When we think of crisis, it’s easy to recall those of epic scale, like the harrowing hours of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, or more recently, the swath of Ponzi king Bernard Madoff’s ruthless deceit. But drill down and all crises are bound by common denominators: the aftermath is attributable to a natural or man-made disaster. In an instant either by calculus or happenstance, a place is indelibly memorialized for being the “where” of the news lead: “who, what, where, when and why.”
Small businesses are not immune from crisis, and in fact, the business can be the collateral damage, not from the event but rather from the way in which the owner handles his obligation to be responsible in response.
In 1984, I was among a privileged corps from McDonald’s national PR agency network for what was billed as “the only time” that the company’s CMO would recap a terrible chapter in that company’s storied history: the horrific shootings at a San Ysidro, California restaurant. The executive was highly emotional in recounting the anguish of the murderous episode, for which his company was the unfortunate backdrop. In seconds, a premier American brand was plunged front and center of a drama playing out on national television. We learned of the meticulous attention to detail in response, ranging from securing clergy for on-premises services, a pre-dawn removal of the iconic arches sign, to the decision to bulldoze in favor of an outdoor living memorial park. For me, a professional passion in crisis communications was born.
A crisis is never convenient, often messy and unavoidably there are people who “need to know” and “want to know.” Reputations are at stake and the blame game often comes with legal firepower. As a business owner, you are connected to too many stakeholders to not be ready. Communications is at the heart of effective crisis response, and made even better with proactive crisis readiness. Accidents, weather, fires, medical emergencies, executive termination, hazmat events, product recalls, bankruptcies, lawsuits and utility failures and real life can get in the way of business. If you don’t have the phone numbers of your customers, your elected officials, newsrooms, town or city management, and inside crisis lines at hospitals and emergency response agencies, you should. The time to wish you had a crisis response plan that anticipated a deluge of press corps with satellite news vans and power needs, anxious families of employees or vendors, or law enforcement at your store doorstep is not after the crisis has occurred, but well in advance.
It’s easy to adopt a loathing of corporate executives who should know better, but the story of Malden Mills’ owner Aaron Feuerstein who did right by his employees in the face of financial adversity left him with a bankable reputation which remains a powerful lesson in crisis leadership.
Warren Buffett said it well: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”