I've watched hundreds of leaders face the worst week of their careers. The ones who survive all do the same things.

The ones who don't? They all make the same seven mistakes.
I built my entire body of work around that difference.

The story

I started in emergency management

I started in emergency management, including FEMA, where I learned the first rule of every disaster: the vacuum is more dangerous than the event. When people don't hear from you, they don't wait patiently. Fear fills the silence, and fear always writes a story with a villain in it.

Then I spent two decades in crisis communication watching leaders learn that lesson the hard way. The rate increase nobody explained. The board decision members found out about from a reporter. The CEO who called his critics "trolls" and couldn't understand why it got worse. (It always gets worse after "trolls." Contempt has a vocabulary, and audiences hear it instantly.)

Here's what I know to be true: the crisis is rarely the act. It's the act times the dodge. Every dodge fails. Every single one.

The Doctrine

The doctrine, in plain English.

01

Every audience holds a stake in you.

Money, membership, attention, belief. That stake is why they get a say. A crisis begins when that deal runs afoul.

02

Trust is the filter, not the message.

If trust is low, nothing you say sounds true. If it's high, almost anything is survivable.

03

Under the anger is fear.

The loudest critic at your town hall isn't your enemy. They're scared, and the quiet majority probably shares the grievance. Answer the fear, not the volume.

04

Accountability is power.

Owning it takes the wind out of the sails of the backlash. Own the act or own the position, but own something.

05

Own your ground.

Speak once, on a channel you control.

The Personal Bit

Gen X New Englander. I'll tell you the truth, warmly.

I'm a Gen X New Englander, which means I'll tell you the truth and I'll be warm about it, but I will tell you. I host The PR Breakdown, where I take apart the week's public messes so you can learn from someone else's worst Tuesday.

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All of this is published by Quincy House, the company I named for my family.
The story of the name is here.

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