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Treasurer Joe Hockey’s recent call for ordinary Australians to “get a good job that pays good money” if they want to afford a house in Sydney, followed by his statement that “if housing were unaffordable in Sydney, no one would be buying it” will have put his communications advisers (among others) into crisis management overdrive.
Putting aside the veracity, or even the reasonableness of the comments, Mr Hockey now faces the problem of how to react to the storm of (highly predictable) outrage.
Coming as they do on the heels of his comments about the connection between poor people and petrol prices (in case you missed it there is none, because poor people don’t have cars and if they do, don’t drive very far) and the cigar-smoking incident post last year’s ‘austerity’ budget, claims that Mr Hockey is out of touch with ordinary Australians appear increasingly supportable.
Clearly, the stakes are high. Mr Hockey is in real danger of these comments permanently shaping the way he is viewed (think: “Life wasn’t meant to be easy” and “The recession we had to have”).
Of course, Mr Hockey is far from the only prominent person to find themselves under similar fire. In fact, in both the political and corporate arenas, the surest bet you can have is not if a crisis will come, but when.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that a robust crisis communication plan offers the best road to the swiftest and best response. That means a plan with clear and transferable processes which will guide and support you no matter what the issue.
As BlueChip sees it, there’s only one real solution from the three most-followed responses to this kind of crisis. And Mr Hockey – we’re telling you this for free!
- Sit back and hope it will all blow over
In the digital age this is not an option. The front page may change tomorrow, but the twittersphere, blogosphere and every other social media channel will go on. And on. And on. Getting in front of the story to shape – or reshape – the narrative is always a better option than waiting (and hoping) that the next news cycle will extinguish the fire.
This is particularly true if an apology is called for. The longer it is in coming, the less sincere it appears.
Key lesson: If you don’t shape your story, somebody else will.
- Shoot the messenger and blame the press
Another poor option. Press coverage and other commentary (regardless of the channel) may be relentless and often out of proportion to the gaffe. Taking on the commentators will only perpetuate the story – a.k.a. digging yourself a deeper hole.
Again, this is especially the case if the original comment or behaviour warrants an apology or retraction rather than a storm of poorly veiled self-serving bluster. Unless there is something to be gained by trying to justify what has been said, you run the very real risk of adding insult to injury.
Key lesson: If you’re going to take on the media, choose your battles.
- Mea culpa
In our view, a sincere and complete apology is Mr Hockey’s only option.
It is only by directly acknowledging the upset your comments or actions have caused that you can directly address the problem: which is unwanted outrage and negative emotion. You must take it on the chin and hope for a compassionate public. The swifter, franker and fuller the apology, the less fuel to keep the story alive.
And the mea culpa response can be just as appropriate in other cases where, rather than a gaffe, what’s been said or done is for a considered business or policy reason. (Ladies and gentlemen, there are times when your egos are best left at the door.)
The Royal Bank of Canada is a case in point. In 2013 it announced publicly and without warning that it was replacing local employees with offshore workers. Not surprisingly, there was an overwhelmingly negative response, especially on social media. The bank made a number of false steps in dealing with the crisis, which only fanned the flames.
This included having the HR manager rather than the CEO address the issue, increasing the perception that the bank didn’t view the situation as worthy of the boss’s attention. The bank trying to justify the behaviour by making the conversation about the business reasons for outsourcing compounded the problem. This approach failed to address the source of the issue – emotion about offshoring Canadian jobs and the fallout for employees soon to be out of work.
The CEO’s final statement: “I want to apologise to the employees affected by the outsourcing arrangement, as we should have been more sensitive and helpful to them” should have gone out first and was far more positively received than any number of previous statements about outsourcing as a means of increasing profitability.
Key lesson: Understand the source of the outrage or emotion and address it swiftly.
The bottom line?
Prevention is clearly better than cure, so avoiding the crisis in the first place means less nasty medicine later.
At the same time, we know that crises can’t always be avoided, so planning for a potential crisis is the best way of making sure your response will be fast, considered, consistent and clearly delivered.
Preparing messages and spokespeople, testing and refining the plan and undertaking a crisis simulation that includes strong internal communications will help you respond swiftly and appropriately when (not if) trouble strikes.
