What to Do in a Product Safety Crisis

(page 2 of 2)

Better to demonstrate what actions are being taken to address the hazard than make hurried assurances that may backfire.

4. Lose the crisis plan; find a leader.
Crisis manuals may help companies assess vulnerabilities, but they are often worthless when bad news actually hits, because adverse events are largely unforeseeable. However, a strong leader with decision-making authority is indispensable. An effective crisis-management team must be a benevolent dictatorship governed by good judgment, not a democracy governed by protocols. Assorted players—legal, public relations, safety—can have input, but there is a positive correlation between strong leadership and a successful resolution. There is no such correlation between a thick manual and a positive outcome.

5. Manage the relationship with the relevant regulatory agency.
On most safety issues, there is a government agency that has oversight authority. The Food & Drug Administration, for example, has more influence over a crisis than the company that's under fire. In 1993, when there were widespread news reports of medical syringes being found in Pepsi cans, FDA chief David Kessler rightly differentiated between a food supply problem and a bad actor external to Pepsi. Soon afterward, a store camera caught a woman slipping a syringe into a soda can. This exculpatory video clip, combined with reassuring footage that Pepsi-Cola released of thousands of cans whirring safely through a pristine bottling plant, legitimized Kessler's stance. This "inside game" of working with appropriate authorities can be more important than external public relations.

6. The medical touchstone, "first do no harm," applies to product safety.
Don't over-communicate. Most product-safety concerns are dealt with discreetly through swift internal investigations and limited recalls. One major flaw in how product safety is studied is the false assumption by many academics that all resolutions are accompanied by big public relations campaigns. Sometimes, the best-managed crises are the ones that never become Harvard case studies because they were resolved quickly and quietly, but with the cooperation of the proper authorities.

7. Manage the "meta-crisis."
When JetBlue cancelled thousands of flights during a 2007 snowstorm, a television interviewer asked me, "Why is JetBlue in such a mess?" I answered, "Because you keep inviting guests on your show asking them why Jet Blue is in such a mess."

Today's product safety controversies come with a Greek chorus—analysts, journalists, pundits—who usually declare the matter to have been mismanaged. They are essentially investors in the crisis who need to perpetuate it for their own purposes. It is not enough, then, simply to manage the crisis itself; companies must manage the public relations associated with their handling of the crisis!

To handle this additional component, you need a leader who can communicate clearly about the crisis management process itself. In our scandal-fueled media age, the chief executive officer is expected to be the chief crisis communications officer.

Every crisis is its own animal. Companies must replace tired conventional wisdom with the improvisational realities of crisis management as the world is, not as we would like it to be.

Eric Dezenhall is the co-founder of Dezenhall Resources, a crisis management firm based in Washington, D.C. He is the co-author of Damage Control: Why Everything You Know About Crisis Management is Wrong (Portfolio, 2007).