As I wrote about crisis communication over the years I found myself saying early on that you must “look like you know what you are doing.” I did not mean this superficially. Rather, I meant it as an observation about how difficult it is to look confident and sound completely informed when all hell is breaking loose around you. This certainly has been a big challenge for the U.S president. And the 24/7 breaking news environment has not been forgiving.
White House responses this week to crises in the Middle East and Ukraine had me once again reviewing my crisis management “lessons learned.” Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Timing is everything. Getting all the facts together under media deadline pressure is more difficult than it looks. But speaking out too late can also allow someone else to seize the moment and put you on the defensive. There are no set rules here to follow. Experience certainly helps. But an overall predisposition to lengthy analysis can be a liability and make you look tentative.
2. Achieve a balance between looking confident and being willing to listen. Make an early statement to establish visible leadership. Then quickly prepare a plan to take charge of the total situation. Tell them what you know. And then tell them how you will quickly find out what you don’t. Never announce an action that you don’t take.
3. Avoid direct confrontation. Confrontation allows your adversary to take the higher ground and put you on the defensive. Once there, it’s a difficult position to change. Establish your own solid ground by concentrating on making your positive and compressive plan of action look more thorough and credible.
4. Try to anticipate crises. If it’s possible to anticipate a crisis long before it occurs you may be able to inoculate the situation by putting the matter on the public agenda yourself. This is called issues management, a practice that includes producing a set of initiatives to systematically manage the situation before it is a problem.
5. Clearly list the other side’s errors. But be careful. After you have taken charge, presenting a concise list of the other side’s flaws can work. But avoid negative rants, and focus on facts. Attacking too soon and too often will make you look too defensive. Remember that over time some of your attacks may lose credibility with the public.
The U.S. president has the reputation of taking his time to analyze each difficult situation before deciding what to do. While his inclination to be thorough is laudatory, he also has a tendency to wait too long to take charge. And even then, his announcements can sound more like a confrontation than a game plan for taking charge of the total situation.
In the final analysis, success depends on making good judgements about timing and substance. This is a talent that is fine-tuned with practice and experience. The communication dimensions of leadership are many, and the sophistication required for success is too often underestimated.
Larry D. Lauer 