are one of
the biggest coconspirators or enablers of dysfunctional processes around!
At this point, our three crisis consultants begin to diverge and to speak in their own separate voices.
Freud: Machiavelli, you are the one that is naive. You delude yourself, as many do, into believing that one can win merely by exercising conscious, rational
thinking, i.e., strategizing. You fail to understand that conscious, rational thinking is only the small tip of the huge iceberg that constitutes the full mind or
psyche. To put it differently, rational thinking is often at the ”complete mercy” of the strongest unconscious impulses. To put it in crude terms, President
Clinton didn’t get into trouble because of his brains, but rather, because of his lack of impulse control. I advise telling the truth because it is the only viable
means of healing a person’s psyche.
You fail to grasp an essential point about the psyche. There is always “another person” who “knows” the truth about a person. That “other person” is your
unconscious. If you block out completely the message of this internal voice, if you exhibit no guilt whatsoever with regard to your actions, then in effect
you are or have become a sociopath, for the only kind of person that can do this successfully is a sociopath. You fail to grasp the true meaning of ethics. To
be ethical is to do the “right things” and to tell
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the truth when no one is there to know what one has done except the inner voice of one’s conscience.
Ghandi: I advise telling the truth because it is the only means of healing one’s soul.
William James: Your trouble, Machiavelli, is that you substitute simpleminded tables and gimmicks for systemic, i.e., expansive thinking. You truly fail to
think ”outside of the boxes.”
Our three advisors are adamant and have become quite heated. They almost shout with one voice what they would have advised the President to have done from the
very beginning:
ALL: If we had been advising President Clinton, then early on we would have urged him to say something like the following:
I’m taking the unprecedented action of speaking to you tonight in order to admit that I have a problem. It’s akin to alcoholism. As a result, I have decided
to seek professional treatment while I am in office.
Like many senior executives with major corporations who are in treatment for their alcoholism, my problem does not affect my ability to perform my
duties effectively. I believe that by seeking treatment I can render one of the greatest legacies to the Presidency.
No longer can anyone who seeks or serves in
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this office do so without the constant scrutiny that comes with it. In saying this, I am not complaining about the situation. I am merely stating a fact.
Therefore, the question is no longer whether any of us is flawed, but whether we honestly acknowledge our flaws and are willing to work on them. I will not
discuss with the public the nature of the treatment I am seeking nor my progress on my problem. I leave it to the American people to judge whether they
are willing to have a person who is less than perfect serve them while he or she is willing to undergo treatment.
ALL: Of course, in the beginning, we would have had no sure way of knowing whether President Clinton was guilty of sexual misconduct. However, from
what we know of his past, 7 we wouldn’t be surprised if he were because it unfortunately fits the pattern of Adult Children of Alcoholics, or ACOAs.
ACOAs learn early in life to function in crisis situations because that is their daily reality. Even worse, they often only feel alive in crisis situations. When
life is running smoothly, they feel discomfort for they only know how to function in a crisis. As a result, they unconsciously have to create crises for
themselves. Why else would an otherwise intelligent and rational person jeopardize their high position? But that’s precisely the point! The inability to
control impulses is not solely a matter of rational thinking.
We have learned painfully in the business arena
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that if a person admits to alcoholism and is willing to seek serious treatment, then this is no longer cause for his or her dismissal. If one refuses to admit
one has a problem, or to seek treatment, then that is another issue.
Are we now willing to extend the same acceptance and understanding to those who hold the highest office in our land?
Notice carefully that the scenario we have outlined applies whether the President had been forced to resign from office or not. He could still cement his
place in history by leaving on a higher note of openness and honesty.
We proclaim as a nation that we constantly want leaders who are straight with us and have high character. But are we willing to accept that high
character does not mean one who is free from all defects, but instead has the strength to admit one’s defects?
William James: I have one more comment to make. It is meant to be perfectly outrageous. Are we finally willing to consider replacing the ”Office of the
Independent Prosecutor” with that of the “Office of the Independent Therapist?”
Closing Remarks
Although they certainly don’t call it by that name, the news media directly employ a variant of the Johari Window. One of the first questions that they invariably raise
with regard to any crisis is, “When did you know about the particular situation,
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and if you knew about it, why didn’t you do something about it then? And, if you didn’t know about it, why didn’t you?” Either way, one is in deep trouble.
“When did you know about the particular situation, and if you knew about it, why didn’t you do something about it then? And, if you didn’t know
about it, why didn’t you?”
The first and the second episodes at the beginning of this chapter illustrate another fundamental point with respect to all crises. In virtually every crisis situation, there is
always at least one other person internal to, or inside, an organization who “knows for sure” about what is going on far in advance of the external public. There is
always a “Linda Tripp” behind the scenes just waiting to gum up the works. It is not only parties external to an institution who will ultimately find out the truth, but they
will find out precisely because there are always internal confidants or disgruntled employees who know what is going on.
In the end, the sixtyfour trillion dollar question is, “We say we want honest leaders who can tell us the truth, but how much truth are we prepared to hear? How much
can we bear?”
As is so often the case, our best poets have a deeper understanding of the human condition than our best social scientists. In one of his most shrewd observations
about humankind the great poet T. S. Eliot observed: “Humankind cannot bear much reality.”
Human truths come in an incredible variety of shapes and forms. There are ugly truths, beautiful truths, trivial as well as important ones, comforting truths, and
disturbing truths as
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well. There are even, as modern physics has shown us, strange truths (black holes, chaos theory). The most important truths are those that are ethical and spiritual.
These are the ones that give us the strength to face the unpleasant and to change.
For this reason, Ghandi could well contend that the ”other person” who “knows” the truth about a person is not just that person’s inner conscious, or superego as
Freud put it; in a more profound sense, it is the “spiritual other” that is one of the deepest aspects of all human beings. 8 Indeed, it is precisely this “spiritual other” that
makes all of us human. In this regard, there is always an “other” who needs to be taken into account.
It is also important to note that Machiavelli represents the ethics of “survival”; as such, it is a minimalist ethics. That is, one should always do the “bare minimum and
nothing more.” On the other hand, in terms of ethics our other three advisors are “maximizers” in the sense that they are concerned with the greatest development of the
social, ethical, and spiritual sides of human beings and societies. 9 In addition, they also represent different points along the spectrum regarding whether or not to tell
the truth, and how much of the truth to tell. Indeed, they are of special interest for precisely this reason. In effect, they stake out various points along the spectrum.
It is also vitally important to note that even Freud does not and in fact never would advise one to completely shed all of one’s clothing in public. Freud recognizes
explicitly that it is not necessarily in the best interests of a person to tell every dark and revealing secret about one’s person. If anything, Freud calls for the cultivation of
a very special relationship between two people, the therapist and the person who is the object of therapy. This is done so that acting together they can discover the
truth about a person, and hence, discuss what indeed should be revealed to others.
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To Freud we also owe the insight that people will invent the most elaborate fictions, and concoct the most incredible stories, to convince themselves of the ”truth” of
their fictions. In this sense, the biggest delusion of all is that one can indeed “know” things about one’s self without any need of others. In other words, both “knowing”
and the “truth” are only obtained through community, and at the very least, through the cultivation of a deep friendship with at least one other person. “Knowledge” and
the “truth” are not the properties of a single mind in isolation and removed from others.
When, how much, and what kinds of truth does one tell?
After all is said and done, the point still stands that in today’s world, there are precious few secrets anymore. Thus, the primary question still remains: “When, how
much, and what kinds of truth does one tell?”
No matter what the crisis situation, I always advise my clients to tell as much of the truth about themselves as they are able and willing to tell. I next ask them to take
the additional step and tell a bit more, and a bit more, etc. Only after both of us are satisfied that they have indeed told “enough” of the truth to ensure that the crisis will
not be perpetuated any further can they finally stop. In short, how much “truth” do I tell my clients to reveal about themselves? More than they can stand to bear, but,
unfortunately, not what the world wants to hear and to gloat over!
Finally, this chapter has deliberately employed the device of using four historical figures as theoretical crisis advisors, since they explicitly meet one of the most
important needs of CM, i.e., the need for involving very different kinds of “voices.” Indeed, they can be considered as very different from the usual stakeholders that
are considered in most CM
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planning efforts. It is precisely the conversation and interplay between these different kinds of advisors that is the most needed, and unfortunately the element most
often missing, from current CM efforts.
Strategy List for Chapter Four
• Examine the situation thoroughly.
• Avoid selfdeception.
• Acknowledge responsibility for your product and actions.
• Realize that there are no secrets in the modern world.
• Use the Johari Window to analyze what you know about yourself and to help develop your potential.
• Realize that taking the initiative by telling the truth allows you to control who reveals the truth, in what circumstances, and when it is revealed.
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Chapter Five—
Assuming Responsibility:
Victim or Villain?
”Last week, in a private meeting with Jewish supporters, Senator Al D’Amato called his opponent, Representative Charles Schumer, a ‘putz head,’ which is a vulgar Yiddish insult.
When Schumer took umbrage, D’Amato offered this stateoftheart response:
“STEP 1: Feign ignorance. ‘I don’t know. I
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don’t remember. It certainly was not for any public, ehh . . . ‘
”STEP 2: Deny it happened. ‘I have no knowledge of ever doing it. I just don’t. I think it’s ridiculous . . . I would never, I have not engaged in that. I wouldn’t engage in it. I haven’t
done it. Why am I going to do it now?’
“STEP 3: O.K., O.K., admit it. Although just in a private letter. Which somehow gets in the hands of the media: ‘The Yiddish word I used to describe you at a private meeting means
‘full.’ ‘
“STEP 4: And even though you’ve completely ignored the common meaning of the word, pat yourself on the back for your courage. ‘I stand by my remark 100%.’
“STEP 5: Now quickly blame the victim for being insulted. ‘You are trying to twist that into a religious slur . . . I urge you to stop this transparent politically motivated attack.’
“STEP 6: Pray that with just a little more than a week to go until Election Day, the blunder isn’t fatal.”
“Campaign Textbook: How to Handle a Gaffe”
Time
1
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Chapter Four argued that effective CM is not a matter of following some mechanical formula or procedure. No framework for CM, no matter how comprehensive or
good it is, can substitute for character and creativity. In slightly different words, effective CM is the product or the multiple interaction with a comprehensive
framework and an organization’s character and its creativity.
This chapter thus continues the exploration of additional stakeholders, and their attributes, that are critical to consider for effective CM.
Victim versus Villain
In almost all humancaused crises, there are only two major outcomes. You will either be perceived as a victim or cast as a villain. Once you are labeled a villain, it is
extremely difficult, although not impossible, to shake the label. And even in the fortunate case where you are cast as a victim, it is still relatively easy to turn into a
villain.
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In almost all humancaused crises, there are only two major outcomes. You will either be perceived as a victim or cast as a villain.
All things ”being equal” (which is virtually never the case), most persons and organizations in crisis will tend over time to fall into the role of villain. It requires very little
effort to be perceived as a villain or the bad guy. Conversely, it requires a great deal of effort to be perceived as a victim or the good guy. And it requires continually
ongoing efforts to continue to be perceived as a victim.
Why do some people and organizations get tagged or naturally fall into the role of a victim, and why do others invariably get tagged as villains? Furthermore, once
tagged as villains, how do some people and organizations manage to shake the labels? And, how do some people and organizations that are tagged as victims manage
to maintain the roles? Clearly, the answer to the preceding questions cannot be, “Never do anything wrong!” for it is not in the nature of humans never to commit
errors.
The Differences between Victims and Villains
The essential definition of a victim is a person, or organization, to whom harm is done, whether intentionally or not. A victim can also be a person who, unintentionally
or unknowingly, causes harm to another. Further, a victim can also potentially be someone who causes harm to another person even though the victim did everything
humanly possible to prevent it.
Common parlance differentiates between “liars” and “damn liars.” By the same token, there are “villains” and
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”damn villains.” A villain is someone who knowingly causes, or allows, harm to another. Damn villains are those who knowingly cause harm to another and then deny
that they did it or act to evade assuming responsibility for their actions or inactions.
“Recovered” or “repentant” villains acknowledge forthrightly what they did, accept full responsibility for their actions, promise to correct the situation, promise never
to repeat it, and finally, ensure actions to enforce their promises. “Damningly damnable villains” engage repeatedly in stonewalling or denial, such that they compound
the original crisis, thereby setting off a chain reaction of additional crises in response to the initial one.
Guaranteed Ways to Become a “Damningly Damnable Villain”
There is no doubt that one of the most horrendous things about villains is not merely that they are full of denial, but that their denial takes the particularly odious form of
their acting like they were the real victims of a crisis. They not only fail to own up to their own behavior, but they act as though the real crisis is what has happened to
them.
So rare is the act of owning up that when it happens from time to time we are truly shocked. In responding to the (substantiated) charges that Chrysler falsely reset
odometers on its cars, Lee Iacocca’s response was a model of brevity. He said: “It happened; it shouldn’t have happened; it won’t happen again.” Notice carefully that
Iacocca broke the inevitable and vicious pattern that often results when one denies responsibility. He broke it by forthrightly assuming responsibility for what
happened. He thus prevented the initial crisis from turning into a chain reaction of further crises. If one does not assume responsibility right from the very beginning,
then a
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chain reaction is virtually guaranteed. It is not necessarily the initial crisis that gets one into trouble, but it is the chain reactions of further crises that result from the
deepening of a mess.
Dumb Arguments:
USAir
Those who are thrust into the role of a villain invariably use convoluted, dubious, ”dumb” arguments, or “clever halftruths,” to deflect criticism and to deny their
responsibility. For instance, when USAir experienced five crashes in five years, USAir’s CEO, Seth Schofield, said that each crash was completely independent of the
others. In other words, there was no pattern of statistical association among the five crashes. To underscore his belief in the safety of USAir, Schofield said that he
would have no hesitation whatsoever in having his family fly on the airline. Whereas his statement was obviously meant to assuage the fears of the public, it could well
have produced the exact opposite result. Offering to fly his family was obviously meant as a gesture to reassure the public, but it very well could have communicated
just the opposite, i.e., that he was foolhardy and willing to risk the lives of his loved ones!
The basic premise that underlies Schofield’s argument is truly incredible, since it assumes that everyone is a “rational statistician.” One should confront the statistic of
five crashes in five years by accepting the “fact” or the “premise” that each of them is statistically independent of one another; that is, none of the crashes have anything
whatsoever to do with one another. Such arguments not only fail to react to the deepfelt anxieties of humans, but they actually perpetuate them.
One of the most basic lessons of CM is that one should never—repeat never!—give technical explanations or imper
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One should never—repeat never!—give technical explanations or impersonal statistics to assuage the fears of consumers.
sonal statistics to assuage the fears of consumers. Technical information is more likely than not to be perceived as gobbledygook, a sure sign that one is engaged in
hiding the truth, and indeed has truth to hide. Thus it serves only to further the crisis.
One of the most interesting aspects of the USAir crashes was an investigative analysis by a New York Times reporter. First of all, his report shows that once again
there are no secrets in today’s world. As any good investigator would do, he dug in and interviewed a number of people in the USAir system. What he found was so
revealing and shocking that it made the front page of the newspaper. 2
Like so many of today’s organizations, USAir was the result of mergers among several airlines. One of the worst outcomes of a merger is unfortunately something that
is rarely scrutinized. It is well known that different organizations tend to have very different ”safety cultures.” Merging such cultures is not easy, for they often think
quite differently about safety and have quite different safety standards. For instance, while in theory all organizations are supposed to meet the minimum standards set
by the FAA, organizations differ considerably in the amount that they exceed the minimum standard.
An important factor in the creation of USAir through mergers is that it occurred in the first place because of the desire to cut costs. One of the most frightening aspects
of many corporate mergers is that safety is often one of the very first things that is seriously cut or compromised. While this
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does not and need not happen in every case, it happens enough that the public has good reason to be worried.
The New York Times article argued that whether the crashes were independent of one another was really beside the point. For instance, one thing was certainly
common to all of the crashes: USAir’s management system. It surfaced that on numerous occasions, USAir flights were forced to request emergency landings because
the airplanes were flying without enough fuel. This is very disturbing since one of the very first items on the preflight safety checklist is whether there is enough fuel
aboard a plane. And in fact, on numerous occasions, USAir pilots lied about why they were requesting emergency landing.
The investigative reporter found that there was indeed a ”common pattern” across all of the accidents. In effect, a “safety culture” had become a “crisisprone culture.”
Flawed Reasoning:
Intel
Intel’s . . . failure was to respond to people as human beings who needed “emotional reassurance” that their trust could be placed in a particular
product.
Some of the same kinds of errors—i.e., flawed reasoning—were committed by Intel when it was faced with a flaw in its computer chips. Instead of replacing all chips
without questions asked, Intel put the burden on its customers to prove to Intel’s satisfaction that a customer’s application was “critical enough” to warrant
replacement. The unstated assumption by Intel’s top management was that “everyone is an engineer” or
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”thinks like an engineer.” That is, in terms of the ways in which engineers think, no “rational person” would want a replacement if one was not “rationally warranted.”
Once again, the failure was to respond to people as human beings who needed “emotional assurance” that their trust could be placed in a particular product. Of
course, one can argue that running a computer application is not as dangerous as flying in a plane. However, it ignores the fact that computers are used in highly critical
situations, such as by hospitals or air traffic controllers. In this sense, flaws in a computer application can indeed have dangerous consequences.
Another Lesson Learned from USAir and Intel
The cases of USAir and Intel illustrate another important lesson, one that was stressed in the last chapter: One almost invariably ends up doing later—as a crisis
unfolds and becomes much worse—the very thing one stated one would never do in the beginning of the crisis. For instance, in the case of USAir, it later hired an
outside crisis and safety consultant to inspect the safety requirements of the total USAir system. In Intel’s case, it later made an unconditional offer to replace all chips,
no questions asked. However, by then, the number of chips that it had to replace potentially was much greater than if it had made the offer initially without any
constraints. Thus, while I cannot prove that in all cases one will be forced to do what one has refused to do in the beginning, there is a clear trend. The burden, in other
words, is on the person and the organization to prove that it will not be forced to do later what it has refused to do in the very beginning.
While telling the truth may be damaging and hurtful to one’s character and reputation, it is often one of the very few strategies open to someone in the heat of a major
crisis. While
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it cannot be guaranteed that such a strategy will always win in the court of public opinion, it is often the only viable option.
Continued denial will ensure that one will lose in the court of public opinion, and hence, become and remain a villain.
One thing above all is clear. Continued denial will ensure that one will lose in the court of public opinion, and hence, become and remain a villain. One always needs
to bear in mind that there are multiple courts in which one is being tried. First, there is the court of law. Second, there is the court of public opinion. Third, there is the
stock market and other societal institutions. While lawyers may prevail in helping one survive the legal system—and even this is not guaranteed—the pursuit of legal
strategies alone is likely to doom one to fail in the wider court of public opinion.
Vigorous Denial:
ValuJet
The alltime worst example of villainy may well be that of Lewis Jordan, president of the illfated and by now defunct airline ValuJet. From the very beginning of the
crash of a ValuJet airliner in the Florida Everglades, Jordan denied vigorously that any aspects of ValuJet’s operations were defective. As a result, Jordan literally set
himself up by waving the proverbial ”red flag” for everyone to investigate thoroughly whether his contentions were true. Instead of admitting problems from the very
beginning, he repeatedly claimed that his airline was free from defects.
The case of ValuJet is worth examining in detail. As ValuJet’s crisis unfolded over months, I scrutinized every aspect
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of the extensive TV and print coverage to which I could gain access.
One of the most illuminating, and damaging, aspects of the case is contained in one of Jordan’s very first interviews immediately after the crash on the Larry King
show. At one point, King asked Jordan how he and his airline were responding to all the intense scrutiny by the media of ValuJet. In responding to King, Jordan
committed a classic Freudian slip. He said: ”Well, after all, it [intense media scrutiny] comes with the territory. We’re in a business where we take [italics mine] the
lives of people.” He obviously meant to say, “We safeguard the lives of people given to us in trust.”
A few minutes later, Jordan committed another Freudian slip. In response to a question by King asking him how competitive ValuJet’s wages were and how profitable
ValuJet was in the industry, Jordan said: “We pay the lowest wages.” Once again, it is clear from the general context that he obviously meant to say we have the
“lowest prices” of any airline in the industry.
These slips, of course, stand in marked contrast to Jordan’s earlier claims with regard to the safety of ValuJet. When it was later confirmed that ValuJet farmed its
maintenance out to the lowest bidders, Jordan lost what little remaining credibility he still possessed.
One of the saddest and most tawdry aspects of the ValuJet crisis occurred a few months after the crash. CNN filmed a meeting between ValuJet’s top officers and its
employees. In one scene, ValuJet’s chief corporate counsel reacted angrily to the media because it had portrayed ValuJet as the villain. He is seen proclaiming in front
of his employees that they were “the true victims of the situation.”
Proclaiming that ValuJet was the victim was not only disingenuous, but morally outrageous. How could the airline
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claim to be the victim instead of the 110 persons who died in the Florida Everglades under the worst of conditions?
What happened on the Larry King Show was not an isolated incident. On more than one occasion, Ted Koppel of ABC’s Nightline pressed Jordan repeatedly as to
whether there were any aspects of ValuJet’s operations that were not up to par, and might even be at fault. In every case, Jordan denied any culpability. From a legal
standpoint, one can understand Jordan’s denial. Nonetheless, even if he won in the court of legal opinion, he more than lost in the court of public opinion. Indeed, the
airline finally lost in the biggest court of public opinion, the stock market, when it was forced to declare bankruptcy.
Ignoring the Human Side:
Intel
Because the case of Intel is important, it is also important to review it in a bit more detail. Intel, the manufacturer of Pentium chips, was forced, after first staunchly
refusing, to recall all of its chips when they were discovered to contain a flaw that affected complex division problems.
The flaw was first discovered by an obscure mathematician. He was performing esoteric calculations with prime numbers (numbers that are divisible only by 1 or
themselves, for example, 1, 3, 5, 7, and so on). The area of mathematics in which he was working necessitated performing billions of computations on tendigit
numbers. Intel claimed that the errors associated with its chips were extremely rare. They would show up only in every few billion calculations. But since the professor
was performing billions of calculations, he was in a perfect position to discover the problem. The error later turned out to be more common than Intel first admitted.
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The professor alerted Intel, and after receiving an unsatisfactory response, he went public. He used the Internet to alert others and to inquire whether they experienced
the flaw as well. The Internet was soon abuzz as others quickly discovered the error as well.
Intel refused to recall its chips even though customers were complaining strongly. In effect, Intel put the burden on its customers to prove that their applications were
critical enough to warrant a replacement chip. What a clever marketing and public relations (PR) ploy! What better way to quickly alienate one’s customers.
The situation quickly escalated in to a crisis when IBM, which used Pentium chips in its personal computers, announced that it would no longer utilize Intel’s chips.
Only after the howls of protest from consumers reached a crescendo did the company finally agree to replace all chips, no questions asked. By then, Intel had created
a PR nightmare for itself.
The Intel case is a model for how not to manage a crisis.
This case is a model for how not to manage a crisis. First, it is never advisable to alienate one’s customers. As obvious as this seems to be, it was not obvious to the
engineering culture that drives Intel. To Intel’s engineers, the customers were ”reacting emotionally,” and hence, “irrationally.” Intel’s engineers reasoned as follows: “If a
customer’s application wasn’t critical enough to warrant a replacement, why then would he or she rationally want one?” By eschewing emotions, Intel’s engineers
were unable to understand the reactions of its customers.
Intel defined its problems in purely technical terms, as a computer applications problem. It did not define it in human
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terms: Users had fears and anxieties that needed explicit acknowledgment and attention. Without this attention, one of the most vital links in the chain between the
manufacturer and its customers—trust—was broken. As a result, Intel committed one of the most basic errors associated with problem solving: solving the wrong
problem precisely! 3 It defined its problem primarily as a technical one when it was in fact both a technical and a human one.
Saddest of all, this story shows that Intel, one of the companies most responsible for thrusting us into the Systems Age, doesn’t really understand systems. In this
sense, it certainly does not understand the ”systems factor” that is one of the components of the CM framework that we introduced in Chapter Three.
No matter how complex they are, systems are not composed of technologies alone. Instead, systems are the interactions among organizations, people,
and technologies.
I cannot emphasize enough that no matter how complex they are, systems are not composed of technologies alone. Instead, systems are the interactions among
organizations, people, and technologies. While technologies may be rational—and even this is assuming a great deal—organizations and people are certainly not
completely rational.
In sum, Intel defined its initial problem using too narrow a set of disciplines—in this case primarily only engineering and technology. The inevitable consequence was
that the problem quickly turned to a major crisis, which ended up costing the company half a billion dollars, much more than it would have if Intel had initially offered to
replace all its chips with no questions asked.
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Should One Always Admit Responsibility?
The moral of this and the preceding chapter is not that every individual and organization should admit responsibility and disclose the worst about itself whenever it is
challenged. It does mean that if one chooses not to admit or not to tell the complete truth with regard to a specific charge, then one better have a very, very strong
case to justify and to support one’s position. If one indeed has ”all the facts” to back up that what one did was the correct thing to do, or, if one can clearly prove that
one is not guilty of the charges at hand, then obviously no one is asking that an individual or an organization roll over and play patsy. Such a recommendation is
patently absurd! However, if there is any truth whatsoever to the charges, then I unequivocally advise the individual or organization to admit their culpability, put the
crisis behind them, and get on with business.
In spite of this, no one can guarantee that coming “absolutely clean” will stop a crisis dead in its tracks. Nonetheless, I believe that the public is far more forgiving of
someone who forthrightly admits his or her guilt and promises sincerely to correct it, and most of all, who follows through on those promises, than of one who
continues to engage in evasion or denial. The case of Richard Nixon is testimony to what happens when one does not come clean, and indeed, engages in distortion
and worsening denial.
Can the Media Cover Its Own Crises?
To show how complicated and muddied the waters are, consider the following case. One of the most ironic aspects of tell
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ing the truth involves the news media, the very institution that ”sticks it” to others when they don’t follow its advice.
A few years ago, NBC was accused of staging tests that overrepresented the danger of GM trucks exploding upon being hit from the side. In the early days of crisis
management, PR firms counseled organizations not to be antagonistic in their dealings with the media. Crisis experts advised organizations to send their top executives
through media training so they could respond to tough questions under fire and not lose their cool. We urged them to be straight and candid with the media. We
counseled them that “no comment” was a strict nono and tantamount to an admission of guilt. We advised them that if they didn’t know the answer to a particular
question, they should get back to the appropriate person or persons when they did, such as Johnson & Johnson did in the Tylenol tamperings. Above all, we
cautioned them again and again, “Don’t be defensive; don’t get mad or angry; it will only hurt you even more.”
I am not so sure any longer whether this advice holds in its entirety, even though I have stated strongly that one should err on the side of coming clean. Ever since the
NBC fiasco, I’ve observed that more and more organizations and top executives are not only beginning to fight back, but if they feel that they have good reason to
believe that they have not done anything that would qualify as a crisis, then their attitude is that “they are not going to take it anymore.” In short, they are not only willing
to fight back, but in the direct words of one top executive with whom I spoke, “Every time the media calls, I view it as a declaration of war.” Such sentiments are an
expression of more than the perhaps natural hostility that organizations that have committed an impropriety typically feel towards the media. Something else is at work.
In the past, most organizations basically feared the media. They believed, correctly or not, that the media could
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make or break any organization at will, whether it was right or wrong. Indeed, whether one was ”right” didn’t really matter. Little wonder that organizations were
naturally suspicious of and even hostile towards the media.
However, NBC’s admission that it staged explosions with regard to GM trucks makes it a very different ball game, especially when the “truth” had to be dragged out
of NBC. Organizations have always felt to a certain extent that “the media will distort and lie in order to sell papers or TV programs.” Now, however, they feel that
they have “real proof.”
In the end, the power of all institutions rests not only on fear but on moral authority as well. When both of these qualities are lost, then no institution can command
attention or respect.
For years, the media have successfully obliterated the lines between sports, news, and entertainment. 4 That is, they have blurred the line between “reality” and
“fiction.” As a result, they cannot retreat to the position that the NBC fiasco was merely an isolated episode of embellishing or “stretching the truth.”
The true significance of the NBC flap is that it is a clear early warning signal that the media, which revel in covering the crises of others, have a significant one of their
own brewing. One cannot perpetually cross over the line between reality and recreations of it and continue to believe that it will have no serious repercussions. 5 One
cannot distort or manufacture reality at will. If the media want to continue to remain the “objective” watchdog of society, they must cover their own crises with the
same vigor that they cover those of others.
In short, isn’t it time for the news media to learn the very same lessons that they have forced on others: In today’s world, there are no secrets?
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• Strategy List for Chapter Five
• Assume responsibility for your actions or inactions.
• Do not act like the ”real victim” of the crisis.
• Do not try to hide behind halftruths or dubious arguments.
• Never give technical explanations to assuage the fears of customers.
• Respond to the emotional reactions of the victims.
• Don’t assume that the public will use the same logic as your organization.
• Avoid alienating the victims, customers, or stockholders.
• Recognize that telling the truth may not stop a crisis from developing.
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Chapter Six—
Detecting Weak Signals:
Making Sure That You Are the First to Get the Worst News!
”Failure does not strike like a bolt from the blue; it develops gradually according to its own logic. [C]omplicated situations seem to elicit habits of thought that set failure in
motion from the beginning. From that point, the continuing complexity of the task and the growing apprehension of failure encourage methods of deci
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sion making that make failure even more likely and then inevitable.
We can learn, however. People court failure in predictable ways . . .”
Dietrich Dörner, The Logic of Failure
1
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In the last chapter, I argued that assuming responsibility is not solely or merely a matter of telling the truth, acknowledging the consequences of one’s actions or
inactions, or saying that one is sorry. As important as these are, effective crisis management is much more a matter of putting the appropriate mechanisms in place
prior to a crisis that will help reduce the chances of a crisis and managing it more effectively once one has occurred.
Once again, it is instructive to consider Machiavelli as a prominent crises advisor. I can well imagine his stating the thesis of this chapter as follows:
Machiavelli: Dear Prince, you are extremely well advised to listen closely to all of the signals, however faint, of impending bad news. They are your only
first line of defense. You need to constantly scan your kingdom for signals of bad things that are about to happen, whether they are of your doing or
someone else’s. This is the only chance you have to gain advantage.
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Therefore, set up throughout your kingdom ears and eyes that can pick up the weakest signals before they are apparent to your enemies. Furthermore, you
must have couriers transmit on a steady basis the results of these ears and eyes to a central location in your palace so that you can see what patterns, if
any, are emerging from the haze. I advise you to err on the side of acting on bad news, i.e., admitting that you may have been responsible for a bad
situation instead of stonewalling it. Therefore, my lesson is to pick up bad news before others do, admit your responsibility as soon as possible, and
undertake those actions to correct the situation.
The Importance of Signals
Prior to their actual occurrence, all crises send out a repeated train of early warning signals. If these signals can be picked up, amplified, and acted upon, then many
crises can be averted before they happen. True, in many cases, the signals are weak and filled with noise. Nonetheless, it usually turns out that there is at least one
person in every organization who knows about an impending crisis. The problem is that those who often know most about it are the ones who have the least power to
bring it to the attention of the organization.
The Space Shuttle Challenger
One of the most important examples of signal detection pertains to the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger with the resulting loss of seven lives. The
Presidential Com
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mission Report into the causes of the accident found in no uncertain terms that the technical cause was the faulty Oring design. However, even more serious was a
faulty organization that prevented those who had serious doubts about the adequacy of the design from being heard. In effect, their voices and concerns were
prevented from getting to the top of the organization. The case of the space shuttle thus shows that it is one thing to have ”weak signals.” It is quite another to have
them blocked by an organization. It is for good reason that organizations that deliberately block signals deserve the label “crisis prone.”
The case of the space shuttle Challenger is a tragic example. The Appendix to the Presidential Commission Report contains an “audit” of a string of memos that failed
to make it from the bowels of the organization to the top. One of the most revealing memos begins with the painful cry “Help!” In no uncertain terms, the memo says
that if the space shuttle continues to fly with the current design, then a disaster is virtually guaranteed to happen. The Presidential Commission Report shows all too
well how an organization that exercises power and creativity in blocking bad news, rather than in attending to it, is guaranteed to produce a disaster. This is one of the
saddest cases I know of, where an organization had clear signals of bad news and then deliberately chose to block
them.
Ignoring the Warnings
Consider another case: My colleagues and I had occasion to audit a power utility that served extreme northern settlements. It was literally the case that if the electric
power failed to these communities, they only had twentyfour to thirtysix hours before their inhabitants would freeze to death. In performing a crisis audit of the utility,
it turned out that those most likely to find potential flaws in the electrical generators
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The Challenger disaster is one of the saddest cases I know of, where an organization had clear signals of bad news and then deliberately chose to block
them.
that served the communities were maintenance workers. At the end of each shift, these workers filled out a log. In theory, the logs were then read by the workers’
supervisors. However, in practice, the logs were almost never scrutinized. In exploring this situation, we found that maintenance operators had the lowest status of any
person in the organization. As a result, their warnings were not taken seriously.
What is so sad and tragic about this particular situation is that it illustrates precisely the essential differences between natural and humancaused disasters. The status of
maintenance operators is conferred by humans. It is not dictated by Mother Nature. The roles, functions, and jobs in organizations are the result of human decisions,
not God’s.
This story also illustrates another important point. People are not stupid. They do exactly what they are rewarded for, and as a result, they know exactly what is
rewarded. Organizations thus get exactly the behavior they reward. If something is relatively unimportant or regarded as such, then people don’t take it very seriously.
The case of the utility has another unsavory aspect that adds to the potential tragedy. Linemen had the highest prestige of anyone in the organization. In climbing poles
to repair lines, they almost always chose not to wear safety equipment. In fact, the job of a lineman typically attracted people who couldn’t wait to take risks. Part of
the ”thrill” of the job was to see how much one could get away with by not wearing nec
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essary safety equipment. In effect, being ”crisis prone” was an unstated job requirement. Little wonder that maintenance operators were not perceived in the same
light. They were not macho enough!
A typical objection that my colleagues and I have encountered repeatedly is a rationalization, which, like all particular rationalizations, contains a grain of truth. This
rationalization, another example of cultural denial we discussed in Chapter Three, is the contention that all organizations contain so many signals that it would be
impossible to attend to every one of them. Thus, if one attended to such signals, one would need to attend to them all of the time, and this would inevitably crowd out
the necessary work that needs to get done.
Whatever truth this rationalization contains, it obscures a basic point. Whenever it is in our direct interest, we humans can search out and magnify the most insignificant
of signals.
For instance, consider the following. Most humans are naturally intensely interested in finding life on other planets. The verification that such life exists, especially
higherorder, intelligent life, as well as successful contact with it, would be one of the most eventful moments in human history. As a result, huge electronic telescopes
have been set up in conjunction with complex computers to constantly monitor signals from outer space. The computers work by noticing the most minute signals that
deviate from “normal background noise,” which is always present in the sky. To do this necessitates monitoring, as well as noticing, minute “blips” in literally millions of
signals. The point is that humans can pick up the most minute signals when it is in their interest, whether to satisfy curiosity, imagination, or security needs.
The Case of a Major Insurance Company
Dr. Judy Clair, who teaches at Boston College, did her Ph.D. dissertation (under my supervision) on “signal detection in a
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large insurance company.” The particular insurance company did a significant amount of work involving government Medicaid payments. Literally billions of dollars
flowed through its operations annually. Given the presence of such large amounts of money, the temptation to commit fraud was always extremely high. Indeed, the top
executives of the company made the reasonable assumption that if they had not recently encountered a fraud scheme, then it was not because it wasn’t happening. It
was only because they hadn’t picked up on the latest scam. As a result, picking up signals of potential fraud schemes ranked high in the organization.
As a result of her research, Dr. Clair found a number of important things with regard to signals in organizations. While many of them are perhaps obvious, they are all
important nonetheless. Indeed, their obviousness may prevent us from realizing their true importance.
The first point about signal detection is that to detect a signal, one needs to have detectors. As obvious as this may be, it is apparently not obvious enough, since most
organizations do not have signal detectors.
The best way to think about detectors is in terms of a radio. If a radio is tuned to one and only one frequency, then it obviously only picks up signals that are broadcast
on exactly that frequency. It does not pick up programs broadcast on other frequencies.
The point is that different types of crises send out very different types of signals. For this reason, every organization has to ask itself the following: “What would count
as a signal of the impending or near occurrence of a particular type of crisis?” For instance, a pattern of slow, but noticeable, increases in the accident rate at an oil
refinery may be a potential signal of an impending serious accident, such as an oil spill, fire, or explosion. Or, increasing amounts of graffiti
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scribbled on the walls of toilets and an increase in the number of sick jokes that are passed around an organization may be signals of impending employee unrest and
sabotage. Once again, the point is that different crises have different kinds of signals associated with them. We would not expect signals that are signs of product
tampering to be the same as signals of the breakdown of critical equipment, although the two can be related.
Different types of crises send out very different types of signals. Every organization has to ask itself: ”What would count as a signal of the impending
or near occurrence of a particular type of crisis?
The Dimensions of Signals
Signals can be differentiated along two dimensions. The first dimension pertains to the source of a signal. The second pertains to the kind of signal.
With regard to the first dimension, signals of impending trouble can originate from either inside or outside an organization. With regard to the second dimension, signals
can be either technical (they are recorded by remote sensing devices), or noticed by people. In general, all four kinds of signals apply to every organization. Thus:
1. Internal technical signals
2. Internal people signals
3. External technical signals
4. External people signals
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Internal technical signals are those that are recorded by technical monitoring devices, such as monitoring hazardous operations, possibly in remote locations. External
technical signals can be recorded by community monitoring signals, such as environmental activist groups, in the immediate area surrounding a manufacturing plant.
Internal people signals often come from the people working inside of a plant, such as the maintenance operators in the utility discussed earlier. External people signals
often come from people living in the immediate vicinity surrounding a plant, who, for example, may literally ”smell” that something is wrong.
Dr. Clair naturally found that if an organization doesn’t have any kind of signal detector, then the probability of picking up a signal is virtually nil.
The Intensity Threshhold
Signals go off all the time in organizations, but because there is no one there to recognize them, record them, or attend to them, then for all practical
reasons the signals are “not heard.”
The second stage in the “signal detection chain” is that once a signal is picked up, it must cross an “intensity threshold” in order to be recognized as such. In other
words, every signal detector must be “calibrated.” It must be set up to observe what is clearly in the “danger” or “potential danger” region. This means that criteria must
be specified such that if the criteria are exceeded, then an alarm must go off.
Once an alarm is sounded, then it must be heard by the right person, organization, or instrument. As trivial as this
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sounds, it is anything but trivial, especially in complex organizations. Signals go off all the time in organizations, but because there is no one there to recognize them,
record them, or attend to them, then for all practical reasons the signals are ”not heard.”
What Can Happen
A few years ago, on an extremely hot day, a brownout occurred in New York City due to an overload on the city’s power system, ConEd. Because AT&T is
dependent upon ConEd to provide the power to run its electronic communication systems, AT&T experienced a breakdown.
Two of AT&T’s systems that depend on ConEd are extremely critical because they provide the information for the air traffic control systems for La Guardia and
Kennedy airports. When the brownout occurred, the power to AT&T’s system dropped. A backup generator automatically kicked in. As is so often the case with
complex systems, however, the generator failed. Fortunately, there was a backup to the backup in the form of a battery with a sixhour lifetime.
As soon as the battery kicked in, an alarm sounded to alert a human operator to monitor the life of the battery. Before six hours elapsed, the battery had to be
replaced. Unfortunately, in this particular case no human operators were available to hear the alarm. By the time someone did hear it, six and onehalf hours had
elapsed. By then airplanes were circling dangerously in the air because the computer systems to bring them down safely were not functioning.
The irony of this whole situation is that the operators were not available to hear the alarm because they were attending a class on a new backup system!
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Signal Transmission
Returning to Dr. Clair’s research on signal detection, once a signal is heard, it has to be transmitted to the right people, as well as in the right form, so that people can
take action. Unfortunately, if a signal does not relate to any of the daily, standard operating procedures of an organization, then even though it may be loud enough to
be observed by many people, they may not know what to do about it. If it falls outside of the repertoire of known or expected behaviors, then people are at a loss
what to do. For this reason, an important aspect of signal detection is the specification as to what potential problem a signal might relate, and further, if a signal is
noted, what is to be done about it.
Next, according to Dr. Clair, even if a signal relates to a known problem in an organization, there must still be a clear reporting sequence. If one picks up a signal, but
it is not known to whom one should send it, or, if the signal is sent but those to whom it is sent don’t know what to do about it, then once again the signal will be
ineffective.
Finally, it is not enough to pick up individual signals in isolation from one another. For instance, in many plants, one part of the operation may have a signal of a
potential problem, and another may have another signal pertaining to another aspect of the problem. However, if these two signals are not sent to a central location
point such that they can be pieced together into a larger whole, then the potential crisis may go undetected. In effect, one will not be able to see the ”whole elephant”
to which the separate signals pertain. In complex organizations, separate individual signals, no matter how loud, may not be sufficient to connote a problem. If in effect
the signals “don’t connect the dots,” then we cannot and do not see a “problem.”
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In complex organizations, separate individual signals, no matter how loud, may not be sufficient to connote a problem. If in effect the signals ”don’t
connect the dots,” then we cannot and do not see a “problem.”
As we mentioned in an earlier chapter, almost invariably there is at least one other person in every organization who “smells that something is rotten.” Consider the
cases of Barron’s Bank and the bankruptcy of Orange County. In the case of Orange County, not only was the county’s Treasurer, Robert L. Citron, implicated in the
scandal, but also highlevel officials from Merrill Lynch were implicated as well. Given the large numbers of persons who were involved in recommending and making
risky investments for the county, it is inconceivable that no one at all knew in advance of the financial crisis that something was terribly wrong with Orange County’s
investments.
In the case of Barron’s Bank, it is also inconceivable that a lone individual, a twentyeightyearold bank officer, could bring down a venerable institution with a 128
year history.
In both cases, Orange County and Barron’s Bank, highrisk investments were being made with very little independent oversight. It strains the imagination to assume
that no one knew what was occurring. In the case of Barron’s Bank, it is almost as if the system was designed from the very beginning to hide signals. The young bank
officer involved in making risky trades was both the executor of his activities as well as his own supervisor! Putting operational responsibility and oversight into a single
job is thus almost a surefire prescription for disaster.
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The case of Barron’s Bank is also interesting for an additional reason. It shows how virtually all crises are linked to one another. In the case of Barron’s Bank, the
investments were made in Japan. They went sour when a major crisis, the Kobe earthquake, caused many of the investments to be called due. It thus showed not only
how one type of disaster—a natural one—can affect another humancaused crisis, but that all disasters have human implications. At some point, all natural disasters
involve human response systems. If those systems are poor, then they can contribute to a chain reaction of additional humancaused crises.
Strategy List for Chapter Six
• Do not deliberately block signals that would alert you to an impending crisis.
• Do not ignore warnings.
• Keep lines of communication open.
• Make sure you utilize signal detection mechanisms that are already in place.
• Reward signal detection and emphasize safety.
• Make sure your detection mechanisms search for signals from all seven types of crises listed in Chapter Three.
• Make sure your mechanisms are directed internally and externally, attuned to both technical and people signals.
• Make sure there is someone who is watching over these signals and who is ready to sound an alarm if necessary.
• Create a clear reporting sequence so that people know what to do in the event of a crisis.
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