I’m committed to the truth. And I strive to help others tell their truth in all circumstances, no matter how challenging.
You’re probably thinking, “Of course, we should all be committed to the truth, that’s obvious!” But take a quick review of a week’s worth of news and you’ll recognize that the truth, along with honesty and integrity, is not always the lead strategy for many organizations.
Many professional communicators have been in a “war room” scenario that plays out something like this:
Executive: “We have a crisis. We’ve made a mistake, the media knows about it, the public will know about it soon, it’s going to hit Facebook before the day’s over.”
Senior Comms: “We need to get on this — address the mistake, apologize for it and articulate the actions we will take to rectify it.”
Executive: “Well, hang on a minute. How much does the media really know, how much does the public know? What can we get away with?”
Senior Comms: “What can we get away with?! The truth — the honest truth, that’s what. Anything less is reputational suicide… are you not familiar with the Internet?”
Executive: “Well then, what can we get away with for now? Maybe we can deny the situation to buy ourselves some time and create… oops, I mean, reposition, a better story.”
Communications professionals understand the damage that occurs when the truth is not told and how difficult it is to rebuild from the reputational rubble. But in a crisis, the communications professionals aren’t the only ones making decisions about what to say and how to say it.
The looming impact of bad news can push seemingly sane people like senior executives, board members, advisors and legal professionals into doing insane things. Just look to some recent doozies: Carnival Cruise Lines’ Italian cruise ship sinking; BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; Penn State’s football/sexual abuse scandal; Susan B. Komen Foundation’s decision to eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood; and the unfortunately named U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner’s scandal (O.K., Weiner was already nutty given his tweet fetish.).
As soon as we compromise the truth — the simple, honest, what-actually-happened-and-why truth — we crush our credibility. Credibility is hard to build and even harder to repair. But it is one of the most powerful and important assets in today’s climate of “truthiness”. We build our credibility by consistently living the biggest truth of all: that we are human — imperfect but honest about our imperfections. If we have credibility, we aren’t afraid of making small mistakes now and then. When we tell the truth we send a message that we respect our audience and that we’ll do right by our customers, stakeholders and constituents.
So, if you find yourself in the war room strategizing on crisis communications, write the words “Truth” and “Credibility” in plain view of all participants. Highlight what’s at stake. When we no longer compromise truth and credibility, then we’re equipped to survive any crisis.
— Mo Douglas
