Today, we are interviewing Bill Coletti. We are so excited to have him on. He is a reputation management, crisis communications and professional development expert. He’s been the Wall Street Journal risk and compliance panelist. He’s a best selling author of “Critical Moments: The New Mindset of Reputation Management,” and he has been on the senior counsel in crisis management, corporate communications and reputation defense to a ton of clients such as ATt&T, Target, American Airlines, Home Depot, Xerox, Nuclear Energy Institute, Cargill and major universities. And I can’t wait to get his insight and plans into how we can react to this. Just crazy time. Before we go too deep though, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, any pod catcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber only content.
Now, Bill, thank you for coming on the show. I’m so excited to have you.
Rhamy, I am looking forward to a good conversation and providing some help to folks as they try to navigate through this unprecedented time we’re in.
Yeah, and it’s going to be a free flowing conversation for you long time listeners. We’re going to skip things like your worst moment in your business career. And we’re just going to deal with what value Bill can give us for our listeners. So, Bill, give a quick rundown of how you got to where you’re kind of a point man on crisis management.
Started my career doing political campaigns. I did politics for ever since I graduated in college and beyond, did that for the first half of my career then went to a large public affairs, issues management agency. And then we were acquired by a large global public relations firm. And I ran their global crisis practice. And then about five years ago, went out on my own and started our firm “Kith”. About what they said five and a half years ago.
Outstanding so for the last five and a half years, you’ve been working under your own shingle, working with people to try and manage these sorts of public relations issues.
Exactly. Just really trying to do it in the word “Kith”, is meaningful to us. If you’re not familiar with it, there’s a phrase from literature called “I’m Going Home to Visit My Kith and My Kin”, you can or your family and your Kith, we subscribe to be kind of your original friends that taught you sophisticated habits so your family teaches you things about making you who you are. your friends, your high school friends, your college buddies. Those are the folks that really teach you a different set of skills, but more sophisticated life skills. And so we try to be the kids to our client, in providing those sophisticated insights and perspectives.
That’s outstanding. We’re learning something already. What a great name. The name of my company for 10 years was Popular Financial, and it was called “Pop” because we started on Poplar Avenue. And when I started my company, it was still pretty new after 911 and Rhamy Alejeal, the insurance agency just didn’t seem like it would fit very well down here in the deep south. So, but yes, we recently changed the People Processes to say what it is we do, which works perfectly. Yeah. Well. So, Bill, right now we have a business. We have it. We have a health crisis. We have a family crisis. But beyond that, we actually also have a relations crisis, right? How do we talk to our clients, our employees, it’s a lot about not just figuring out operationally how to survive, but our communication strategy. And that’s something where you kind of step into, right?
Yeah, exactly. That’s there. So for the past, I’ve lost track of three or four weeks, we’ve been working with clients with their initial responses, and most everybody’s past their initial response here in the United States. And we’re now in this sort of really mushy middle section. And we really spend a lot of time talking to companies, people talking to their stakeholders. So we’re in this unknown period of time in the middle, but we’re starting actually doing a lot of work on planning what is coming back looks like, and how do we actually do that in a smart, rational, but also well reasoned way.
That’s what I want to focus on this interview. Because I think by the time this airs, if we’re lucky, that’s what companies will be considering if we’re not, go ahead and take notes, maybe it’ll be another month after the episode airs give you some good ideas. Before we do though, what should be the guide? What’s the framework around a response strategy? If we have any listeners who are, maybe they’re in that mushy time, they’ve already told everybody, “Look, we’re still open or look, we’re not open.” While they’re monitoring events, let’s say this comes out and we’re still all in lockdown. We’ve got no end in sight, what should they be doing on a daily or weekly basis to guide their decision making?
Awesome. You know, most of us that do crisis communications, our first instinct is external or media relations. That’s most of us that do this. That’s what we think about. All of us have become internal communications or people communicators. Very, very quickly. I’ve always sort of viewed it as a very, very holistically. So I think in this mushy middle, which if we’re all really, quite frankly, it’s not about the media. It is much more about employees and your team. Two main things that we focus on. One is ABC, “Always Be Communicating.” We think that companies need to tell their story to their employees and bring them on a journey. Because if they are doing layoffs, considering layoffs, considering furloughs, whatever the smart things that you advise your clients on all those various permutations, we don’t know the answers to that when you and I are recording this. We don’t know exactly how long this is going to play out. So cash reserves are at different places for different companies. I know some of your clients, as soon as last week, we’re letting people go laying people off. There are some that are holding on to rainy day funds and cash. You got to take people on a journey. So ABC, Always Be Communicating. That’s the challenge in the mushy middle.
The second thing is, “Listen.” Your teams, it is my fundamental belief, your teams if we create venues for listening, the way we can manage those experts’ dictation is by understanding those expectations. And so if we listen to our teams, get leaders, people, managers, wherever they are in the org chart, use video, use zoom, use teleconferencing. Just check in with the messages that you’re communicating. Since you’re always communicating, your learning, listening, and then that helps shape your next statement. So it is very much a continuous cycle. Sadly, we’re seeing companies do an initial statement. Unfortunately, we’re gonna have to close or unfortunately we’re doing this or whatever we’re doing in response. And the next messaging is, and we’re laying off 3000 people or we’re driving to 100 people. That’s such a tragedy. And what I try to tell people in its simplest form, is that I want the employees that go on this journey. I’m a father of a new college graduate and so she’s got her first job. And if she comes back to me and says, “Hey, I got laid off, or I lost my job. But they handled it in this amazing, wonderful way. They really made me feel good.” If we can do that, and if we can treat everybody the way I want my daughter treated if she gets laid off. That’s I think a success and the way you do that is listening, and always being communicating.
And so, you’re to kind of take that to a slightly more concrete level. Are you a promoter of basically almost radical transparency. So when you’re thinking about that communication to give that journey, you almost have to explain more than. So you mentioned, “Alright, we got to close our retail locations.” That’s communication, one communication to four days later. “And by the way, all those people at the retail locations, you’re all laid off. Here’s your termination documents, talk to the unemployment company. Here’s how you file unemployment.” Right?
Yep.
You’re recommending a step in between or more communication along the ways that provides a ramp to that. Is that kind of, am I hearing that right?
Yeah. So I think that if we believe in this philosophy of always communicating, is that we have to take our team on a journey. And I would hope that this is native for a lot of companies. I know it’s not. But this shouldn’t be new, we should always be communicating, even in the best of times, to set the stage for our next initiative to reinforce mission and values. But for a lot of companies, that is not exactly how they do things. They do things in a little bit of a, you know, they’re not exactly buttoned up.
Right.
So, Arnie Sorenson is the CEO of Marriott. On Thursday the 19th, he issued a video to his employees contextualizing this challenge for Marriott and talking about it is worse than 911 and the financial crisis combined. Then on Sunday, he announced the layoff of 3000. See the headquarters staff. And so I believe that yes, radical transparency he talked about. He talked about occupancy rates. He talked about financial impacts, both contextualize relative to 911 in the financial crisis, but also specifically. So yes, I believe in transparency, radical is a little bit jarring because if a CEO hasn’t done this in 2018, and 2019, it could be a little jarring to the organization. So I think it’s a long term conversation. But I’m more aligned in the radical transparency group of sharing what we can share so that people understand we’re good people making rational decisions for a greater cause. And I want you to understand that my team…
So yes, I want to subscribe to that. That’s the key I think, you need to lay out enough information and perhaps even more, but enough information in a teacher like fashion. In a human manner that shows that would allow the employee to go, “I guess I would have had to make the same decision if I were in that CEO role.”
Yeah.
Something along those lines to allow that empathy level.
So wait, can we do that with information?
Right, right.
Share it.
Yeah. So like, we’re a law firm. We have 200 employees here. We’re gonna have to cut staff by 40%. Right. I mean, again, maybe a law firm, not the perfect example. But let’s say that’s where they’re at, because they’re a law firm that’s primarily interacting with the public. A personal injury attorney or something like that. And along the way they say, “Okay.” The way to do this would be reassurance in the beginning. We’re on top, we’re looking at this, we’re making plans. Step 2, informational, here’s the context of the situation. Step 3, here’s our decision, and why we had to make it. And then the individual communications to the employees, laying them off something along those lines.
Absolutely.
A basic framework to handle that.
And just two tips for people that are in this phase that might not be, you know, if you’re retail, you’ve made dinner or restaurants, you’ve made a lot of these moves already. Middle, we’re going to talk about coming back, but using words like for the foreseeable future, and then do exactly what you just said, sort of explaining the rationale is very valuable. And our best view, that’s another phrase that we’ve been using a lot is our best view and the foreseeable future. And so organizations are using that transparency to sort of, “I don’t believe we can soften the blow of losing your job.”
Yeah.
It’s a fool’s errand to say that we’re softening the blow. But we’re at least being honest with the process and not doing it in the dark of the night and sending you on a Friday afternoon with a hatchet. That is not a good practice. And I know you’re like doing that stuff when guides suggest that.
Absolutely. And of course, we always recommend just random HR 101 things. Friday afternoons, the worst time to fire somebody.
Amen.
It actually is just random side notes for us listeners, maybe haven’t heard this before. They have nothing to do Saturday or Sunday. If you can terminate someone any other day of the week, preferably the earlier in the week better, they can get their unemployment filings, they can start looking for another job, they can make business contacts. This may not apply necessarily during the COVID crisis. But as a rule while you think Friday afternoon, get them out. You know they won’t infect other employees if you need to ever do a one-off termination. Earlier in the week allows you to control the narrative a lot more the next day. Your employees are going to talk to one another, they’re going to talk to you, you’re going to be there in the office makes a much better sense Friday afternoon very, very rarely is the right choice for layoffs.
And if you got the last point you just made, is what particularly relevant in a COVID scenario.
Right.
I’m going to be there. And if I have to do this as a leader, or you have to do it as a leader and or whatever, I want to be present. And be like, “Man, this sucks. I get it that this sucks. I’m sorry. But this is just where we are. I want to be the leader that’s present. And I don’t want you to do it for me.”
Right and have them hanging out, you know, calling each other or slacking on Saturday and Sunday to shape that narrative. Much better to be there available. Alright, so let’s say it’s two weeks from now, everyone who’s done layoffs is who at least done their first round if needed. If they haven’t made that decision yet. They’re looking at it. They’ll go, “Look, we got another 30 days of runway for cash reserve,” something like that. What would be there? Let’s say that they’re just a good example of this, we have a couple of firms that are in the more consulting space, CPAs, corporate attorneys, those kinds of things. A payroll company is a great example too, it’s like, we’re not hit by the front. But if 30% of our clients are shutting down, now we’re that second wave, right? So what would be your kind of recommendation for the holding pattern? We don’t know what’s going to happen. We got 30 more days here. Do we start communicating and saying, “Look, guys, if things don’t turn around, we’re going to have to make some hard choices.” “Hey, we need to do salary reductions to give us a longer runway”. Like, how often would you recommend communication, I mean, always, but do you have any for our businesses?
Yeah. I think every other day, I think this is such a fast moving dynamic. It’s every other day and I have the concept of a broadcast every other day. By the way, another point we should have, I should have made it the topic that we’re advising all of our clients on, is that when we think about communications, we have written and spoken, are the basic tools that we have. I believe that memos and emails written documents are great for information and facts. Pick up your paycheck here, wash your hands every day, we’re not going to be opened on Thursday, the cafeteria is closed. 401k benefits that’s really good for writing if you’re trying to share sentiment and care and concern. That is best done on a video. That is best done in a town hall zoom meeting, something like that. No, we’re not having any physical meetings right now, which is unfortunate, but so I think you need to really think about the message here that I’m trying to share. A fact, a next step, or am I trying to share sentiment or care or concern and so choose your medium, most appropriately.
Really good point. We talked about that a lot in our People Processes broadly around communicating value, not just anything that is beyond pure, you know, sometimes you need a chart, I get it, you need a piece of paper or a digital version. But if you’re trying to communicate value, so this would be explaining why your 401k is important, your benefits, why you made the decisions around them. How valuable they are, you will find that video as a communication medium is significantly more powerful than any pretty document and incomparable to a black and white memo.
And then just let me just add, what we’re doing for right now with clients is they’re doing a video to their employees. They’re explaining this journey. They did the initial announcement. They’re in the mushy middle right now, where they were recording that, saving it, sharing it, and then we’re turning, pulling a really quick transcript, copy, editing it, and have the memo to support the video. So you know, you get a twofer. Not a radical idea, but it’s been useful for people that haven’t done it previously.
Absolutely. And those of us in kind of the more external outreach world, we understand the idea of making a video which turns into a podcast, which turns into a transcript, which turns into a blog post, blah, blah, blah. But it could apply for internal communications as well as start with a video interview style, or Town Hall, have someone taking notes, turn that into your written communication. Very good.
Hey, Rhamy, let me ask you a quick question. Just because I’m working with this on our clients. CEO, senior leader says, “Sure, I get it,” but I’m not the CEO of Marriott. And I’m certainly not Jack Welch from GE or I’m not Bill Gates. I’m not really good at that venue. What do I do? How do I manage it? I’ve got a response. But I’m just curious your reaction when a leader says,
*I get to be on video? I don’t. I’d rather…
I stink in that venue.
Well, I’ll tell you this. My textbook responses, it’s better to hear from the leader. You are the leader. And that’s the thing. Having said that, a couple of my clients I’ve spoken to, I know them well enough to know, “No, they’re right.” And so what I will say is, if you’ve been in business a while, you have a communicator, normally that’s an HR person, maybe it’s your CEO, your CFO, and even in a 50-man company. But someone who’s gonna be the face of this thing, who you can rely on what you don’t want. And this is the caveat I give, if it’s not going to be the CEO, it’s not going to be the owner. Make sure it’s not someone you’re going to fire midway through this thing, alright? So you don’t want to be changing up the face of it, but I would recommend, I would give such a heavyweight to it being the guy or gal in charge of it.
Same guidance we give.
Yeah. But I used to give that with no caveats. And then it was an accounting firm and the Chief, the owner, the founder, and also the CPA in charge of many other CPAs went through and did his stuff and I thought, “Oh my god, I was wrong. I was wrong. I’m sorry, I was wrong.” This was not about layoffs. This was just about other kinds of cultural communications, but some people are not designed for that and they are not going to learn it now.
So exactly. Alright. I will also say this. This is another thing just about video in general. Don’t stress about video quality. I will say especially in your small shops, your 10 your 20 you’re even under two or 300 on iPhone video turned around. If you got a little mini tripod, great. If not, pop it up on some books and look at it. Maybe not hold In your hands, so it’s not too shaky, but an iPhone video gives you a lot of slack. And if you’re real, it’s authentic, it feels right and no one is going to want you to edit out every arm. You just don’t have to worry about it. If you are a polished video production kind of place that does this all the time, you’ve probably already handled it. But for those of you who are making your first kind of video communication, to drop at the top of an email that’s going out to everybody, please don’t stress about mics and video. Take your iPhone out, prop it up, hit the record button, do one long take and then do it again. Just use the second one perfectly.
So let’s say we’re past the city shut down level, we’ve decided, Alright, look for whatever reason either the virus has died down or the government is taking a different tack and said what we need to do, we need to get everybody sick real fast. I don’t know what for whatever reason, but here it is, two or three weeks out and It’s time to reopen. And let’s use the example of someone who was super hard hit for this. If you had a rough month, but you’ve been like, “Our company’s going to be staying in.” I mean, there’s not expected to be any interruption to operations or any layoffs for us. But for many companies, there’s been a huge disruption. So let’s use the example of a hair cutting salon. Maybe they had 20,30,40 locations, they closed all the locations because no one’s getting their haircut, they can’t protect their employees during this thing. They just had to close and they’ve laid off 300 people and kept a skeleton staff in their admin office to answer phone calls from these people and help them file an employment. How do they get the engine going back up? What are those steps and communication measures that they could take to come back from this better than before? I know there’s an opportunity here somehow.
No, absolutely. There is. So we’ll come to the opportunity in a second. So what we’re advising our clients is you gotta look at this. So even pre that decision by that haircutting salon or the 20 to 40 outlet place. I do not believe in watching this both internationally, as well as what’s going on in the United States. I do not believe that there’s going to be a global or United States lifeguard that’s going to blow the whistle and say, “It’s okay to get back in the water.” I think there we are not going to have that. And in fact, I think we are going to have very spotty mixed messaged government guidance from the CDC, from the White House from the state and or your local government.
They’re not going to want to take that responsibility.
They’re not going to want to take that responsibility. Right. So understanding that we’re not going to have a lifeguard blow the whistle and say, “Get back in the pool.” The way we’re advising our clients is it’s dangerous on a podcast, but it’s a visualization that we’re trying to articulate. It’s a Venn diagram, is that you basically have science in the middle of the diagram. Overlaying that is financial, social and moral. And the way we’re coaching our clients to think about this decision on how they come back, there are going to be financial considerations. So our hair salon, hair company, has a financial incentive to come back fast. They need to retain their team. And there are all kinds, there are leases, there’s all kinds of financial reasons. So that’s a big consideration.
There’s a social component that your employees need a rallying point. They want to come back, they want to work, they want to meet with their colleagues, they want to see their customers. So there is a social component to this and corporations and local communities because I would assume those 20 to 40 are just important players in the strip mall that they are there, they’re important. So there’s a social element to this. There’s also pressure even if you’re not a hair salon, but if you’re an office worker. People are frustrated being at home with their kids in the dog and having conference calls and barking and so people want to go back to the office. So you’ve got financial, you’ve got social. I think the last component of all of these overlaid by science is the moral component.
Yes, that hair salon could come back, but they have their employees standing with their hands in someone’s hair, with their shoulder, at their chest, right there is clearly within six feet. And we don’t know the latency of this disease. And so we know this virus. So we don’t know how long people are going to have it or don’t have it so I get the financial pressure. Get online as fast as you can. I get the social pressure. Let’s meet that need. But what does science tell us about all of those, plus, what signage are we doing, how are we keeping our employees safe, how are we keeping our customers safe? Because from a crisis communicator standpoint, to hear that ABC, haircutter Milwaukee had an outbreak or a little mini wave that came pose. That’s a bad scenario. Right. So when you and I are recording this, we’re in this debate with the president and other political leaders about let’s all come back. And we’ve had a political leader in Texas talk about, “It’s the Dow vs. Grandma.” And if we’re over 70, we’ll make a choice between that and the Dow because the economy is so important. I don’t believe most of the leaders I want to work with and that I do work with are going to choose Grandma, they’re not going to choose the Dow and then choose their financial situation.
Yeah, I think I don’t know if that’s actually the choice but it’s a given that choice. Yeah, that’s an easy one.
Yeah. So we’re advising clients to think about it. In all three of those contexts, and then that will show messaging, that will shape what we do and how we come back to. Financially, you need to explain it, we’re going to come back, we’re only going to open 10 stores, and then we’re going to open our second 10. And that’s a financial consideration, social team meetings, bring everybody up to speed, they’re gonna have to adjust childcare, and all the things that they’ve already set up their kids may or may not be back in school, but you’re requiring the work. So there’s a social component that requires messaging, and then there’s moral, additional signage, additional rules of engagement, all of those things need to be worked out. So if we think about it in that framework of science in the middle, financial, social, and moral, we think all of that will then lead to good messaging if you’ve always been communicating. It just is a nice natural segue.
I’ve actually got a pending question with one of my attorneys that we’re trying to determine. But when you lay off a bunch of people, one of my questions has been, How much? Yeah, and my understanding at that point is obviously there can be no compulsive work, there is no work at all, but no compulsory meetings, that kind of thing. But I would think and this is a big part that I think I need to stress, communications to your terminated employees is going to be a key. So, one thing that we’ve been putting on our termination checklist is gathering, obviously verify contact information, but get a personal email address guys. You need to be able to remain in contact and if you’re going to be doing like an every other day blast internally, you need to continue to provide that information. I think, to those you’ve laid off, they’re going to stay more in the loop and be more likely to be able to rejoin quickly. We add furloughed employees, it’s different, like if they’re furloughed, and you’re still providing benefits and all these kinds of things. Obviously, you can maintain their company email, those kinds of things, but if you’re doing a full layoff, you may want to make a separate list, however, you want to do it but they need to get your constant communications as well.
So would it be possible while I get the compulsory meeting, we had a company that did this with 30 or so employees of a restaurant chain. And they made the mistake, when they did this, they cut off everybody’s company email. And they were like, “God, gosh, we can’t tell anybody anything.” So they’re fixing that just exactly like you suggested they’re fixing it. Can you keep the company email on for them? You have the product that has to be part of the process, okay.
