Whitehall stings provide a crisis communications review

My heart goes out to the PR teams in Westminster who've had a miserable week thanks to Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind.  I make no political statements here, I'm only looking at this from a communications point of view.  And I'd bet you a pint or two at one of Parliament's favourite pubs that neither man involved senior PR experts before those "sting" meetings.  If they had, any good PR would have smelled a rat.

Instead, teams in Whitehall would have swung into crisis mode after-the-fact, doing what damage limitation they could.  It's a good prompt to think about dealing with crises because, let's face it … we're all often dropped in the thick of it to clean up problems not of our own making.

My three most critical approaches:

ONE:  Be honest.  Gather facts quickly and lay them out, clearly and concisely, for all to see.  Don't dissemble.  More than ever, you need to be a partner to the journalists as they build their story.  Obviously you want facts and data that bring the story into a positive light for you.  Your crisis communications plan (you have one, right?) should have identified potential problem spots and outlined messages for each.  With that sort of preparation, you can move quickly to get your side of the story out.

TWO:  Be humble.  We see execs making this mistake again and again, whether it's oil industry bosses saying explosions weren't their fault to MPs protesting that their expenses claims were technically legal to Rifkind earning the enmity of anyone in the country earning less than £60k (which is the majority) by implying that's not a sufficient wage.  In each of these cases, the speakers had a valid point.  But they miscalculated the feelings of their audience.  Most people like to see the high and mighty brought down a peg.  But they're also understanding when they see real regret. If you've done wrong, get out there and apologise, sincerely and with humility.

THREE:  Call in favours.  How you're treated in a crisis varies dramatically according to the relationships you've built with the press.  Building good will … through a steady stream of story opportunities, good interviews, the occasional exclusive and a few nights in the pub … is like money in the bank.  You're making deposits against the rainy day when it all goes wrong.  Apple and Microsoft are the classic example of this.  Reporters actually like Apple, so when things go wrong they give the company the benefit of the doubt.  Whereas for years they lambasted Microsoft for every mis-step.  From the mood of the British press this week, I'd guess neither Rifkind or Straw had spent much time cultivating strong relationships with the media.