From the world’s best golf professional to a politician to the director of a local charity, personalities at the top of their profession can engage in behavior that can damage or destroy their reputation and that of their organizations.
Situations like these are some of the most difficult a communicator can face because they inevitably come down to a balancing between personal privacy and organizational damage control. For a variety of reasons, especially the public’s seemingly insatiable appetite for sordid details about people in power, this type of crisis invites intense media scrutiny.
Do high-visibility personalities facing personal problems deserve a measure of privacy? Of course they do; but only to an extent.
People whose success is based on public approval owe their stakeholders – be they fans lining the fairways, tees and greens of a golf course, constituents who vote or attendees at a charity dinner and auction – an explanation of the crisis and their role in it.
However, the longer a personality waits to communicate the harder it will be to connect with his or her stakeholders. If those stakeholders don’t receive information from the personality involved in the crisis they will assume the worst.
With the exception of criminal activity, in which case the authorities often determine what information can and cannot be discussed, you must say something, anything, to acknowledge the situation and explain what you are doing about it. Use your professional judgment to determine which details should be made public and which should remain private.
Depending on the scope and nature of the crisis the personality should be able to address the public within 48 hours. After that, you and your client are navigating in uncharted, shark-infested waters.
The Tiger Woods Crisis
Early on the morning of December 2, the day after Thanksgiving, golf superstar Tiger Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade, first into a fire hydrant then into a tree, precipitating one of the most widely covered sports stories of the decade.
Stories of the accident flashed around the world with no personal response from the golfer. Seven days into the scandal there were more than 57,000 stories about his infidelity and 80,100 in three weeks.
Later that day Woods and his communications team posted a statement to his website with the awkward headline, “Tiger Comments on Current Events,” that raised more questions than it provided answers. Unfortunately there was no mention of a spokesperson to answer questions and clear up the ambiguities in this statement. There was also no mention of a press conference.
Then on December 11 another statement, “Tiger Taking Hiatus from Golf,” was posted. Once again the statement provided no details about the crisis, didn’t name a spokesperson – frankly nine days into the crisis that spokesperson should have been Woods, an eloquent speaker – and did not disseminate information about a press conference.
Rather than admit the scope of the problem Woods and his communications team opted for what many communications experts call “Death by a Thousand Cuts.” Whenever another of Woods’ paramours came forward the media went into a feeding frenzy and most of their stories ended with the question: Could there be more women?
While Woods was in hiding, the media had little trouble locating crisis management practitioners who gladly offered their opinions regarding what Woods should do. Their advice covered the spectrum from continue hiding and don’t say anything to sit down with Oprah Winfrey and tell his story to the popular television show host and her 7 million daily viewers.
One month into the crisis we still haven’t heard from Woods or a spokesperson. According to The Cleveland Leader, his approval ratings have been “dropping off faster than a car driven off the side of a cliff” from 80-percent two years ago to 60-percent the day after his accident to 34-percent on December 23. A December 16 Los Angeles Times story headline blared, “The Tiger Woods Story Gets Bigger and Juicier.”
About this time allegations of Woods using performance-enhancing drugs surfaced. Then, on December 27, MSNBC aired a program titled, “The Rise and Fall of Tiger Woods.”
What might have been a more effective way to communicate in a situation like this?
Go ugly early
In the early moments of just about any crisis a statement from the person or organization involved should be issued defining the situation, explaining what is happening and what’s being done about it. If nothing else, that statement establishes the individual or the organization as a source of information.
Don’t attempt to sugar-coat or “spin” information, blame other people for blowing things out of proportion or attempt to minimize the situation. A short statement is better than rambling on about how the media is out to get you or your organization. It’s naïve to think that by of gravity story becomes one of veracity.
Silence allows the story to develop without your perspective and information. By the time you get ready to communicate the story’s direction will have already been determined written and it will be a monumental task to dig yourself out from under the media stories that already have been written or broadcasted.
There is a discussion about the Initial Statement in an article describing the crisis management communications writer.
Media training
Succeeding in this high-pressure environment requires special communication skills because a media interview is not a normal conversation. That’s why top people in any organization, regardless of size or purpose, must have media training. For further information, see the Media Training page on this website.
Plan and rehearse
Deciding on a course of action while a personality-driven crisis is raging is almost always fraught with internal conflict and panic. Although it might be difficult to imagine such a scenario occurring at your organization, you and your management team should discuss how they will respond.
The discussion should be followed by a tabletop crisis exercise based on a plausible scenario. Don’t forget to update your crisis communications plan based lessons learned during this exercise.
Sage crisis response advice
The best crisis response advice I’ve seen is on the masthead of the Aspen Daily News, “If you don’t want it published, don’t let it happen.”
