If you’re like most people, you’d rather learn from the failures of others than have people learn from your mistakes. That’s especially true when it comes to crisis management. There are plenty of examples of how organizations have stumbled or simply fell flat on their face when they found themselves in the public spotlight for all the wrong reasons. But there are some good examples to emulate. Here’s a look at both the good and bad examples, along with my observations about the…

Robert Baden-Powell was the British Army officer whose work inspired the creation of the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. He said that their famous “Be Prepared” motto means that Scouts should think through how they would respond to any accident or emergency and practice their responses. The goal of being prepared, Powell said, is to ensure that Scouts are “never taken by surprise” and can respond immediately to an unexpected situation. The “Be Prepared” motto is also excellent…

How would you handle these scenarios: Hackers have taken control of your organization’s website, posting content on the home page and stealing confidential data about customers. If you do not pay a ransom within 24-hours, they threaten to release to the public embarrassing and damaging information from the hacked computer files. Several female employees allege that a member of your board of directors has sexually assaulted them. Other women had filed similar charges against the same…

Here’s my checklist of items to keep in mind before accepting any speaking invitations, and suggestions on how to prepare for and get the most out of your presentation. 1. Don’t accept speaking invitations for which you are unqualified or unprepared (don’t let your ego get in the way). 2. Think twice about giving breakfast speeches if you are not a morning person, or evening presentations if you like to retire early. 3. Do your homework about the audience (demographics,…

When you tell your organization’s story to journalists, it is important to guard against the tendency to tell them everything about your story. For example, if you give reporters 15 different reasons why and how your company’s services are different or better than your competition, you’ll have no idea which one of those 15 reasons they will decide to use in the story. That’s because journalists must confine their stories to the length assigned by their editors. To do that, of course,…