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That Was The Week That Was

Blog, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Ethics, Humility, Leadership, Politics, Reputation

What a week for crises!

Forget about the financial melt-down, the transition to the new president, or any of the really old news.

Last week was one for the record books.

The curtain rose Monday, December 8, on the usual tired old economic meltdown crises, particularly the prospect of an auto bailout (that still hasn’t happened).

Then things got curiouser and curiouser…

Not Available on E-Bay

Tuesday Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich was arrested for trying to sell his appointment of President Elect Barack Obama’s vacant senate seat to a high bidder. He’s still governor (as of 3:30 PM Monday, December 15).

December 15, 2008/by Helio Fred Garcia

Update: Humility, Humiliation, and Self-Inflicted Harm: Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich

Blog, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Ethics, Humility, Politics, Reputation, Uncategorized

‘Nuff said….

Fred

December 10, 2008/by Helio Fred Garcia

When a Tweet From Mumbai Reaches Around the World

Blog, Crises, Crisis Communication, Humility, Reputation, Social Media

Mumbai by karmadude, under a Creative Commons license

Like many people in the U.S., I was out of town for Thanksgiving when I heard about the Mumbai attacks last week. After a Wednesday afternoon spent grocery shopping in Denver, CO, my family and I returned to my relatives’ house, turned on the news, and saw our first reports about the horrific attacks on CNN. Trying to learn more, I pulled up Twitter on a laptop, and searched for reports about what was happening. A flood of information started coming in.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone in using Twitter to follow the crisis. Twitter is a social networking tool that allows users (“Twitterers”) to post 140-character updates (or “tweets”) to their followers (or the public – over 80% of the 6 million users have public pages), either online, via text message or through other tools. This New York Times article notes that, “At the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word ‘Mumbai’ in it was being posted to Twitter.” Approximately 80 tweets were sent via SMS (text message) every five seconds (CNN).
Read more

December 5, 2008/by Laurel Hart

Humility Update: John Edwards

Blog, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Ethics, Humility, Leadership, Media, Politics, Reputation

Here We Go Again

This blog has noted that without a dollop of humility, leaders are at risk of humiliation.

Also that most crises are self-inflicted, and that the timeliness and quality of the response are more predictive of reputational harm than the severity of the underlying event.

We see all three of these principles at play in the John Edwards scandal. Read more

August 11, 2008/by Helio Fred Garcia

Humility Update: Pope Benedict XVI

Blog, Communication, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Ethics, Humility, Leadership, Reputation

Pope Benedict XVI dazzled New York and Washington this week, both with the majesty of his office and with his personal humility. The latter confounded expectations.

I have not been a particular fan of the man who is now Pope. When he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was considered by many to be the then-Pope’s enforcer. In November, 2002, some six months after the Boston Globe broke the story of systemic problems of child sexual abuse in the US Church, Cardinal Ratzinger said, according to the New York Times:

“’In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than 1 percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type,’ he said in November 2002 during a visit to Spain. ’Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated – that there is a desire to discredit the church.’”

April 21, 2008/by Helio Fred Garcia

Humility Update: Elliot Spitzer, the Iraq War, and Lessons for Leaders

Blog, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Humility, Leadership, Reputation

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

One week ago Elliot Spitzer was governor of New York, working hard to overcome an admittedly rocky first year in office. Today he’s gone, felled by a prostitution scandal that has all the markings of Greek tragedy.

From the moment the news broke last week, I’ve received dozens of e-mails from students, clients, friends, and blog readers asking whether/when I would post about the governor. I held back, for several reasons. First, what can one say in the moment that isn’t in very bad taste or already said? Second, I didn’t want to seem to be piling on. And third, I felt sympathy for the human beings affected by his behavior: certainly for his family; even for Mr. Spitzer; also for the then-unidentified woman, whose photo has now been splashed all over the papers, including the online versions of those sensationalist tabloids the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

But from a modest distance, some lessons now begin to emerge. One of them is this: Absent a dollop of humility, there’s a substantial likelihood of humiliation. Read more

March 17, 2008/by Helio Fred Garcia

Self-Inflicted Harm: From Today’s Headlines (2/6/08)

Blog, Communication, Crises, Crisis Communication, Ethics, Humility, Leadership, Reputation

Two stories in today’s (Feb. 6) New York Times compel me to blog.

Each reinforces our recent posts about self-inflicted harm, but each also provides its own teachable moment.

1. Wachovia Bank

Yesterday we blogged about the tendency of companies and their leaders to ignore a problem that is otherwise evident.

Another principle of crisis management is that companies can be forgiven if people have been hurt: killed, injured, insulted cheated, etc. But companies can’t be forgiven, and won’t be forgiven, if they’re seen not to care that people have been hurt.

Today’s Times, in a front business page story, reports that Wachovia Bank, which last year said it was unaware that fraudulent telemarketers were using the bank’s accounts to steal millions from unsuspecting victims, not only knew but had been put on notice about the fraud. Wachovia is the fourth-largest bank in the US.

The Times notes that newly-released documents in a lawsuit show that high-ranking employees at the bank frequently warned colleagues about telemarketing frauds routed through the accounts. Other banks and federal agencies also notified the bank, but it continued to provide banking services to the companies that helped to steal $400 million, the Times reports.

YIKES!!!! and DOUBLE YIKES!!!

February 6, 2008/by Helio Fred Garcia

Crisis Mis-Steps: Lessons from Société Générale

Blog, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Humility, Leadership, Reputation

One of the recurring themes of crisis management is that most harm in a crisis is self-inflicted, either in the first instance or because of a late or weak response, or both.

A second theme is that an effective response is often delayed by predictable mis-steps. Logos Institute has catalogued ten missteps that seem to be the common denominators of mis-handled crises. These ten missteps constitute predictable patterns that can be identified early and overcome, if only you know what to look for. One of these missteps is to ignore a problem that is otherwise evident.

A third theme is that these missteps are often caused or intensified by lack of humility among decision-makers.

These three themes were brought into sharp focus in today’s (Feb. 5, 2008) New York Times, whose business section has a detailed account of the missed warning signs at Société Générale, the French bank where a rogue trader cost the bank more than $7 billion.

February 5, 2008/by Helio Fred Garcia

Little Droplets of Humility

Blog, Communication, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Humility, Leadership, Reputation

“Crisis management is the new black!” A good friend recently shared that revelation with me via email. I had to laugh, not only because I enjoy a witty fashion metaphor, but because I’ve also enjoyed watching crisis management come of age in the public consciousness. Even in this era of distrust and information saturation, people are warming up to the power of the sincere apology – a step toward redemption requiring that dollop of humility my partner Fred Garcia writes about. More and more, people are welcoming the forward arc of emotionally-intelligent, collaborative leadership on a global scale. Absolutely fabulous, I say!

January 13, 2008/by Barbara Greene

Humility Update: The New Hampshire Primary

Blog, Crisis Management, Humility, Leadership

Thank you all for your very thoughtful comments on my post on humility as a leadership attribute.

Today (the day after the New Hampshire primary) I’ve gotten lots of calls and e-mails from people who read my original post, all commenting on Senator Hillary Clinton’s surprise victory in New Hampshire.

As you know, after the Iowa caucuses the conventional wisdom was that Senator Barack Obama, who had captured the women’s vote on his way to overwhelming victory in Iowa, would replicate his triumph in the New Hampshire primary.

Then Senator Clinton had a moment that changed the story. (See the YouTube video of her emotional moment.) Depending on which pundits you listen to, she either had an uncharacteristic moment of authentic vulnerability or a highly-contrived moment of inauthentic vulnerability. But the vulnerability — roundly interpreted as weakness — was seen to have changed the outcome.

It’s probably too soon to know for sure whether the expression of emotion really made such a difference. But it’s very interesting that vulnerability – however authentic it may be – is now seen to have propelled her to the front of the pack.

We’ll keep watching; your comments and reactions are welcomed…

Fred

January 9, 2008/by Helio Fred Garcia