Category: Damage Control

Maintaining Role and Boundary Awareness When Teaching Remotely in a Time of Crisis: Being Alert to the Challenges of One-on-One Electronic Communications

From our good friend and colleague, David Wolowitz. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools have instituted remote learning.  We are fortunate that so many schools and families have access to the technology to make this possible.  Not surprisingly, the sudden and unexpected shift to remote learning comes with many challenges.  One particular […]

What Customers Need to Hear from You During the COVID Crisis

Written by Jill Avery and Richard Edelman, writing for the Harvard Business School. As the COVID-19 virus pandemic began to sweep across the world, Doug McMillon and his team at Walmart watched in horror. Suddenly, they realized, tomorrow would be nothing like “business as usual” and everything in the company’s marketing plan, from retail execution […]

COVID-19 – We’re Here for You (Yes, We Really, Really Are)

We are living in uncertain and unprecedented times, so it’s important for you to know that we’ve been here since 1989 – and that our top priority is people. From the safety of our home and yours, we’re here for you.  We really are.  And we won’t just tell you – we’ll show you.  And after […]

What We’ve Learned So Far: Communicating About COVID-19

By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications For those of us who make a living helping clients communicate during crises, the last few weeks have been breathtaking as we’ve worked with organizations of all types to grapple with the arrival of COVID-19.  We’ve moved from developing plans that anticipate a possible positive test result to creating communications […]

Now is the Time – Media Training for Attorneys & Their Clients

Whether it’s a staff meeting on Teams, a webinar on Zoom, a private conversation on FaceTime or a short training video you record on WebEx, it’s not just what you say, but how you say it.  And if it’s an interview with a seasoned reporter, the stakes are even higher.  You must be prepared to answer […]

What Can You Do to Help Your Employees Through this Crisis?

By Bruce Hennes & Stephanie York, Hennes Communications We’ve all been inundated by the media with COVID-19 information, but what can you do to help your employees get through this crisis? The best thing you can do to prepare your team for whatever is about to come is to communicate, communicate and then communicate some […]

9/11’s Lessons on Crisis Leadership

By Stanley McChrystal and Chris Fussell, writing in the March 24, 2020 edition of The New York Times: On Sept. 11, 2001, the job of every leader in the U.S. Special Operations community changed. In the ensuing years of fighting a highly complex, networked enemy, we redesigned how our organization communicated, shared information, made decisions […]

When It Comes to the Pandemic, Scared Is Good

Written by Peter Sandman, this was written at the request of the Sunday Times of London for its March 15, 2020 edition – but not published.  Nearly every journalist who contacts me about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic wants to talk about panic. I usually ask the reporter, “Do you know anyone personally who’s panicking?” The […]

How the Pandemic Will End

By Ed Yong, writing for The Atlantic: Three months ago, no one knew that SARS-CoV-2 existed. Now the virus has spread to almost every country, infecting at least 446,000 people whom we know about, and many more whom we do not. It has crashed economies and broken health-care systems, filled hospitals and emptied public spaces. […]