I often ask clients facing “bad news” situations – real, perceived or manufactured — what questions they hope won’t be asked by news media or public audiences.And I tell my clients that these are the questions they should answer before they’re asked.
Yes, many companies and organizations already have generic, usually innocuous Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs. Some go the always-flacky Fun Facts route.
But in a crisis or controversy, what matters most is how a company preemptively answers the “MOQs” — those dicey, sensitive and difficult but Most Obvious Questions about the negative situation and its ramifications:
“Did you know the spaghetti sauce was slippery before the tragic accident?”
“If two heads are better than one, why was there only one in the jar?”
“What page of your ethics policy would this situation have violated?”
You get the idea.
Answer honestly the MOQs before they’re asked and three very important things tend to happen:
One, you diminish the media sex appeal of discovery and exclusives. The tone of news coverage won’t represent the company as stonewalling if you’re pro-actively responding to hard questions that you know people have on their mind.
Two, you fill the vacuum that inherently gets filled with speculation, misinformation and rumor. If you don’t talk, someone else will — unnamed sources inside the company, competitors, analysts, consultants. Maybe just some guy on the street. You have to prove your company as the source of reliable information about your company.
Three, you enhance a reputation of credibility that gives you the benefit of the doubt when you need it most. This is important in unfolding events where news coverage is faster than the facts. You’re more likely to be believed when you say you don’t yet know the answer to a question that you brought up in the first place.
Insert Most Obvious Question from corporate lawyer: “Wait there, Heroic Execuflack. Doesn’t answering obvious but problematic questions before they’re asked open a company to increased potential legal liability?”
Not if it’s done right. But here’s the thing: Crisis managers, communicators and legal teams must work in sync. Protecting a potential legal strategy is not mutually exclusive to protecting the company’s public credibility in an already hyper-charged world of sloppy or biased reporting, disinformation and weaponized social media. History is full of companies that win in court but lose everything in the court of public opinion.
There are only three ways to answer a direct question, including the one you are pre-emptively addressing:
- I know the answer and here it is…
- I don’t know the answer but I can get the information…
- I can’t answer because… And here you have to be straight or lose whatever credibility you’re try to earn by acknowledging what you know is a bound-to-be-asked legitimate question: We don’t know, we couldn’t possibly know, we’re still looking into it, that information is proprietary, we won’t comment on pending litigation, we can’t speak for anyone else, you can’t handle the truth. Lots of options.
It all goes back to the primary rule of crisis: Bad news is going to happen with you or without you. Validate the difficult but most obvious questions surrounding an incident or unfolding controversy and you’ll always come out better in the end.
For more information visit:
Silvers Jacobson Crisis Management & Strategic Communications
https://www.silversjacobson.com
Denver, United States
We’re SilversJacobson, a senior-level strategic communications consultancy that helps clients avoid the potential cost, disruption and reputation damage of crisis, controversy and other challenging public relations issues.
