Paying forward pays big dividends

Two competing restaurants are offering a reward for finding a killer. It’s difficult to think of a better example of paying forward to develop a reservoir of good will.

Trudy's and Taco Shack are Austin, TX restaurants that have grown over the years to multiple locations, all within the city. They each have a business in the vicinity of a small park where a blind homeless man was murdered. And they each anted up funds to offer $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer.

Showing humanity above and beyond what typically is expected of a business is inspirational to the cynics of the world (I count myself as one of them) and raises the bar for corporate good citizenship. It also brings in customers who feel good about the eateries and adds a smile and bounce in the step of servers.

Even if, over the years, the public forgets about this positive action, news media i n the future will uncover it when they do research on the companies should they experience a crisis down the road. When the companies speak, their voices will be heard and much more likely to be believed.

Thanks, y’all, for being good corporate citizens. I’m jazzed by the example you’ve set, and I even have a bit of bounce in MY step because of you.

Wizard of Oz: Number One no-no in crisis management

In my list of issues I address in vulnerability audits I’ll have to add "officer stupidity."

Hometown hero (I live in Austin) John Mackey, chairman and CEO of Whole Foods, was outed as rahodeb, author of years of anonymous blogging that included negative comments about competitors.

Not only was it stupid--exposing this company to public ridicule, FTC scrutiny, and undermining employee confidence--it was amazingly childish. It reminds me of passing notes in class in junior high school, hoping they weren’t intercepted by the teacher, but getting a thrill out of the very process.

One has to wonder whether the chairman of such major business doesn’t have something better to do with his time. I have enough trouble working for my clients and trying to find time for my own blog. I can only conclude that he is the master of delegation!

Now that it has hit the fan, Mackey chooses to address reporter, investor and employee questions via the Whole Foods blog. Who wrote that? His attorneys? That’s how it reads. And a very unsatisfactory read at that.

Hiding behind his blog, Mackey is mimicking the Wizard of Oz rather than addressing the public’s questions. We need to hear his voice and read his body language to judge sincerity. In the meantime, we’re left to imagine our own answers to the questions: The Number One no-no in crisis management is hiding from the public!

If you ignore it, does it exist?

Evidently not, if you’re a county commissioner in Hidalgo County, Texas. Their levees aren’t up to snuff, and FEMA is meeting its responsibility by releasing new floodplain maps. The county is opposed because lenders could then insist their customers have flood insurance.

What am I missing here? The county is going to sue FEMA for putting out the flood maps that by law they are supposed to put out to inform people if they are in flood-prone areas so they can move, buy flood insurance or build mitigation devices so they won’t lose everything they have or die.

Whew! Long sentence, but it really does all run together in my mind and in reality.

I saw this repeatedly in the years I worked for FEMA. Another example of trying to have it both ways is people who contest their property appraisals so their taxes will be lower then claim the appraisal was too low when they experience a natural disaster and want FEMA funds to help pay for their recovery.

Stand up, people! Crises happen. Turning your backs will change nothing, except to increase your risk. Something about this makes me want to slap faces!

And the little children shall lead the way.

He’s not so little, but a Boulder high school junior who took on Fox’s Bill O’Reilly recently conducted his interview in the most professional and assertive manner I’ve ever seen! Check it out soon before the link "dies."


Jesse Lange did it the right way.
1. He wore a suit and tie in counterpoint to the knit sport shirt worn by the teen presenting an opposing view.
2. He was respectful but firmly presented his point of view.
3. He was totally prepared with the exact words of an adult speaker at a high school meeting. The direct quotation disproved the contention that the speaker promoted drug use. Jesse held to his quotes in spite of what O’Reilly said.
4. Jesse then turned the tables, quoting from a section of O’Reilly’s book for kids. O’Reilly said Jesse was quoting him out of context. What fun!
5. The best part, in my opinion, was when O’Reilly called Jesse a pinhead. Jesse took the high road and ignored what could have been a rabbit trail that would take up precious seconds and eliminate the opportunity to address the real issue.
This young man has a terrific future ahead of him. Watch for his name in the next decade.
I highly recommend that you subscribe to www.Mediabistro.com. You’ll stay up to date on who’s working where and other behind-the-scenes media info.

Be first, but make it right!

We all know he who gets the message out first wins. Everyone else must attack from below--not a favorable point for attackers. The same truism holds if you are trying to correct your own message.

Austin, Texas, which prides itself on being a blue county in a red state, a liberal bastion of tolerance and the live music capital of the world, took a huge hit this week. A news release from the police department characterized the beating death of a Hispanic man as being by a mob of black men attending a Junteenth celebration. Local,regional and national news media picked up the story immediately. Austin came off looking racist to the national media and locally, leaders in both the black and Hispanic communities tried to fend off potential trouble.
By Day 3, the Austin mayor and police held a news conference to try to change the words and impression from that news release. The local media picked it up, but the national media ignored the "misstatements" and "further investigation reveals" comments. The city has a black eye and race relations are tenuous.
I’m curious who put wrote the release based on what information and who approved it. But that’s just my curiosity. It won’t change a thing.
The lesson learned is to follow the advice of Texas hero Davy Crockett: "Be sure you’re right, then go ahead."

How full is your reservoir?

Your reservoir of good will, that is. The trust people have in you or your business or industry. When the inevitable crisis occurs, will you start with an ample supply of water to put out the fire, or will you be calling in neighboring fire departments?

Your reservoir of good will is much the same as your brand ID: what gut reactions do people have when your name is mentioned? If you’re one of the oil companies, that gut reaction calls for some Pepto-Bismol. Who, outside the industry, believes the oil companies are not artificially manipulating costs? Everyone loves to hate the oil industry right now, even Texans and Alaskans! (I speak from personal experience, here.)

How could that distrust, even hate, be changed? Well, Shell Oil is making every effort with town hall meetings across the country by an extraordinarily well prepared executive taking all comers in a calm, courteous manner. But, gee, wouldn’ t it have been so much better to deflect most of that distrust and anger in the first place?

Quick, name a charity supported by the brand of gasoline you buy. No? Well, any brand, then. No, Venezuela’s CITGO donations to low-income northeasterners don't count.

No new oil refineries have been built in a decade because the oil companies say it is too expensive to build a refinery with the now-mandated pollution controls. Yet the Shell spokesman made it sound like the industry in general and his company in particular are caught in a financial squeeze between the cost of oil production and Uncle Sam. Do I believe that? Do you?

We’d both be more inclined to believe them if we had reason to feel warm and fuzzy about the oil companies in the first place. Admittedly an oil derrick or tank farm are unattractive poster children for the oil company cause. (Unless you grew up in West Texas and thought they were mighty pretty!)

The point here is that all businesses, associations and governmental agencies must be known for the good they do before the public questions the bad. Your crisis management plan should begin with a detailed public relations plan to create the ties between your organization and your public. Your "brand" should be thought of fondly or at least neutrally by your customers. It’s a long process of walking your talk to create that warm, fuzzy feeling, but it’s miles shorter if you begin the journey before a crisis requires you to climb out of a very deep hole before beginning your hike.

What do you have in your reservoir?

EAPs Can Avert Crises

Think you have to fire that valuable employee because s/he has become too difficult to work with? Think employee assistance program instead.

When a formerly favored employee becomes unreliable, testy and/or poorly groomed, s/he likely is going through a personal crisis that’s translating into an office crisis. While personnel laws prohibit your asking personal questions about causes, you can point out the deficiency. But rather than just hoping this behavior will change, refer the employee to an assistance program that will address mental wellness.

You don’t have an employee assistance program? OK. Surely you are foresighted enough to have mental health parity in your insurance plan. No? It costs too much, you say? How much is it going to cost to fire, hire and retrain a new person? How much has that employee cost you before you’re forced to speak to him or her about the problem?

The touchs tone of crisis management is avoiding it in the first place. Make it possible for employees (and yourself) to access mental health services. The mind and body are not separate any more than the heart and lungs. One cannot be healthy and productive without the other.

Crisis management is an investment that always pays for itself.

We haven’t had any problems yet.

YET!!!!
The most used word to avoid crisis planning and the most predictive word to prove the need for crisis planning.

As a crisis manager, "yet" is the most frustrating word I hear. It reminds me of the statistic about burglar alarms. People don’t install them or use them until their home is broken into. (A confession here: We became lax about using our home alarm and, sure enough, were broken into in the middle of the night as we slept. You can believe we’re fanatical about using it now!)

So, back to my future clients. Please don’t wait till you experience officer or employee malfeasance, a disastrous accident, or even a natural disaster to call me. Let’s work together now to plan for the "yet."

How to clean your boots when you’ve stepped in it.

(In response to friends, here's a bit of advice I wrote last year.)
When you step in stuff, you don’t leave it on your boots in hopes they will clean themselves. The recent flap about VP Cheney’s handling, or NOT handling, the hunting incident in South Texas is a textbook example of poor crisis management.Here’s what Texas mothers tell their kids, or at least what I told mine:

* You’re going to make mistakes along the way, but when you do, I better hear about it from you before I hear about it from my bridge club. That means the veep should have been the first to inform the public.

* Only 2-year-olds turn their back on you with the thought that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them. Cheney is considerably older than 2, and everyone can see him. The most interesting point that he overlooked, however, and hasn’t been reported by any of the news media that I’ve seen to date, is Texas la w about mandatory reporting of gunshot wounds. Physicians must report ALL gunshot wounds to local law enforcement. I think Cheney thought he’d be able to fly under the radar, except for that pesky law.

* Don’t try to wiggle out of the truth by just telling me part of it--I can see through you. Sending the ranch owner out, a day late, to speak to a friendly reporter only made the public want to know what the rest of the story was.

* You’ll be grounded if you don’t mind me! Since Cheney usually is in an undisclosed location anyway, this one doesn’t have much bite for him. He only appears before friendly audiences, anyway.

* If you lie to me, I won’t be able to trust you again for very long time! This speaks for itself.

* You just proved to me that you’re not responsible enough for (whatever perk the child, usually a teen, wants). In another country, the vice president could have been stoned to death, because he built a nice pile of rocks for other to throw at him.

* No, "everyone’s mother lets them do it" won’t work with me, young man! This family has rules and standards and I don’t care what other parents supposedly do. Did he really think "stonewalling" would work?

* Just dry up those tears--they don’t work on me. Going to friendly Fox for an interview and displaying emotion in his voice was all well and good. But he made it all about him (It was the worst day of my life) rather than about the man he shot.

* You’re a day late and a dollar short! In this case, four days too late.

* You know EXACTLY what I expect of you! I expect him to follow his friend to the hospital, meet the media after seeing that his friend was going to be OK, and saying how terrible he felt about his carelessness that caused his friend’s injury, instead of allowing speculation that it was the friend’s fault for getting in the way. Any bird hunter knows the safety rules , and Cheney is an old bird, hunter that is.

* Don’t bring those s*#^^* boots back in this house. Clean your boots immediately before the stink sets in and can’t be eliminated.

They MUST Blame Someone

It only took a few hours for the news media to start attacking the Virginia Tech administration for the delay in warning people about the shooter. My years working for FEMA (back when FEMA worked) taught me that people absolutely must have someone to blame, even for "acts of God" or serious lapses in personal responsibility.

I submit that blaming the administration for the delay is a rabbit trail. To find blame, look in the mirror.


Too many of us deny the reality of mental illness. We treat it as a character flaw, a lack of self control. When mental illness is recognized, finding treatment is a monumental challenge. Health insurance companies say that mandating parity in mental health and physical health coverage prices people out of insurance. "Taxpayers" won't "waste" money on Medicaid, so doctors can't afford to take on Medicaid patients. Hospitals resent mentally ill individuals who show up in their ERs. Well, how much money do you think mental illness costs? Lost work produtivity. Family violence. Police time. Jails. Courts. Prisons. We pay for mental illness, one way or another. Why not pay before it causes so much havoc?

This is my personal crusade: putting mental illness into the "mother’s handbook." We know how to recognize and treat chicken pox, dislocated soccer toes and migraine headaches. Why don’t we include mental illness in our handbook? I remember when it just wasn’t done to admit there was cancer in the family. That’s where we are with mental illness now.

Mental illness is painful--just as painful as a broken leg or laceration. Would we deny the existence of those maladies? No! Why not? Just because we can see it and we "know" about it?

Until we as a society diagnose, fund and treat mental illness, tragedies such as the Virginia Tech massacre will continue to happen. The first rule of crisis management: The bes t crisis management is crisis avoidance!