STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

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ROBERT L. DILENSCHNEIDEREthics and competence forcrisis managementBackgroundHill and Knowlton, Inc. is a public relations company operating on a worldwide scale. Itsorganization includes at least 56 offices in North and South America, Europe, the MiddleEast, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. It offers services in the field ofcommunications - which include crisis communications and provide specific tools such assatellite channels and TV-linked conferencing. The company's clients range from publicorganizations to private corporations and trade associations, and from non-profit institutionsto labor unions and consumer groups. Robert L. Dilenschneider has been president and chiefexecutive officer of Hill and Knowlton since 1986. He is the author of a manual on publicrelations (see bibliography in appendix) and has taught in various universities such as NewYork University and the University of Notre Dame. We spoke with him in New York inAugust 1987.P.L.: Based on your experience, how do you see crisis management?R. DILENSCHNEIDER: The good crisis manager does not let his crisisbecome public when it is reasonable and possible to hold its impact to theminimum. But he has to be prepared to deal effectively with all the publicsinvolved when the crisis is beyond control.Take an air transport crash as an example. Many categories of people areaffected: there are the passengers who are hurt or killed, along with theirfamilies and acquaintances; there are regulatory and political authorities whomust be dealt with for legal or diplomatic reasons; all those with a stake inthe company must be kept informed, such as stockholders and employees;customers have to be not only informed but reassured as well; the press, withits insistent and voracious need to inform the public, must be met forthrightlyand satisfied.In each instance the facts and emphasis in communication may differ, aswill the persistence of interest in the crisis. The press wants the factsimmediately, as does everybody else. But politicians and regulators will beconcerned, perhaps, for years. Employees' interest will linger for a long
R. Dilenschneider: Ethics and competence 191time. In fact, some studies show that they have enormous psychologicalproblems following a tragic crisis.The good crisis manager must assess the importance and nature of theinterest of all such groups, both immediately and for the future. He mustwork out a strategy accordingly. And it will become evident only in time howwell he has performed. Only afterwards can one measure how a crisis hasbeen handled. Do employees leave? Have customers abandoned the ship? Howhave stock prices and market share reacted? Has the crisis led to additionallaws or regulations? To me, these are important criteria.P.L.: What do you think of the "right" crisis plan?R. DILENSCHNEIDER: Many people like to say, "Here's my crisis plan."Forget it. The crisis plan never works. What is needed are people skilled indealing with crises and who have a feel for the social, political, and economicdimensions of their country, their city, their continent, their world. Suchpeople are able to adjust very quickly within that framework. Such peopleshould be skilled at handling other people, such as the media, the inhabitantsof the political environment, and employees from entry level to the executivewing. The good crisis manager is always training people how to deal with acrisis.Let's look at a good case and a bad case. A chemical company that I willnot name had a serious crisis. It had had 70% of a particular market, butafter the crisis it plummeted to 30%, a tremendous loss. It cost the company$40 million to recover that market share. To me, that is an example of acrisis that was not well handled.In a Gerber Food crisis, where the company had unwittingly gotten bits ofglass into baby food jars, the company's 80% of the market dropped to 65%.They spent only a couple thousand dollars getting their market share back.That is a good example.P.L.: What was badly dealt with in the first case?R. DILENSCHNEIDER: Amateurs rushed into the public domain with moreinformation than they needed to communicate. As in many cases, I thinkmanagers created more of a crisis than there was in the first place. Ratherthan dealing in a straightforward way with the politicians and regulators,rather than getting the story to the press, they continued raising problems.A good technique to consider in a crisis is to tell all those concernedsomething like this: "To recover from this crisis, there are ten things we needto do." Then you list them. Every time you get one of them accomplished,you declare a partial victory. Finally you get to ten, and the concerned peopleare satisfied because you have pulled them into an understanding of theprocess and an appreciation of the progress.P.L.: Is there a particularly amateurish way of dealing with a crisis?R. DILENSCHNEIDER: The world is populated with amateurs. The amateurtends to speculate, which is dangerous in a crisis. He tends to move faster thanhe should, not stopping to think through the consequences, not taking intoaccount the audiences which should be considered. Take Chernobyl as anexample. There were enormous implications for the vodka business in
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STATES OF EMERGENCYTechnological Fa
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viiiContents- Edgar Fasel..........
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IntroductionIn recent years, a whol
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Introduction 3And what goes for maj
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Introduction 5It is not hard to mea
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Introduction 7Look for example at t
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PART ONETechnical Breakdown,Crisis
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12 Technical breakdown, crisis and
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Organizations with their backs to t
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3. In the thick of thingsThe most r
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MARC BECAMThe oil spill from the
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M. Becam: The "Amoco Cadiz" 47Trava
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M. Becam: The "Amoco Cadiz" 49quest
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M. Becam: The "Amoco Cadiz" 51M. BE
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M. Becam: The "Amoco Cadiz" 53way:
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RICHARD THORNBURGHThree Mile Island
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R. Thornburgh: Three Mile Island 57
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D.K Burrows: Mississauga 67We chose
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D .K Burrows: Mississauga 69look af
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D.K Burrows: Mississauga 71D.K. BUR
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D.K Burrows: Mississauga 73P.L.: No
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76 Technological crises and the act
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EDGAR FASELSchweizerhalleand the po
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PHILIPPE VESSERONThe case of the Se
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100 Technological crises and the ac
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Technological crises and the actors
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Technological crises and the actors
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Page 140 and 141: 140 Technological crises and the ac
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Page 222 and 223: ENRICO QUARANTELLIThirty years of c
Page 232 and 233: PART THREELandmarks for ActionQuest
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242 Landmarks for action. Questions
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6. Perspectives: the debate is open
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Perspectives: the debate is open 25
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276 Conclusionsituations of excepti
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ReferencesIntroduction1. P. Lagadec
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References 281Chapter 21. Newsweek,
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References 28314. Interview with Lu
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STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

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