On October 13th, there was an organized effort to boycott Twitter. When I first heard about it, I immediately thought, “What if someone boycotted my company?” How would it impact employee morale, our current customer base or revenue? As a leader, anticipating a crisis is not always easy. I’m sure Twitter had no warning that users were planning a boycott, but it also appeared to me that Twitter had been unprepared to address it.
Sometimes our best education comes from others’ missteps. What actions have you taken to be prepared for a customer boycott? If you are like me, it has not been a part of your contingency planning. Let me share the five things I did on Monday morning to change that:
- Identified likely scenarios of why a customer would boycott my organization;
- Brainstormed what actions I would need to take in response;
- Listed how I would communicate those responses;
- Disaster-checked the public “optics” of my responses with employees, trusted colleagues, and stakeholders who would have different perspectives;
- Wrote out a detailed crisis management response grid.
This might seem oxymoronic— how are you supposed to plan for an unknown future event? Unless you are clairvoyant, you can’t. What you can do, though, is think through likely scenarios and discuss what the appropriate responses should be. This is no different than creating an emergency plan for other business situations such as theft or a fire. Also, there are many examples of poorly thought-out responses to very public issues which can provide a basis for any company to start a discussion of how it would react in a similar situation.
Once you start brainstorming issues and think through response options, additional ideas will come. I suggest that anytime there is a new major crisis in the media, add it to your next leadership meeting agenda and take 10 minutes to determine how your organization would respond. Exercising this muscle with your leadership team will only strengthen your organization. Update your crisis management response grid as new scenarios arise. When an issue does arise, it doesn’t have to perfectly match the scenarios you have previously brainstormed. You will be able to quickly pivot from a scenario you thought about in advance and adjust slightly based on the unique facts.
Nobody wants to talk about it, but “what if” one of your executives had a very public Harvey Weinstein moment? As a leader it would be equally irresponsible for your organization not to prepare for that scenario as well.
Another strategy I have learned over the years that is useful in a crisis is to take a moment to identify as specifically and truthfully as possible what has happened so you can pick the correct course of action. In a crisis there is likely misinformation in abundance. Try to break down the anatomy of the mistake or situation. Also, a critical aspect of your crisis plan is the decision formula: Who makes the decisions? Is it the CEO? The board of directors?
Make crisis management of your public communication a key point of your annual risk assessment and brainstorm remediation efforts. Discuss not just the specific scenarios but the process of evaluating the bigger picture of how an event may be perceived by external stakeholders. Then consistently educate all employees in the resulting crisis management plan. Like insurance, you may be fortunate and never need to deploy your plan, but you will be responsibly planning for the long-term health of your enterprise and creating peace of mind in the process. There are many strategies involved in crisis management. If this is an area that you or your organization needs to address, contact me at david@i7strategies.com.