I Muted Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton During the Debate. I Still Knew the Score.
We’ve told people for years that HOW you say something is more important than the exact words you use. Last week, the New York Times watched the first presidential debate with the sound off. The idea was simple: to test the theory that what presidential candidates say during debates is less important than what they look like […]
Trick or Treat! Outrage Masquerades as Principles in Crisis Management
Why are organizations punished in the Court of Public Opinion for violating ethical principles when they have not broken any law? Dr. Peter Sandman, a preeminent risk communications expert, says when an issue sparks outrage (and we see plenty of organizations pilloried in social media by outraged trolls every day), society becomes desperate to blame […]
Context is King: 3 Ways to Take Control of Interviews
[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] The second a crisis rears its ugly head and a reporter knocks on your door about it, you start quaking in your boots. You get a lump in your throat and notice you’re sweating. But you know in your heart that your organization is not the villain in this issue, […]
Crisis Management: Faced With Trump’s Relentless Attacks, Ford (Finally) Has A Better Idea
By Thom Fladung Hennes Communications During Monday night’s presidential debate, Donald Trump once again made Ford Motor Co. the poster child for corporate flight from America. “So Ford is leaving,” Trump said. “You see that, their small car division leaving. Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio. They’re all leaving. And we can’t allow it […]
Hypervigilance and the Digital Age
Keywords: Cyberterrorism; Hypervigilance; PTSD; Abstract: This paper discusses the development of a hypervigilant culture within the U.S., with attention-grabbing low-frequency incidents overshadowing the far deadlier but less sensational every day risks. While we now live in a modern world where people are living longer, free-er, and richer than ever before, more of us have become […]
Responding to Reports of Sexual Abuse of Students, Past and Present – The Convergence of Attitudes and Expectations
From our friend and colleague, David Wolowitz… Recently, the responses of independent schools to reports of past abuse of students by faculty have received intense scrutiny by the news media, social media, survivors, victim’s lawyers and alumni. Why is this happening now? I believe we are in a period of cultural change in which there […]
Even Hall of Famers Can Fumble Crisis Management
[By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications] Imagine this: You’re running a meeting and you have information that will affect everyone else in that meeting negatively. You decide not to share any of that information during the meeting and prattle on as if nothing is about to change or happen. Except everybody in the conference room finds out […]
Communication Tactics To Supercharge Your Leadership
Communication is the real work of leadership: articulating a vision. Breathing life into professed values. Challenging the status quo. Engaging people’s heads, hearts and hopes. A lot of that communication is in day-to-day conversation, in meetings, and other routine interactions. But some of it also comes in the form of speeches or presentations. Death-by-PowerPoint is unacceptable. […]
Ryan Lochte’s Apology is Clear: He Doesn’t Realize What He Has Done Wrong
Let’s say you’re a guest in someone’s home. You and your friends are invited to a dinner at which the hosts, though cash-strapped, do their level best to put out a nice spread and show you hospitality. You over-serve yourself on their liquor, stagger around drunk and tear a picture off the wall, then unzip […]
The (Epi)Pen is Mightier Than the Sword
[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] Is it something in the DNA of biopharma CEOs that lights up righteous indignation all over social media and focuses the media spotlight on their self-made crises? Not long ago, I wrote about Turing Pharmaceutical’s 5,000 percent price hike of the toxoplasmosis drug, Daraprim, and the clueless swagger of its […]