Prepare properly for public platforms
Leaders lay their reputations on the line every time they get up on a public platform to speak, especially if it is to the media. Many a CEO has had their reputation shattered because they have not taken sufficient care over what they say in public. All of the leaders I interviewed spoke of the dangers of media interviews, but all recognized that these are a crucial part of the role.
The more senior a leader gets, they say, the wider the number of audiences they will need to communicate with, and the more they will need training to develop the right skill sets. Not only will they need to be taught the skills, but they will then have to learn to give sufficient time to rehearsing before each public appearance.
Imagine the following scenario. Our fictional leader is enjoying huge success, his share price is rising, a new and innovative product is in huge demand, and he is about to make a key speech to an influential audience, with media in attendance. He is feeling confident. But confidence quickly tips over into overconfidence, and the leader feels able to make jokes and give spontaneous views on a wide variety of subjects.
I have witnessed this scenario so many times. The danger is that it is in those moments that one thoughtless comment can result in catastrophe.
It has happened. Ask Gerald Ratner. Mr Ratner is a British businessman who was formerly chief executive of the British jewellery company Ratners Group. Jewellery in Mr Ratner’s stores was cheap and very popular. Giving a speech at the Institute of Directors in 1991, he commented that his products were ‘crap’ and that some of his earrings were ‘cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich, but probably wouldn’t last as long’. His comments were widely reported in the media. After this, the value of his group plummeted by about half a billion sterling, which very nearly resulted in the collapse of the company. In his defence, he said he thought it was a private gathering and that he didn’t mean to be taken seriously. But he was, and it resulted in serious damage to his and his company’s reputation.
Tony Hayward is the immediate past chief executive of the global oil and energy company BP. In 2010 his company was engulfed by the problems of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, when an explosion on one of the company’s oil rigs resulted in the deaths of 11 people and an oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico which poured tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf every day. At a time when estimates were suggesting that the spill had deposited up to 44 million gallons of oil in the sea, Tony described the spill as ‘tiny’ compared to the size of the ocean, angering many people. He further angered people by saying that the environmental impact of America’s biggest oil spill, and of the almost 1,000,000,000 gallons of toxic dispersant used to treat it, would be ‘very, very modest’.
The moment that everyone remembers occurred when he visited Venice, Louisiana, to apologize for the disaster. ‘The first thing to say is I’m sorry,’ he told reporters, when asked what he would like to tell locals whose livelihoods had been affected. ‘We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There is no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back,’ he said.
Telling struggling residents that he would like his life back is now, unfortunately, what he will be most remembered for. Soon after, he was replaced as chief executive by Bob Dudley.
More than half the leaders I interviewed volunteered this ‘Tony Hayward’ moment as an example of the pitfalls that await a leader who doesn’t recognize that every word he says will be scrutinized. As every leader I spoke to said, reputations have always been important, but these days they can be ruined in an instant, and a life’s work can be undone in one unguarded moment.
Julie Dent of the Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust, says all leaders are playing catch-up with the speed of communication in today’s world. ‘For young people, texting, tweeting and blogging are in their lifeblood. Whatever these people say can be out of your organization in milliseconds. You also have to realize that the old adage that ‘today’s newspaper headlines are tomorrow’s fish and chip wrappers’ is simply no longer valid. What gets on the internet is on the internet forever. The option of remaining silent on issues is also a luxury. In the old days you could remain silent, but today there will be so much noise and discussion on an issue you may have, that to remain silent is often suicidal.’
Ian Thomas, managing director of Fluor UK, tells a story of how he was being interviewed for the Today programme on Radio 4. ‘They sent a radio car to my house, which was good for my reputation with my neighbours. I was in the car talking live on air on the subject of a financial crisis in Asia, with particular reference to Malaysia. I was on for just a few minutes, and right at the end, the interviewer threw in a ‘By the way’ question: “And what about Indonesia?” Without hesitation, I replied that Indonesia was a total basket case. By the time I got into the office the Indonesian ambassador had been on the phone three times – I nearly caused an international incident by speaking without thinking. Thankfully, I eventually recovered from this self-inflicted crisis and now I am even chairman of the Indonesia British Business Council.’
Get the right training and do the right preparation
To cope with this challenge, leaders must get the right training and must put the right preparation into their public appearances. After every appearance, they must seek honest and critical feedback in order to keep getting better at what is a demanding art.
Jane Furniss of the IPCC says there is much truth in the old adage of ‘preparation, preparation, preparation’.
‘I had to give evidence to Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry and between submitting a witness statement in February and appearing at the end of March there was hardly a day when there wasn’t a point – out running, reading the newspaper, in the kitchen – when I wasn’t rehearsing the issues I thought I would be asked and how I was going to answer them. I knew I was going to be on a very public platform and wanted to be utterly prepared.’
Every time a leader appears on a public platform, they are not only representing themselves but also the organization they lead. What they say can have a huge positive or negative impact on reputation, on share price, and on perceptions.
Perceptions are real. If you are playing to win they have to be favourable. Your ability to persuade people to listen to you, understand what you’re saying and support you will determine whether you win or lose.
Ben Verwaayen of Alcatel-Lucent says the world is ruled by perception. ‘Perception is reality with a time lag, and it’s my job to make sure that the time lag is as short as possible. But perception is a truly important element of people’s buying behaviours and general attitudes, and if you want to influence people’s perceptions then you have to master communications.’
The more senior a leader gets, the more likely they are going to have to deal with the media, give speeches, talk to investors and deal with government ministers or NGOs. Says Kevin Beeston of Taylor Wimpey: ‘You have to get specialist training in these areas if you want to be able to handle them well. If it is well managed, it can positively influence your reputation and help to establish a significant competitive advantage. This area of the leader’s job is a critical driver of business value – you simply have to get it right.’
General Sir Mike Jackson says most emphasis should be placed on media training. ‘Particularly as one gets more senior, the need to handle and communicate with the media is increasingly part of the job. In the army, media training is taken very seriously. The world of 24/7 media is here and that genie is not going to go back in the bottle, so leaders have to learn to live with it. Living with it is one thing, but you have to become competent enough to turn it to your advantage. That requires training and practice.’
Sir Stuart Rose believes leaders have to become competent in all forms of media. ‘You have to be able to do radio, you have got to be able to do TV, you’ve got to be able to do a pre-record, or handle being on a location, or on a studio set – they are all quite different approaches and senior people must know how to handle all of them. And it can’t just be the CEO; the top team needs to be trained.’
Barbara Cassani says that once you step outside the organization you lead, you need a completely different set of skills. ‘Sadly, many good leaders simply do not have that external skills set. The openness and informality that make you a good internal communicator need to be contained and tempered when you go external.
‘Leaders should always avoid accepting a public platform if it is simply about flattering their ego. When accepting a public appearance you have to ask yourself whether it will serve your business interests, rather than your ego. At all costs avoid allowing yourself to be put on a pedestal for reasons that do not have to do with your business objectives. You always need to be clinical in your assessment of why you are appearing on a public platform. If you completely understand the reason you are appearing, who you are talking to and what you’re trying to achieve, you’ll be more focused and on message and less likely to fall off the pedestal.’
John Stevens, Baron Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, was commissioner for the London Metropolitan Police from 2000 until 2005. He is now executive chairman of Monitor Quest Ltd, a strategic intelligence and risk-mitigation company based in London. He says leaders in high-profile positions need to assess every word they utter.
‘When I was leading the Northern Ireland collusion enquiry, which lasted two decades and led to the conviction of 90 people, it was the highest-profile criminal enquiry of its time. I soon came to realize that every word mattered and echoed throughout Northern Ireland. You don’t want to appear to be wooden, but at the same time you do have to be very careful.’
Graham Mackay of SABMiller says leading a business is more difficult now than it was 30 years ago. ‘The modern world places much greater demands on leaders to be all-round communicators. You have to explain yourself all the time to regulators, global NGOs, politicians and the media, so you have to learn how to handle very structured and formal communications that abound at the top of the business. You simply cannot get by, talking off some scrappy notes.’
Philip Green, formerly of United Utilities, says the more senior you become, the more weight people give to your words. ‘Whether you like it or not people hang on your every word and the words have more impact than you realize, arguably more impact than they should have, but it takes great skill to talk with passion and still be on message and careful. Not only great skill but a great deal of rehearsal and practice.’
Simple messages repeated often
Legend has it that American author Mark Twain once received a telegram from his publisher that said: ‘Need two-page short story two days.’ Apparently Twain replied: ‘No do two pages two days. Can do 30 pages two days. Need 30 days do two pages.’ His observation about brevity, time and quality of writing is good advice for all leaders.
You have to be very discriminating about your messages, says Barbara Stocking of Oxfam. ‘You simply can’t have too many messages and those that you do have, you have to repeat constantly. It is all the more important that you make those messages simple and memorable. Never fire off too many messages at people at the same time.’
Whenever I coach leaders today, I replicate a graphic lesson I was taught years ago. On one training course I attended, I noticed the instructor had a waste-paper basket full of tennis balls. She picked up one of the tennis balls and threw it to me, and I caught it easily. Then she threw two more in quick succession. I managed to catch both of those as well, but only just. Then she threw the remainder of the bucket at me, and I failed to catch a single ball.
The point was well made, though. The more messages you send at one time, the less likely people will hang on to any of them.
Tom Hughes-Hallett, formerly of Marie Curie Cancer Care, says that in more than 10 years at the helm he has only had three messages that he has wanted to deliver into the organization. ‘You have to repeat and repeat and repeat before people will get even just one message, so you have to be very discriminating. After years of hammering home the point, I got to feel confident most people would know that my key message was that everything we did in Marie Curie had to be about improving cancer care for patients. They knew I would always ask them to ask the question about any proposed activity – was it likely to be able to help us improve the way we give care? If not, then why were we doing it? You have to focus down on the most important messages and deliver them and then find new ways of delivering them, to ensure that people hear and understand.’
General the Lord Guthrie agrees. ‘I think one of the most important things about leadership communication is to keep it simple. Then you must have confidence in what you’re saying and not be knocked off course. You have to give the same message time and time again. The danger is we get bored with our messages before people have really begun to hear what we want them to hear. You have to be persistent.’
General The Lord Dannatt says the ideal is to explain things clearly and have them understood easily. ‘To do this you have to almost oversimplify to make sure that things are understood. Then you have to be aware that once you have said something you can’t take it back, so you must be careful in your choice of words and metaphor.’
Sir Clive Woodward, former English rugby union player and head coach of the 2003 Rugby World Cup winning side, is now director of sport for the British Olympic Association. He believes preparing properly is the key to getting your message across. ‘My whole experience tells me that the more thought I have given to my message, the better I will communicate it. It is like any aspect of sport: if you prepare well you will communicate well. And, always think about what questions you might get, and prepare for those as well.’
Top tips for dealing with the media
Shelves of books have been written on the subject of handling the media, and media training companies abound, offering courses that are several days long. I simply could not do credit to the subject in a short chapter in this book. However, the leaders I interviewed did make a few key points about dealing with the media.
Helen Alexander of the CBI says that the media present an opportunity to get your message over and leaders must not shy away from this. If you have a strong message and you are confident and know your subject matter, you will do well. However, woe betide the person who does not do adequate preparation. ‘If ever you appear on the British Radio 4 programme, The Bottom Line, Evan Davis the presenter will welcome you and assure you that they are not there to make you look stupid. “But,” he says, “I can’t stop you from looking stupid.”
‘Speaking off the cuff is dangerous. You need to be clear about the points you want to get across, and have rehearsed them. The media can help you in your communications, but you need to understand what they want too.’
Working for a public relations business as I do, I know that dealing with the media is an opportunity sometimes simply too good to pass up. Just one free minute on TV can do wonders for sales. One thoughtful article in a national newspaper can change the way people perceive your business. The key is to remember that the media want a good story, relevant to their audience.
Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, says that the media is a business and its product is stories. ‘The best way you are going to get a story that is favourable is by actually helping journalists, and recognizing that while we will have a point of view that we are trying to put over, the media will be an ally if you can show that there is a mutual interest in what you are talking about. Honesty and transparency matters, so if there are breakdowns in services that we deliver, if we make wrong decisions from time to time, it is best to deal with those in an upfront way rather than try to pretend that nothing has happened or that it is somebody else’s fault.’
The fact that a journalist wants a story relevant to his or her audience aligns your interests. You too want to reach that audience with something of interest to them. Sir Nick Partridge of the Terrence Higgins Trust says the key to dealing with the media is to remember who you are actually talking to. The danger is that you fall into the trap of thinking you’re speaking to the journalist, when really your audience is out there and you need to be focused on them.
‘For example, when I first needed to get to the parents and grandparents of young men suffering from HIV and AIDS, I would go on the Jimmy Young show on BBC Radio 2, because I knew that he had a huge following among that target audience. I could then tailor my messages for that audience – mothers and fathers of those affected – in every response I gave to questions from the host. All the time I was thinking about the right message for the right audience through the right channel and with the right tone,’ said Sir Nick.
You have to know the format and audience of the show or publication that you are dealing with. It helps to know the journalist and what approach they take to stories. And it certainly helps not to feel on the defensive, but to recognize that good preparation enables positive outcomes. In the age of sound bites, it helps to have thought through your quotable quotes before appearing in front of a microphone. You don’t need notes if you have thought about the three key points you want to make. Speak in layman’s terms, be enthusiastic about your topic and at all costs avoid corporate jargon.
Barbara Cassani cautions: ‘If, during an interview, you find yourself having fun, you’d better stop and check whether you are going off message. You are not there to have fun; you’re there to deliver messages that support your organization, and if you’re having fun you might be getting into some dangerous waters.’
The essence of good presentations and speeches
Nobody, but nobody, thanks you for a long presentation, says Sir Stuart Rose. ‘The one thing I have learned in the last decade of communicating is that short is better. You have to take the time to distil what you want to say down to its essence. Keep it short and simple and it is amazing how people will thank you and retain what you have said.’
Graham Mackay advises never to try and show off how clever you are when making a presentation. ‘PowerPoint is the invention of the devil and it encourages disjointed thought. Great communication is about real clarity, and clarity has many enemies. One is business jargon, one is PowerPoint and another is length. You have to avoid being abstract or conceptual, because this doesn’t grab people’s attention. You need story and you need anecdote to fix the message in people’s minds. People relate to hard concrete examples.’
Mark Foster of the International Business Leaders Forum is a great believer that one should avoid the use of PowerPoint slides at all costs. ‘My preferred policy was always to stand up – no matter what size of group, no matter what length – and just talk. In my head I would have ruthlessly prepared a road map and broadly stick to it. In terms of effectiveness of communication, the fact that I was able to do that and not rely on props took away one of the barriers between me and the audience. Once you are confident in your point of view and the subject, you will be comfortable, and being comfortable will demonstrate confidence to the audience, even if some of them disagree with your views.’
Both Philip Green and John Connolly stress that you have to own your speech if you are to deliver it well. Senior leaders often have speeches and presentations written for them. They then give little time to rehearsing them and their delivery can be dull and inauthentic. If you edit the speech and rewrite in your own words the key parts of it, including the introduction and the close, you will be more confident and able to give a better performance.
In my coaching, I always say that confidence is the key. We have already discussed how people can give a technically poor delivery but get a great reception, if the messages are delivered with passion and self-belief, and especially when the points resonate with the audience. Often, when rehearsing leaders, I know that my job is simply to give them confidence rather than pick apart their technique. As we saw in Chapter 12 about storytelling, real confidence comes from telling stories you know and love and using those as the pillars of any talk, drawing on the stories to make the points you want. Avoid drowning the audience in facts. When you have a powerful point of view, about which you feel passionately, you will deliver your speech well.
Ideally, you should speak without notes. Lord Sharman and Simon Calver are both advocates of standing up and speaking in a conversational style to the audience.
Says Lord Sharman: ‘If you want them to believe that you believe in something, then don’t speak from notes. I always remember the first speech I ever made to the KPMG assembled partners, when I was the senior partner designate. The previous speaker had performed from behind the lectern and I decided to walk to the front of the stage and said: “When you elected me I think you knew what you were doing, so now I want to tell you what I think we need to do.” I had been thinking about these issues for quite some time and was very clear about the key things we needed to tackle. I spoke for 40 minutes about the issues facing us and the reaction was quite amazing. The feedback was that 80 per cent of the people said I absolutely knew what needed to be done and they were persuaded by my conviction. About 20 per cent were trying to figure out how I did it without an autocue. When you speak without notes what comes across is the strength of your conviction.’
Simon Calver says: ‘You should always speak to audiences like you’re speaking to people across the dinner table. Keep it simple, speak with conviction and never use jargon. This is how you get your own personality and your own feelings across. You have to learn to use all the same conversational cues that you would normally use – facial expressions and gestures and body language. The danger is standing up behind a lectern and looking wooden and therefore being unconvincing.’
Adrian Belton, chief executive of Fera, says that his practice is not to over-prepare for fear of losing his spontaneity. ‘I try to see it as something to be enjoyed rather than a test to be endured. There are simple things that help – pacing up and down energetically, smiling at people and looking straight at them, knowing exactly what you want to say and knowing it well. Showing my passion and creating engagement through my passion is key.’
I once coached a senior executive who, in spite of the best efforts of his staff and my urging, remained stubbornly wooden during his presentations. In the feedback from staff, they always commented on this and it was undermining his credibility. However, we found a glimmer of hope in the fact that people really enjoyed his performance during the short question-and-answer session. Over the next few town hall meetings, we gradually shortened his speech from half an hour to just 10 minutes, and allowed between 50 and 80 minutes for questions. When he answered questions, he became much more animated and passionate, and spoke without any notes.
It was not surprising that his rating increased dramatically when we shortened the formal part of his speech. It is good advice – if possible, always allow more time for questions and answers, and bring a few of your own questions along to get the session going. (‘If I was you I would have asked about…’). If you make that the question about the ‘elephant in the room’ that everyone wants to ask about but is too afraid to, you are sure to provoke a lively debate.
The final tip is always to remember what is called ‘the rule of threes’. People usually can only remember three points. Organize your speech around three key points and use the rule of threes when you make points. Some of the most memorable political points and corporate slogans come in threes. For example:
• Location, location, location.
• Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered).
• Vorsprung durch technik (Audi).
• Never knowingly undersold (John Lewis, department store chain).
• Every little helps (Tesco, grocery chain).
• Just do it (Nike).
• Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
• Friends, Romans, countrymen.
• Blood, sweat and tears.
All are memorable and all are effective. Good advice is to craft a really good finishing line, the one that people remember long after you’ve sat down. You might even consider using the rule of threes in a finishing line.
In summary, then, perhaps the best advice on speech giving comes from US president Franklin D Roosevelt, who said: ‘Be sincere, be brief, be seated.’
The first thing you are hit with in a crisis is a great paradox: at a time when you probably least want to have to say something, the greatest danger is in saying nothing at all.
Having worked with clients experiencing crises in a number of highly controversial and sensitive industries, including chemicals, nuclear and airlines, the one thing I know is that you will be deluged when a crisis first hits. The media will probably know about it before you do, and will be clamouring for information. The problem will be that, usually, you are still trying to find out what happened and are unable to comment. If you do that, then you will be chasing the agenda and always on the defensive.
To cope with these situations, you have to have planned ahead, you have to have considered all possibilities and worked out beforehand what you would do in each dreadful scenario. Many crises are simply issues that have got out of hand and could easily have been foretold. Some, however, do strike you suddenly, without a chance to anticipate. Effective communication before, during and after a crisis can significantly alter the outcome of the crisis.
Lord Stevens of Monitor Quest says it is essential to get ahead of the game. ‘Crisis management and risk management are the most important things for a leader to consider in this transparent and fast-paced world. It is essential that you work out strategically what you will do in a crisis and how you’re going to behave when things go very wrong – and they will go wrong, whatever kind of business you’re in. You have to have a course of action, and in that you have to have every detail worked out.
‘For example, when I was police commissioner, I used to have a spare set of uniforms in my flat in case Scotland Yard was blown up. That way I would be able to come out in front of the television cameras with my uniform on and say “Calm down, we’re in control and we will do what is necessary.” So attention to detail is critical. You also need people around you who have been through this kind of thing before, who can keep calm and help you to survive.’
The golden rule of crisis communications
Even with the best planning, in the early stages of a crisis the simple rule is to tell people what you know and only what you know. You have to recognize how emotional people will be, especially when there are fatalities or life-threatening circumstances, and the golden rule is that emotional people do not respond well to factual argument or rational reasoning.
I believe this to be one of the big mistakes that Tony Hayward made. Even though he may have been correct about the size and impact of the oil spill, it was a fatal error of judgement in regard to people’s emotional response. Saying it was a drop in the ocean may have been right, but for residents looking at their oil-soaked beaches it was staggeringly insensitive. Then, when he put his own needs ahead of others by saying he wanted his life back, he sealed his fate. He was not forgiven.
He was right to take ownership of the problem. Leaders must get in front of the cameras and microphones and take accountability for the incident, and responsibility for fixing it. They must talk to their concerns for everybody involved; they must talk about their commitment to solving the problem, and they must talk about the benefits that will be derived when the problem is solved. Finally, they must promise that the underlying causes will be corrected so that mistakes like this can never be made again in the future.
You will notice that none of this requires facts – all of it requires emotional empathy from a leader and the ability to recognize how all of those affected will be feeling, and what they will want to hear. This is the time when the manual doesn’t help. Sifting your way through a huge book of procedures will slow everything down at a time when you need to be working fastest. The best companies run crisis simulations that cause participants to sweat and suffer palpitations because they are so realistic. By doing this, when an actual crisis hits, you don’t have to think, you just respond. And you don’t have to dig out the manual because how to react has been ingrained in you.
Lord Mervyn Davies says that in a world where news can move across continents in milliseconds, the nature of crisis management has changed. Every leader is obliged to thoroughly examine their own operations and try to imagine the worst that could happen. They also need to consider things that are beyond their control.
‘I give a speech in which I say to people that they should try to imagine me standing up a decade earlier and telling them that a great wave is going to come and kill hundreds of thousands of people, that the Royal Bank of Scotland will go bust, that New Orleans will disappear, that jet aircraft will fly into the World Trade Center, that a chicken with a virus in the Far East will infect a human being and cause a global panic, that an incredible volcano will cause devastation in Japan.
‘If I’d given that speech 10 years ago people would have said that I was nuts, but what you learn in business is that you have to be prepared for uncertainty and constant change. The more prepared you are for uncertainty and unlikely events, the better you will handle them. A key part of that is how you will set context and communicate through those periods.’
In a crisis, go to your values for guidance
When a crisis hits, it is the most important time for a leader to go to their heart. Fields Wicker-Miurin of Leaders’ Quest says that it is in a crisis that your values matter most. ‘At these times leaders must draw on their values to decide on the right thing to do, and recognize the human needs that must be addressed.’
My experience tells me that it is only by doing the right thing in the immediate aftermath of a crisis that you avoid turning it into a catastrophe. It is not the crisis itself but the aftermath that can destroy your enterprise. People understand that mistakes happen in everyday life. They will be less forgiving of negligent mistakes, but they will want to hear you admit mistakes, and they will want to see you doing everything in your power to fix the problem and ensure it won’t happen again. And they want you to do what is right by those who’ve been hurt or had their lives disrupted by the incident.
Communication without action can lead to allegations of spin and be more damaging in the long run. Lawyers will argue that you need to constrain what you say to avoid the legal consequences that will cost a huge price in the courts. I believe that if you lose in the court of public opinion, the damage can be much deeper and much longer lasting. If your licence to operate is removed, then you have no business and you have no future.
The best leaders take full responsibility during a crisis and stand up for their organization. Sir Christopher Gent of GSK says every leader should ensure that their organization is set up to cope with the crisis. Furthermore, they should recognize that they will be the one in the spotlight when it occurs.
‘I once had a candidate to be chief executive who was very unsure about this aspect of the role,’ says Sir Christopher. ‘I could tell that in the back of his mind it was a big concern. He didn’t get the job, because standing up and taking the full brunt of a crisis and handling the media are very much part of the leader’s role and you have to be up for it. You have to be prepared to get up there and set the agenda, and be seen to be taking control. You have to have all of your media channels and lines of communication sorted out, you have to have your more discreet, specialized communication channels ready, and you have to be able to be on the front foot within 24 hours, or else you will be chasing the game and that can be disastrous.’
A marathon run at full speed
Many a CEO has fallen foul of a crisis by believing that it will be a sprint, when usually they are marathons. However, it is a marathon run at full speed.
Social websites, tweeting, ubiquitous mobile telephones with cameras and video capability have forced companies in crisis to have to respond with lightning-fast reactions. If you are still having to set up the channels at the beginning of the crisis, you will never get on top of the situation. You have to have thought through all the channels that you’re going to use in the event that the crisis hits you, and that will need to include all the modern channels of communication as well.
Christopher Garnett of the Olympic Delivery Authority was one of the two leaders of the Eurostar independent review into a pre-Christmas crisis in which 2,000 passengers were stranded when trains came through heavy snow into the Eurotunnel between Britain and France. Among the many criticisms, one had to do with the lack of information provided to people during the crisis. Both Eurostar and Eurotunnel took some sharp words over the confusion and lack of information. Christopher called for better information equipment at the terminals, fit for purpose in the event of major disruptions, including variable message boards.
‘One of the things we had to look at while writing the report was the speed at which they had to respond because of the internet. Afterwards, British Airways was keen to see Eurostar, to try and learn lessons about the internet and instant blogs. The real lesson was that you have to be even faster getting your story out and your information up to date during a crisis these days, because people involved in the crisis will be able to communicate and you will be found wanting if you can’t.’
Equally, says Christopher, if you are the leader appearing as a spokesperson, you might not always have the information to hand. In that case you need to tell people when you will have something for them so that you can start managing expectations. ‘You don’t have to be totally driven by the deadlines of the media, and you also have to remember to pace yourself. You’ve got to get some sleep sometime, otherwise your judgement goes, you may get short-tempered when giving answers and you will come over very badly in an interview – and that’s the one that they will show over and over again.’
Christopher, who had to communicate during two serious train accidents, says that even when the story is all over the news, it is amazing how many people don’t see it. ‘We have to be careful about managing the situation through the filter of newspaper and television headlines. The newspapers and TV and radio broadcasters feed off each other and report on each other’s headlines and you have to be very careful that you don’t slant your decision making through the prism of the media and miss listening to the far more important groups that you depend on for your survival.’
You have to stay in touch with all of the audiences affected, and you have to find ways of understanding what they are saying and how they are feeling. Using market researchers, web analysts and your own network of influences is critical at this stage in order to understand what the people who really matter to you are really thinking.
And what about the web and social media and Twitter and…?
The leaders I interviewed were split in their views about modern communication technology. Some felt that the radical transparency that came with modern channels made leadership much more difficult and was an unwelcome imposition, because it could give undue weight to insignificant audiences, who would always have an anti-point of view, and who did not represent the mainstream stakeholder views that the organization depended on.
Others, like Phil Bentley at British Gas, embraced new media channels as a way to build better and deeper relationships with key stakeholder groups, especially customers. All of them, however, recognized the need to engage in using the new media, even if leaders didn’t understand these themselves. There was simply no choice.
Natalie Ceeney of the Financial Ombudsman Service says that social media has changed the way her service deals with complaints. ‘What is a complaint, anyway? Traditionally a complaint was when someone would write to us. By then the relationship between a complainant and a financial services provider had really broken down. However, we now monitor social media and if we see someone tweeting we can go back to them and suggest things that they can do to resolve the matter before it becomes a dispute. This has revolutionized the way we help people and try to put confidence back into the financial services industry. So social media has provided us with a huge opportunity to help people wherever they are.’
Nick Baird chief executive of UK Trade and Investment, says that tweeting and blogging have made the world more ‘cheerfully anarchic’.
‘I believe that as a leader you need to tweet and blog, which I do all the time. It helps you to understand that as a leader you aren’t in control of everything, and enables you to be informal yet frank. It puts an even greater premium on authenticity. There are times when I blog on a subject and sometimes all of the reaction to it may be people complaining or whingeing about issues only vaguely related to my subject. This is good, though, because it gives us sight of issues that are bothering people and which we can then do something about. I am not in favour of trying to put disciplined frameworks around the use of social media, because I think that we can adapt and adopt new ways of exploiting this cheerful anarchy that it offers us as organizations. The only rider to all this is that you do need to prioritize a lot more, and respond quickly to those things which are at the top of your priority list and simply forget about the many things that you can’t find the time to deal with.’
Jane Furniss of the Independent Police Complaints Commission says that social media has given her investigators more ways to reach out to the public and get more information, or enter into debates and influence people in the conversations that are going on online. ‘For example we have been able to intervene and influence debates about deaths in police custody by using Facebook and Twitter and saying to people who are talking about it that they may be interested in more facts about the subject and giving them links to official reports that can better inform their opinions. A vast majority won’t bother reading the report, but were hugely influenced by the fact that we reached out. Even if we give them only one fact, that can change the tone of the debate as people say ‘oh, I didn’t realize that’. Witness appeals can give us sources of information that we would otherwise never reach if we didn’t use social media.’
Rupert Gavin of Odeon and UCI Cinemas says that his company has decided to take a much more active presence in social networks. ‘We have to manage that presence very carefully, otherwise it could cause us significant problems. We have empowered a lot more people inside the company to speak on behalf of the company, and to express views on behalf of the company. It is impossible to control that, so we have had to sharpen our values framework, in order to ensure that the people representing the company online, and having to respond to queries and issues within seconds, can do so within the company ethos.
‘When one of our cinema managers has to respond to an angry customer on a Saturday afternoon and doesn’t have the time to go to his manager for advice on how to handle a situation, the values framework will help them to make the right decision. The difference is that the angry customer at a cinema can be heard by about 10 people within earshot. On social networks, you’ve got potentially tens of millions of people who can jump on any inappropriate or confrontational response that one of our staff may post.
‘These sorts of things can become a national issue with a degree of rapidity that is scary. But you just have to have a more interactive presence online these days, and you have to ensure your own people understand the values so that they don’t say anything inappropriate. It’s just one of the pressures of the modern world – and the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.’
• Always prepare properly for any appearance on a public platform – and never make glib comments off script; too many rocks await you in those dangerous waters.
• In public, every word counts, and can count against you, so weigh every word carefully.
• The essence of good public speaking is to keep it short and simple, and use the rule of threes.
• You should always ‘own’ any speech you give, and speak about things you care about.
• It is not just about technique; it is about passion.
• Brevity matters. It really, really matters.
• Always allow time for questions. You’ll probably be better in those.
• Handling the media requires special training: you have to be comfortable with all forms of media.
• When talking to journalists, remember the journalist is not your audience. Be clear about who you are talking to and why.
• Prepare for the inevitable crisis, and ensure you have put in place all the necessary channels of communication before a crisis occurs.
• In a crisis, it is critical to do the right thing and communicate those actions, always empathizing with people who have been affected, or else you could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.
• Breathtaking speed will be the issue, and at those times only your corporate values and sense of true north can help you stay on track. Emphasize these to everyone involved in helping to sort out the crisis.
• Embrace modern media channels; and if you don’t get it, get someone who does.
• Speaking on public platforms requires a great deal of practice.
• Always remember that rehearsing makes a good speaker a great speaker.
• Never stop pursuing perfection – always ask trusted advisers for tough feedback after every performance.
• Embrace the digital age of transparency. The risks are higher but the rewards are greater.
• If you don’t know how to, make sure you hire someone who does.