Thought LeadershipCrisis Articles

White Papers»

"Reputation Matters" White Papers seek to offer deeper insight on a wide range of topics we help clients address.

Corporate Conscience In The Darkest Of Days: What Can Board Directors Do About Ukraine?
It's Not over Until It's over: The Perils Of Declaring Victory In Crisis Too soon
Chaos Leadership: When Does Global Crisis Turn Into Chaos and How Do we survive It?
Chaos Rules: 8 Ways to Navigate Through the Fog of Crisis
Crisis Leadership in Real Time: 8 Pandemic Best Practices
Great Crisis Management Is Counterintuitive
Communicating in Crisis: How to Build Trust in an Untrustworthy World
Forget the Hype: What Every Business leader Needs to Know About Artificial Intelligence Now

...read more»

The Sociopath In The Office Next Door

Davia Temin, Forbes, November 19, 2010

Davia talks about ‘evil in the office,’ and about what to do and how to deal with a situation in which a well-running company becomes dysfunctional and toxic because of an individual sociopath. […read more]

Recipe For Resilience In Tough Times

Davia Temin, Forbes, September 23, 2010

Why do some fold in the face of crisis and hard times, while others rise from the ashes? Davia writes on resilience, and takes three principles of resilience from Diane Coutu: A staunch acceptance of reality, the ability to make meaning of terrible times, and an uncanny ability to improvise. […read more]

Crisis Management 1001: Reputation Rehab

Davia Temin, Forbes, August 12, 2010

What happens after the crisis dies down?

What happens to crisis survivors like AIG , Goldman Sachs , Toyota , FEMA or Greece after they fall out of the headlines–or the next big crisis pushes them out? Is it just business as usual? Do their boards, the public, the press and the government just forget about it all?

Well, sort of yes, sort of no. Corporate crisis survivors do limp back into play, in the shadows of the limelight. Toyota is clearly still selling cars (on sale, by the way). AIG is still in business writing policies (after closing its Financial Products unit), Goldman Sachs is still advising corporate America and the world (though its stock price is down significantly). And, I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that BP , now that the well is capped, will not only still be selling gas, but it will return to “beyond petroleum” as a tagline (although with a new CEO and possibly a restructured board.)

Yet the tarnish remains on their brands–doubts linger. Some people will still choose a Nissan over a Toyota for safety reasons, some municipalities will still choose JP Morgan over Goldman to issue their bonds due to ethics concerns. And, faced with a choice, many will still buy any brand of gas other than BP for a long time to come.

What can organizations do to accelerate the rehabilitation of their reputations? After 25 years in the business of crisis management and reputation rehab, I’m not sure there is a kind of crisis I have not dealt with. And always, always, the seeds of eventual rehab are sown in how well the organization handles the crisis in the first place.

Now I am not talking about crisis management 101–be totally transparent all the time, put your CEO out front and center, even when you don’t know the dimensions of the crisis, etc. That’s for baby crises, and we all know they do not work for the biggies. I’m talking about crisis management 1001–and those rules are different, more subtle, more powerful, more resonant.

People watch and remember how you handle yourself under stress, and long after the details fade, they remember the effect. Did you lie? Did you snicker? Did you show your human compassion for the victims? Did you act quickly and correctly? Did you keep putting in fixes long after you had to? Did you walk the talk? Did you follow through on your promises to “make it right?” Did you not do it again?

These answers determine your reputation going forward.

Most important of all–in any crisis–is to short-circuit denial! It’s a human trait when disaster strikes to go straight into “this can not possibly be happening to me.” Or “if it is happening, it can not be that bad.” Or, “even if it IS that bad, no one will ever notice…” The more quickly you move beyond this denial, the more quickly you can put in the right fixes … and that makes all the difference to how the crisis will unfold, and how you will be remembered.
So, here are, straight out of my client letter, and out of my well of 125 hard-learned lessons of crisis management and recovery, 13 of the most important ones.

1. Just because you may have gotten away with something before–or know of others who have–do not assume that you will do so now. Assume that–eventually–all will be known, and design your actions accordingly.

2. Control your emotions. Just when your emotions will be going wild, you must conquer them and think strategically and smartly.

3. Keep your eyes on the outside. You will be tempted to withdraw into your inner world, but keep focused on the exterior reaction. You’ll make better decisions and it could help privately as well.

4. Move quickly to assess the situation and damage, and to not only publically strike the right note, but to start doing the right things.

5. Figure out what the right note–message, tone, words, delivery mechanism–is.

6. Never make a public denial when it’s a lie–there is no better way to be hated.

7. Each crisis is different–the particulars matter. So never just copy the responses of others, though you can learn from those who have done it well.

8. Limit your liability–but not your humanity–in how you respond to a situation.

9. Use the opportunity to reset your moral compass (i.e., listen to your lawyers, but not to the exclusion of your conscience).

10. If you must, take your medicine–apologize, make reparations–and then put in lasting, game-changing solutions.

11. Become a visible and real part of the solution–no matter what it takes.

12. Begin to be identified with best cases, so that your own “worst case” is forgotten over time.

13. Never, ever, ever make the same mistake again.

Click to […read on Forbes.com]

What Were They Thinking? Redux

Davia Temin, Forbes, August 9, 2010

Mark Hurd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, gives CEOs and other public persons just one more reason to think before they make a misstep as he resigns following a sexual harassment investigation. […read more]

Reputation Rehab

Davia Temin, Portfolio.com, April 19, 2010

Davia outlines twelve keys to reputation rehabilitation during and after crisis. She reminds us that, “every organization, large or small, can face a crisis that rocks its very foundation.” […read more]

Rebuilding Reputation

Davia Temin, Citi Global Viewpoints, Spring 2010

Davia writes for Citi’s Global Viewpoints on how financial institutions can work to regain what they lost in the 2008 financial crisis from a reputational standpoint: “The task now for financial institutions is to work out how they can address this loss of trust and confidence in a way that will quickly lead to a rebound of trust.”

If you’d like to see the full article, please contact us

Rebuilding Reputations, Regaining Trust In a 25/8 World

Temin Client Letter

“The primary goal for those of us who advise on the reputations of organizations and individuals – globally – must be to help the best of them earn and regain public trust, by leveraging the very communications tools that have exacerbated the problems in the first place.”

If you’d like to read the full article, please click here (pdf).»

To listen to the full article, click below.

Download (Right-click & select “save link as” or “save target as”…)

Handling Crisis: A Tale from Black Monday

James Kristie, Boards At Their Best, April 27, 2009

James Kristie, editor and associate publisher of Directors & Boards (quarterly journal and monthly online newsletter) brings us Davia’s “Crisis and Marketing Strategies for 2009: Swimming Naked with the Black Swans” in this blog post. […read more]

Crisis and Marketing Strategies: Swimming Naked with the Black Swans

Temin Client Letter

Today, as markets, consumers, businesses, governments, and nonprofits continue to reel from the unexpected events that have caught us – as Warren Buffett might say – with our pants down, the question we are all asking is how do we survive this deepening crisis? How do we swim naked with the Black Swans, in tumultuous waters, and keep from drowning?

If you’d like to read the full article, please click here (pdf).»

To listen to the full article, click below.

Download (Right-click & select “save link as” or “save target as”…)

Olympic Lessons: True East…or They Do It with Mirrors

Davia Temin, Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog, August 27, 2008

Davia writes on the way in which China made “their own truth” in the 2008 Olympic Games, and tells us that the truth, in business, is always the better path. Lies may work, however, they are not only morally abhorrent but also the easy way out. The truth is challenging, but its authenticity makes organizations built upon it far stronger. […read more]

White Papers»

"Reputation Matters" White Papers seek to offer deeper insight on a wide range of topics we help clients address.

Corporate Conscience In The Darkest Of Days: What Can Board Directors Do About Ukraine?
It's Not over Until It's over: The Perils Of Declaring Victory In Crisis Too soon
Chaos Leadership: When Does Global Crisis Turn Into Chaos and How Do we survive It?
Chaos Rules: 8 Ways to Navigate Through the Fog of Crisis
Crisis Leadership in Real Time: 8 Pandemic Best Practices
Great Crisis Management Is Counterintuitive
Communicating in Crisis: How to Build Trust in an Untrustworthy World
Forget the Hype: What Every Business leader Needs to Know About Artificial Intelligence Now

...read more»