Description
Executing Crisis: A C-Suite Crisis Leadership Survival Guide
by Dr. Jo Robertson
Business leaders would be better served by understanding key crisis concepts and applying them to their own situation rather than relying on crisis advisors to swoop in to take care of a problem once it has become a crisis. This crisis leadership survival guide will aide many crisis management professionals.
Loaded with Case Studies! How leaders deal with crisis can clarify character and strengthen reputation. On the other hand, the wrong words and actions from the C-Suite can worsen the crisis spiral. Crisis management does not begin on the day the fire erupts, the hurricane barrels through, or the accident happens. Dr. Jo Robertson, a leading expert in heading off and containing crisis, lays out the key concepts that business leaders need to apply to their own organizations so they don’t have to rely on outside crisis advisors to swoop in and save the day.
“Dr. Jo Robertson knows a thing or two about crisis management… she does an excellent job presenting how companies who felt they covered all their incident response bases with risk and continuity management still fell short of an adequate response… The book contains several exercises that challenge the reader to respond to several crisis scenarios considering actual events as well as thought provoking questions to apply critical thinking to your own crisis management preparedness… If you only read one crisis management book this year, it should be Dr. Robertson’s Executing Crisis, A C-Suite Crisis Leadership Survival Guide.”
2019, 207 pages. Print ISBN 978-1-944480-62-2 ePub ISBN 978-1-944480-63-9 PDF eBook ISBN 978-1-944480-64-6.
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Author Bio
Dr. Jo Robertson has a doctoral degree in crisis management and more than 20 years of experience keeping companies out of crisis.
As Global Director of Emergency Preparedness for Capital One, she was responsible for orchestrating the creation of a coordinated universal emergency preparedness program with a strong and consistent process as well as the leadership of 2500 life safety team members.
As Director of Crisis Preparedness for Arkema, she rebuilt and re-energized US crisis preparedness initiatives for France’s leading chemicals producer. She was responsible for creating an effective corporate crisis management team process and strategy, media training and community relations assistance for the plants as well as acting as a trusted advisor to C-Suite executives.
At Deloitte Services, Dr. Robertson led the national crisis management program for 100+ offices of 45,000+ professionals. She developed Deloitte’s enterprise crisis management and crisis communications plans as well as hundreds of local office business continuity plans.
As Vice President for Marsh Crisis Consulting (formerly the Corporate Response Group) she designed, developed and delivered a wide array of services for senior corporate and C-Suite clients, including crisis communications planning, media training, real-time support for clients currently in crisis, and complex crisis management exercises for global and domestic pharmaceutical, petroleum, chemical, energy, banking, hotel, distribution, manufacturing, consumer goods, food service, and government sector clients.
Dr. Robertson spent the first half of her career as a television journalist. She is experienced in all aspects of television news, including producing, writing, and editing. She covered the White House, Pentagon, State Department and Capitol Hill and was responsible for news stories which initiated change at the highest levels of government, including a reversal of policy at the Pentagon.
Dr. Robertson has a doctoral degree in Crisis Management (George Washington University), an M.A. in Journalism (American University), and a B.A. in Communications (Pennsylvania State University).
Excerpt from the Introduction
After years of working with companies in a wide variety of industries to help them manage crises, I have realized that many otherwise thoroughly savvy executives don’t take the potential for crisis as seriously as they should. They may have great disaster recovery plans, or they might be following so-called best practices in crisis management, but they are still woefully underprepared.
There are a lot of good reasons for this. A lot of the time, folks at the top of companies have gotten there because their business instincts are really good, and when it comes to crises, a whole lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, have dealt with short-term emergencies and critical incidents throughout their careers. Seat-of-the-pants reactions to tough situations have gotten them through difficulties before and they assume that will continue to be the case.
But white-knuckling through a lean period when you’re not sure that you can make payroll is a whole different situation than an emergency that the company may have had a hand in creating.
In the more than two decades that I’ve been doing this work, I’ve met plenty of C-suite consultants who have virtually no crisis training. Business leaders would be better served by understanding key crisis concepts and applying them to their own situation rather than relying on crisis advisors to swoop in to take care of a problem once it has become a crisis.
That is what this book sets out to do. It is intended as a manual to assist you – the savvy leader – to make your organization more resilient to crisis.
An organization, large or small, may face many different risks that could disrupt its operations or ability to do business, including natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, emergency events like fire, terrorism, facility accidents, civil unrest, pandemics, disruptions to the supply chain… management malfeasance… the list goes on.It is not necessary in most cases to ensure a definitive list has been analyzed in order to prepare for the potentialities. Ongoing business continuity planning for getting back in operation following a disruption is an essential element of risk management, as is being prepared to respond to an emergency situation that can affect life, health, or safety at one of your organization’s facilities. But whether the crisis management program includes one interwoven plan with tactical and strategic components throughout the lifecycle of the event or multiple plans synched to work in harmony, is immaterial.
What’s the difference between risk management and crisis management? What’s the difference between crisis management and business continuity? How do you ensure you’ve got the important strategic elements covered?
Sometimes the whole caboodle is called business continuity management. The term has become very popular and has been driven by the business continuity and disaster recovery industry, which came of age in the 1990s. Another term is resilience. Unfortunately, (as of this writing) that term tends to refer primarily to business resumption—or the process of planning for how the organization will get back to normal operations as quickly as possible following a disruption. It seems to be less about making the organization resilient against crises to begin with.
I prefer the umbrella term crisis management. Whatever you call it – emergency response, business continuity, disaster recovery – crisis communication, and crisis management plans, elements, tactics and strategies all need to work together seamlessly for an organization to truly be resilient.
This book is meant to be simple and easy to grasp immediately. The concepts are relevant for most organizations. Still, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to crisis plans, strategy, or response. There are numerous good crisis manuals available and I don’t seek to repeat the material you will find elsewhere. Instead, I will supplement with new twists on “best practice” – to update the common understanding of what elevates good crisis management beyond wordsmithing.
Instead of lists of the items that are “necessary” for a solid crisis plan or well-stocked war room, you’ll find key things to consider as you tailor strategies for your own organization. In fact, I’m going to shoot down best practices that are outdated yet continue to be repeated because someone somewhere decided they were best practices. Who gets to determine what is best practice in the first place? It’s time for a little fresh thinking and common sense. It’s really critical to do the right thing up front, which, in a lot of cases can prevent crises. Instead, a lot of people continue to conflate crisis communication with obfuscation and pretty words intended to make a very bad situation seem less bad without actually doing anything to make it better. That’s public relations. It is not good crisis communication. And crisis communication is not crisis management. Certainly, communication is a strong component, and having people who have been media-trained and can represent a company well in a crisis is important. But there’s so much more to managing a crisis well. No successful crisis response begins when the crisis begins.
And finally, a thought on best practices: they are most effective for things that people do all the time. Posting a hand-sanitizer dispenser on the wall near the door of a patient’s hospital room that people can use when they come and go is a great practice. And it’s one that you can amend as you go because people do it all the time. But crisis management is something you don’t do many times a day.
Best practices for activities that we do all day, every day, can naturally evolve more easily because of the frequency with which people do them. It’s the very infrequency (let’s hope) of crises that makes them harder to establish and maintain best practices for. A crisis management best practice from three years ago may not be the right choice for managing a crisis today, and it might not be the right solution for your situation. It is time to challenge best practices.
To give a personal example, many years ago my father had to have surgery. Like all fairly serious medical situations, it had the possibility of turning out really badly. So that he didn’t worry his adult children, siblings, or mother, my dad decided he would keep us in the dark until the day of the surgery. Even though we were all well-educated, competent professional adults, my parents’ generation’s “best practice” was to keep people in the dark until after it was over to save them from unnecessary worry.
Fortunately, it all went well. However, it got me to thinking about how awful it was to be kept in the dark. Family is hugely important to me and I remember dropping everything and driving 4+ hours to be there at the hospital so that, yes, I could just stand around and worry. I was glad to have been able to make the decision myself to be present in the waiting room during the surgery – it was a choice my grandmother did not get to make. My parents, however well-meaning, took that possibility away from her.
But they were going by the book. So, in a sense, I am writing this book to let you know that sometimes it’s just the wrong thing to do to go by the book.
I started out not to write a manual for crisis management, but to challenge what dabblers believed were best practices, to update and create better guidance for executives, and to provide plenty of common-sense examples of better practice in play. By doing so, I hope I have provided you with the guidance and tools you’ll need to weather any crisis!
Dr. Jo Robertson
September, 2019
Table of Contents
Preface iv
Foreword v
Table of Contents vii
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1 DAY-TO-DAY BUSINESS COMMUNICATION VS. CRISIS COMMUNICATION 5
1.1 Everyday Communication vs. Communicating During Crisis 6
1.2 Communicating in Crisis 8
1.3 Have a Statement in Your Hip Pocket 10
1.4 Case Studies on Communicating Quickly 10
1.4.1 DuPont La Porte 10
1.4.2 Exxon Torrance Explosion and Fire 12
1.5 Reframing the Issue 14
CHAPTER 2 OVERVIEW OF CRISIS COMMUNICATION 17
2.1 Working With the Media 18
2.1.1 Television 18
2.1.2 Radio 19
2.1.3 Daily newspapers 19
2.1.4 Weekly magazines 19
2.1.5 Internet 19
2.2 Social Media Dynamics 20
2.2.1 Socialnomics 20
2.2.2 Traditional Media Embrace 21
2.2.3. Analyzing Which Platforms to Use 22
2.2.4 Don’t Delegate Social Media to Junior Staff 24
2.2.5 Quick and Transparent 25
2.3 What Makes Communication with the Media Effective? 26
2.3.1 Case Study: Freedom Industries’ Elk River Chemical Spill 26
2.3.2 Emerging Issues Crises 27
2.3.3 “Trust Us” Only Works Once: Taco Bell’s Emerging Issues Case Study 28
2.4 Additional Elements That Make Communication with the Media Effective 31
2.4.1 Official Spokespersons Aren’t Always the Most Credible 31
2.4.2 Case Study – Ford River Rouge 31
2.5 Tactics When You May Be to Blame 32
2.5.1 Case Study in Commitment Backfiring – Chipotle 33
2.5.2 Contrition 33
2.5.3 Consultation 34
2.5.4 Restitution Case Study – Tote Spill 34
CHAPTER 3 WHO TRUSTS A CHEMICAL COMPANY? 37
3.1 Arkema’s Crisis at Crosby TX 38
3.3 Initial Community Response Steps 40
3.4 Spokesperson Performance 40
3.4.1 ARKEMA Chemical Plant; Evacuation Press Conference Transcript 41
3.4.2 Armchair Quarterbacking Rich Rennard’s Press Conference 42
3.4.3 Two Questions Continue to Surface 43
3.5 Community Relations Through Online and Social Media 47
3.5.1 First, Make Good News Easy to Find 48
3.5.2 Gearing Social Media to Focus on Community Ties 50
3.5.3 The Community Reaction 55
3.6 Darksite Strategy 58
3.7 Who Trusts a Chemical Company? – What Arkema Did Right 60
3.7.1 Breaking the Story First 61
3.7.2 Cover-Ups Can Lead to Ugly Unveilings 62
3.7.3 Being a Good Neighbor 64
3.7.4 Developing Unofficial Spokespersons Who Have Good Things to Say 65
CHAPTER 4 NO SUCCESSFUL CRISIS RESPONSE BEGINS ON THE DAY OF THE CRISIS 67
4.1 Building a Team and Concept of Operations 68
4.1.1 Tailor a Solution That Works for Your Unique Circumstances 69
4.1.2 Do You Really Need a Crisis War Room? 70
4.1.3 Alternates Can’t Be a Lesser Caste 72
4.1.4 Practice What You Preach 73
4.1.5 Don’t Let the Train Derail Because the Track Doesn’t Fit 74
4.2 Approvals 75
4.3 Strategic Drilling (With a Mirror) Can Avoid Lawsuits 76
4.3.1 Case Study – Rick Rescorla’s Drills Saved Lives 76
4.3.2 Drilling to Let the Team Discover Solutions 77
4.4 Do the Right Thing 78
4.4.1 Case Study – Fans Expected More from Apple 79
4.4.2 Case Study – University of Maryland Medical Center Patient Dumping 79
4.4.3 Case Study – Amtrak Derailments Disappoint 80
CHAPTER 5 WHAT ARE THE CARDINAL RULES OF BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND WHO SET THEM? 81
5.1 Rule 1: Put Your Disaster Recovery Facility in Another Area of the Country? 82
5.2 Rule 2: Use a Template? 82
5.3 Rule 3: Business Continuity Plans Should Be Written by a Professional? 83
5.4 Rule 4: Contract a Hotsite? 83
5.5 Rule 5: Build Around a Risk Analysis? 85
5.5.1 Case Study – Sprint Loses 911 Functionality 85
5.6 Rule 6: Set Aside a Crisis War Room? 86
5.7 Rule 7: Nurture Traditional Media Contacts? 86
CHAPTER 6 WHAT’S YOUR CRISIS DREAM TEAM? 89
6.1 Hiring a Firm to Respond Reactively 90
6.2 Who Do We Activate and When Do We Activate? 91
6.2.1 Case Study on Waiting and Hoping the Crisis Isn’t Discovered – Uber 93
CHAPTER 7 SIGNAL DETECTION 95
7.1 Picking Up on Signals 96
7.1.1. Coca Cola—Creeping Crisis Case Study 96
7.2 Creating the Right Environment 97
CHAPTER 8 APOLOGY AS A BUSINESS DECISION 101
8.1 What is an Appropriate Apology? 102
8.1.1 Case Study – United Passenger Dragged Off Plane 102
8.2 Do You Mean It? 105
8.2.1 Case Study on the Unconvincing Apology – Lululemon 106
8.3 Legal Liability 107
8.4 Paying Costs 108
8.5 Early Apology 109
8.5.1 Case Study – Not Early or Quick – Equifax 109
8.6 Japanese Apology 110
8.7 The Role of Media Coverage 111
8.8 Apology as a Business Strategy 112
8.9 Exercise: Brown’s Independent Bar 113
CHAPTER 9 MEDIA TRAINING 115
9.1 Pitfalls for Spokespersons 116
9.1.1 Jargon 116
9.1.2 Refute Negative Allegations Without Repeating Them 116
9.1.3 Do Not Guess if it is Outside Your Area of Expertise 118
9.1.4 Keep Answers Short 118
9.1.5 Never Speak Badly of the Other Side 119
9.1.6 Don’t Assume the Reporter Has it Right 119
9.1.7 Don’t Accept Hypothetical Questions 120
9.1.8 Break Down Multiple Part Questions 120
9.1.9 Don’t Say “No Comment” 121
9.1.10 Remember Who You are Speaking To When You are Speaking Through the Media 121
9.1.11 Exercise: University Accused of Lying to Hide Killing 122
9.1.12 Exercise: Wyeth Accused of Secret Recall 124
9.1.13 Case Studies – Pizza Hut/Marriott and Hurricane Irma 126
9.1.14 – Case Study Sago Mine 126
9.2 Dos and Don’ts: 127
9.2.1 The Mic Is Always On 127
9.2.2 Radio (or Phone) Interview Tips 129
9.2.3 TV Interview Tips 129
9.2.4 Quiz 131
9.3 What Not to Wear on TV 133
CHAPTER 10 COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY 141
10.1 Actionable Information 144
10.2 Logistics for Smaller Organizations with Limited Communications Staff 147
10.3 The Crisis Wingman 153
10.4 Winning the Game 158
10.5 Messaging 161
10.6 Bridging 162
10.7 Communications Strategy with Victims 163
10.8 Employees as Spokespersons 164
10.9 Begin Immediately to Shape the Narrative 165
10.10 Holding Statements 169
10.10.1 Exercise: Amtrak Train Crash in Philadelphia 169
10.11 Don’t Panic 171
10.12 Stakeholders 171
10.12.1 Ghoul or Effigy? – A Case Study in Nudging Ambivalence 173
10.12.2 Florida Strawberry Fumigation – Another Case Study in Nudging Ambivalence 174
10.12.3 Exercise: Tulsa Solkatronic 177
10.13 Emergency Notification 178
CONCLUSION 181
ENDNOTES 183
CREDITS………………………………………………………………………………………200
ABOUT THE AUTHOR…..……………… .………………………………………………….201
Excerpt from the Conclusion
I spend my professional life building resilience by working with otherwise extremely savvy executives who know how to run a business profitably and efficiently but who often plan to either run a crisis by the seat of their pants or to delegate both crisis communication and crisis management to public relations consultants.
The best outcome – bar none – instead occurs when executives take the time to delve into preparing for the likelihood that someday their organization will face a potential crisis that could derail everything they’ve built if not managed as carefully as they’ve planned out every other strategy in their enterprise.
Good crisis management doesn’t occur by chance and it doesn’t happen on the day of the crisis. It is built on a strong foundation, with a mission focused on doing the right thing without obfuscation. A team is carefully selected (in advance). Stakeholders who matter are identified and positioned to be kept in the know. Statements are wordsmithed not to sound good, but with information that answers their questions and focus on what the organization is doing to right the situation for the impacted parties and ensure the problem never happens again.
EXECUTING CRISIS, provides the strategies necessary for your organization’s leaders to take crisis management from a theoretical exercise mired in “best practices” that are outdated and unrealistic for today’s environment, and makes them tangible and useable.
These are the new rules for crisis leadership:
- Communicate at the speed of sound.
- Craft your hip-pocket statements now. Today. Really. Don’t wait until you are in a crisis to figure out what you are going to say. Doing it right now is the only way you’ll be able to begin communicating at the speed of sound.
- Traditional media have embraced and embedded social media in their communication about crisis. So should you. Social media can spread misinformation and rumors globally within minutes. You will never catch up or set the record straight if you don’t acknowledge social media’s power and plan to harness it.
- Choose your spokespersons carefully and make sure they are well prepped.
- “Trust us” only works once. When you say it, mean it.
- Official spokespersons are not always the most reliable. Build alliances with unofficial spokespersons who can speak credibly on your behalf.
- Take one step beyond what stakeholders really expect. It will lessen the sting of the impact you have caused.
- Break your own story. Shape your own narrative. Get out ahead of the speculation.
- Make good news easy to find.
- Be a good neighbor.
- No successful crisis begins on the day of the crisis. Build your plan, team and strategies in advance. Tailor a solution that works for your unique circumstances.
- Streamline your approval process.
- Armchair quarterback (in advance) where the train could jump the tracks.
- Challenge experts’ “cardinal rules.” Ensure “best practice” is best for your organization.
- Adjust your corporate culture to report problems rather than wait and hope they don’t come to light.
- Identify the signal detectors that can warn you in advance that a crisis is brewing and create a process to channel the input to a volume that can be heard by the right receptors.
- An apology – done well – can go a long way towards healing a rift and mitigating the possibility of a lawsuit, whereas an apology done badly can pour gas on a flame.
- Answer reporter questions in 20 seconds or three sentences.
- Determine what information your key stakeholders need and how to get it into their hands quickly.
- Spend time with your trusted advisors anticipating questions and developing answers before a press conference or interview. Identify a crisis wingman who will have your back.
- Winning the game may require reframing the issue. Bridge to the answers you need to impart even if the right questions don’t get asked. Don’t keep volleying once you have won the game.
- Identify affected parties and assist them in bringing closure to the incident.
Today’s executive needs to be prepared to take quick action to annihilate potential crises before they happen. EXECUTING CRISIS provides the guidance needed for executing on that need.
Excerpt from Chapter 10: Communications Strategy
Messaging
Messages, simply put, are your organization’s side of the story, framed positively in terms of the actions you are taking to make the situation right, whether you are at fault or not. That is not the same as creating positive spin, especially if that spin is artificial wordsmithing bent on making a situation seem less bad than it really is. Messages go beyond objective truth about the facts to position your organization’s truth and counter the negative positioning that may be cast on you by rumors, outrage from perceived injustice, or even the fact that your organization has some right-making to do as a result of what just happened.
When beginning an interview or press conference, introduce yourself unless this has already been done. Simplify your title. Your exact title isn’t necessary, instead, the reporter needs to know the context of why you are speaking on behalf of the organization. Your title can be as simple as “[Organization] Spokesperson,” unless you are giving a particular point of view (“CEO, [Organization]” or “Engineering Manager, [Organization].” Expect to start with a situation status update briefly explaining the what, where, when, or what is latest. If victims are involved, offer regret, apology, humanization.
- In advance, think through the two or three main points you want to make.
- Start the interview by identifying yourself and the latest information on the incident.
- Begin bridging to your key messages.
By this point your messages should be in full swing. Put the situation in context. Explain what you are doing to make the situation right. Focus on what is important. Get across your messages to those you are trying to reach on the other side of the media. Then, and only then, ask what questions the media has.
If the media jump the gun and barrage you with questions from the start, calmly hold up your hand and explain you’d like to start with some information and then you’ll be happy to take their questions. You may be able to head off many of their questions by starting this way. Once the questioning begins, always try to find a way to bridge back to your key messages.
If you are noticing that you have circled back to each of your message points twice, you have won your game. Stop playing! You have nothing left to gain from continuing to field questions. Of course the media will continue to try to engage you because they have not won by backing you into a corner where they flummox you and wheedle an off-script answer, so they will continue to try to ask questions. But if you stop after you have delivered your messages (in 20 second or less soundbites), they will have to choose the soundbite that summarizes your organization’s point of view from amongst the answers you have given – your messages – or the points you intended to make all along.
Excerpt from the Foreword by Larry Cristini
If the world seems like it has become a more unpredictable and less forgiving place for corporations, it has. This is the new reality. Companies are increasingly in the headlines facing crises that may result from a single devastating event or a combination of escalating events or issues – major product failures, cyber breaches, reputational incidents, mass casualty events to name just a few.
The incidents and threats this book aims to provide solutions to, are not instances where the chess game is not going your way. Instead, someone has knocked over the pieces on the board, introduced new pieces from entirely different games, and in extreme situations changed or destroyed the board itself. Previous best practices are ineffective. The old rules do not apply. You cannot gather your best people and simply think your way through it. It’s a new game. What you need are tools and a framework to get yourself and your organization though it and to above all protect the core assets of your business.
I met Dr. Jo Robertson almost twenty years ago at a small crisis management firm with a blue-chip client set. At the time, I was only beginning my career in crisis and emergency management. Jo was embarking on a second career on the other side of the camera. Previously she was a journalist utilizing tricks of the trade to capture that perfect sound bite from an executive whose world had just turned upside down (or was about to). She was now the firm’s crisis communications leader, devising ways to help executives not only communicate effectively, but to make the right decisions so they had something worthy to communicate.
In the years that followed, we worked together analyzing corporate crises and supporting responses to real-time incidents. The majority of our work involved creating and conducting crisis simulations across major corporations. We built elaborate scenarios, laid traps, and executives fell in. Our exercises surfaced all the mistakes executives make and drove the lessons learned. We also observed proven tactics and learned new tactics from some of the savviest and most effective communicators and crisis managers across the Fortune 500.
I was amazed at how Jo was always calm, cool, and focused. The first thing you immediately recognize about Jo is her laser-like focus. The second is just how well she could think like corporate adversaries, be it the media or a relentless activist group. And how she knows how to neutralize them.
This book is not about theory or abstractions. It shares proven practices from an expert that has served as an adversary, as a crisis consultant to the largest corporations in the world, and as an in-house crisis manager across numerous industries. Jo shares her firsthand experiences dealing with numerous incidents and what it was like in the moment, preparing, and acting to control the situation.
The book begins by making the crucial distinction between day to day communication and crisis communication. It then digs into key tactics and practices for effective crisis communications, including key actions before an incident occurs that can put you in a better position when a crisis strikes. This is proactive crisis communications at its core.
In the same vein, the book then provides practical tips for preparing an organization to manage a crisis including building teams and the ever important, but often overlooked, concept of operations. It also debunks some of the cardinal rules of business continuity that organizations have followed because…well… it’s always been that way. It then turns to questions around the use of apologies, an area often misstated in the academic research and by some of the big PR firms. Finally, the last two chapters look at best practice on media training and executing the communications strategy. This includes key pitfalls to avoid and advanced methods to shape the narrative and utilize what some may see as unwanted coverage to your advantage.
My entire career has focused on helping organizations proactively engage risks and manage uncertainty when the world turns upside down and then inside out. I’ve worked with more than seventy companies across a variety of industries to develop crisis preparedness. What I’ve learned is that crises happen to good companies. And great management teams fail because they are good at day to day management, not at crisis management. But the good news is that through pre-planning, training, and practicing (exercises) executive teams can become effective at crisis management.
The crises Jo Robertson addresses in this book aren’t temporary obstacles organizations face. The stakes are far higher. These crises pose a threat to the very viability of the organization itself, and typically impose permanent change onto the organization, oftentimes regardless of how we respond. The key variable is how much influence we are able to employ over the crisis and if we are able to affect a positive change or if we succumb to a negative one.
It’s not about putting the chessboard back together. It’s about employing tactics to adapt the organization to a new game no matter what the rules are. The tips and tools shared in this book are critical for executives to effectively manage and communicate during these situations, a critical step to survive and even thrive in crisis situations.
Larry Cristini
Head of Global Crisis Management
Facebook
September 2019
Course Adoption
Executing Crisis: A C-Suite Crisis Leadership Survival Guide is available for evaluation for course adoption for colleges and universities.
For qualified college/university course adoptions: to obtain an eBook or print copy for course evaluation, click here and submit the simple request form.
Reviews
Extremely current and relevant! Thought-provoking case studies will certainly engage C-suite leaders and enlighten the next generation of thinkers and doers (business and crisis students) to have meaningful conversations and put Business Continuity plans in place for any scenario.
Robert Crane
Adjunct Professor of Business Continuity, Crisis Management and Critical Infrastructure Protection
University of Central Missouri
As with any learning, it’s all about what you take-and-use. This book provides usable concepts and illustrates real life applications with numerous case studies. At the end of each chapter are summaries of learnings and actionable questions/thought provokers.
Of specific interest is (1) the use and methods of genuine apology; (2) understanding the limitations of the government’s Incident Command System (ICS) in corporate settings; (3) the conflicts between protecting legal liability vs. reputation management; (4) messaging through (not just to the media; and (5) focusing on the needs and concerns of all stakeholders.
Bruce T. Blythe
Chairman, R3 Continuum . . . Ready. Respond. Recover.
Executing Crisis by Dr. Jo Robertson carries a wealth of valuable guidance from a true expert in the field of crisis management. I have known Jo throughout her career, first as her client and then as a crisis management colleague while we performed similar functions at different corporations. Executing Crisis is easy to read but nonetheless provides solid, real-world insights into how to address the complex arena of business crises. Follow her lead and you will have light shining on the dark days of your crisis.
Gil Meyer
Crisis Management Expert
Author of “Corporate Smokejumper”
When crisis strikes, being prepared is at least half of the battle. Since most of us do not innately know what such preparation entails, Executing Crisis: A C-Suite Crisis Leadership Survival Guide by Dr. Jo Robertson is a must read for executives and managers who will eventually need to deal with a crisis situation- that means all of us! Executing Crisis is an excellent source of information and examples to demonstrate the importance of preparedness and it helps you to know how and when to respond when crisis occurs. In a perfect world, I recommend using the text as your starting point, to be followed by working with someone like Dr. Robertson to then conduct the work needed to prepare and practice.
I was lucky enough to work with Dr. Robertson as a Director of Research and as a member of the Executive Team for my business and found her teachings and advice invaluable in recognizing the need for crisis preparedness and the right questions to ask. Just like peeling an onion, she teaches you that you need to go more than one layer deep. With her help, I was able to develop a full and robust plan to be well prepared when the inevitable crisis should occur.
Preparedness does not just mean that you have thought about what would happen in a crisis and that you have action plans in place. It also means practicing using a crisis drill. Dr. Robertson led our business through such a drill, and it was amazing to see how much stuff will hit you all at the same time, and it never comes on your schedule. Without drills, you will make mistakes, and you will become driven by the agenda of others such as the press.
– Robert Wanat, President, Innov8 Chem LLC
I wish to recommend an excellent book by a leading Crisis Management Practitioner – Dr. Jo Robertson. This publication contains valuable lessons for the management of a crisis. Special topics include Team Building, Leadership, Crisis Communications and Continuity Management. I highly recommend people read this as it is the best Crisis Management book I have read!”
– Marco Moretti, Managing Director at Business Resilience and Continuity Staffing Solutions, Sydney, Australia
EXECUTING CRISIS is a book that belongs on your desk, not in a bookcase. It is not a reference book, but a “how to” step- by- step operating manual that will guide you through surviving a crisis while minimizing the impact of the crisis on your organization.
Dr. Jo Robertson is uniquely qualified to provide this counsel. As a Ph.D. she has stood before university classes and taught crisis management, but of greater importance to you, Jo has stood before the affected parties following an incident and worked with them to bring closure to the crisis enveloping neighbors, employees and others affected by the impact of the incident.
Many organizations have carefully drawn incident management plans, but only vague very general thoughts on how to manage the crisis that will likely result from the incident.
EXECUTING CRISIS will help you and your senior team develop a living and evolving crisis plan.
In the book, Dr. Robertson reminds the executives involved that while the incident – fire, explosion, leak, or whatever – is still being managed, the affected parties are already forming opinions on the situation and, most importantly, deciding if you will be their advocate in resolving their concerns or their adversary. Once that decision is made, attitudes are almost impossible to change.
The book gives guidelines on managing today’s challenges of communicating during a crisis. Social media allows everyone – every neighbor or employee, to be a journalist. And as Jo points out, whoever goes first frames the issue. This is a truth you and your team cannot ignore.
Read this book, discuss it with your team, and accept the challenges a crisis presents. It’s all going to happen wither you are or are not prepared.
– Peter J. McCarthy, Vice President (retired), Elf Atochem
In crafting this book, Jo Robertson has drawn up her deep communications and crisis management experience gained from working with corporate leaders across multiple industries. She dispenses with traditional crisis management best practices in favor of setting a new level of guidance for corporate leaders while espousing a regimen of C-Suite planning, training and exercising.
The examples that Jo has drawn upon are real life experiences – the highs and lows of how people and organizations respond to crises. These examples are carefully documented and illustrated with links to news reports, press releases, spokesperson interviews and excerpts of social media to enforce the recommended guidance contained in these pages.
This is entertaining guidance in common sense language backed by practical experience. I recommend this book as an essential crisis management guiding tool for any corporate leader and those aspiring to be leaders.
– Gerry Smith
Executing Crisis: A C- Suite Crisis Leadership Survival Guide is designed to present the critical elements that Crisis Leadership needs to know to survive a Crisis Situation. It does that well, presenting the concepts and then case studies that demonstrate clear lessons to be learned from the success and failures of crisis managers and communicators in recent history. Even if you tend to dismiss the crisis management concepts as “some consultant’s” theory, Dr. Robertson gives plenty of real-life examples to remind you that some concepts are essential.
I’m not sure you will find any crisis management “how to” book with more case studies. In “Executing Crisis,” the reader finds enough case facts to decide where an organization went wrong, or better yet, cases where the right decision led to a clear benefit to the company. The underlying message to many of the cases is that preparing pays off and lack of preparedness often has excruciating costs that just keep on growing.
This is not the proverbial “2-pager;” many of the case studies are longer than that. This is a read that’s worth your time. Whether you read it through, or simply take a few minutes per chapter over a ten-day period, you are going to be much better prepared when it’s your turn in the crisis barrel.
– Bob Wilkerson, Senior Consultant for Crisis Management, Blue Moon Consulting Group
Catching up on my shelter-in-place reading I picked up an excellent selection called Executing Crisis, A C-Suite Crisis Leadership Survival Guide. The author, Dr. Jo Robertson knows a thing or two about crisis management. Dr. Robertson is presently the Global Director of Crisis Management and Business Continuity for the Madison Square Garden Company and held similar roles at Capital One, Arkema Inc., Marsh Crisis Counseling, and Deloitte Service, LLP. As if those credentials were not enough, the in-depth foreword by Facebook’s Head of Global Crisis Management exemplifies her excellent standing in the crisis management industry.
Dr. Robertson has packed 20 years of crisis management experience in a 250+ page book that is part survival guide and part framework. With nearly two-dozen relevant crisis case studies, we are walked through what and what not to do in time of crisis. One aspect of this book that I have generally found missing in other crisis management books was the intersection of business continuity, risk management and crisis management. Here, Dr. Robertson does an excellent job presenting how companies who felt they covered all their incident response bases with risk and continuity management still fell short of an adequate response. The lesson here is do not think risk and business continuity plans eliminate the need for a comprehensive crisis management plan.
The book is organized into ten chapters covering the gambit of planning, training, and executing a crisis management plan. Some of the more insightful chapters include What’s Your Crisis Dream Team? and Apology as a Business Decision. The book includes many links of examples of actual crisis communications and an analysis of what worked and what did not. The book contains several exercises that challenge the reader to respond to several crisis scenarios considering actual events as well as thought provoking questions to apply critical thinking to your own crisis management preparedness.
The author writes in a concise and experienced prose leaving out unnecessary information making reading the book enjoyable and the lessons memorable. I could not imagine anyone with a crisis response plan not being able to extract dozens of worthwhile and applicable suggestions from this book. If you only read one crisis management book this year, it should be Dr. Robertson’s Executing Crisis, A C-Suite Crisis Leadership Survival Guide. I will be adding this book to my recommend student reading list.
– Tari Schreider, Certified CISO Instructor, EC-Council
