Introduction

This is “What Just Happened?,” the podcast that looks at the biggest brand crises of our time, what they meant for organisational strategy and behaviour, and their lasting impact on our approach to crisis communication.

I’m Kate Hartley. And I’m Tamara Littleton. And together, we’ll delve into what happened, why it mattered, and whether it could happen again.

Episode 

Tamara Littleton: Welcome back to What Just Happened. Kate, one of the podcasts that we recorded was with crisis communications expert, Abby Mangold. It was called My CEO Did What?, and it was such an interesting conversation that I think we wanted to delve in a little bit more. So, jumping straight in, what were the themes that came up for you? 

Kate Hartley: So, the big thing that came up for me was when Abby was talking about the issue of redemption, so can you come back? We were talking about, can you come back from a big scandal that your CEO has caused, basically.

And, of course, we were talking about things like the Astronomer issue and various others. And one of the things that we were talking about was this idea of whether you can come back from it, whether you can redeem yourself, and how you do that. 

And I’ve been thinking about that a lot since that podcast, and what it means to actually apologise and apologise properly, so that people really, really believe you, and you’ve got to, you’ve got to have a bit of humility, haven’t you, if you’re going to come back from something that’s kind of quite personal and quite awful. And there was a brilliant, brilliant podcast that I listened to.

You’re a fan of Brené Brown, aren’t you?

TL: Yes, I think we both saw her at South by Southwest. 

KH: She’s amazing. A few years ago, it was absolutely incredible. And there was a brilliant… she used to do this amazing podcast, and she interviewed somebody called Dr Harriet Lerner on the kind of art and science of apologising, which was really fascinating. So, they looked at what constitutes an apology, and why are you apologising? 

I think that’s really, really important to know. So, there are lots of reasons why we apologise, you know. In theory, it’s to put right a wrong. It might be to repair some damage or to heal hurt if you’ve hurt somebody, but sometimes we apologise in order to kind of vindicate ourselves and justify our position. 

I thought that was really interesting. So, it’s not really an apology at all, but, you know, we sit like a child just going, ‘All right, then, sorry, yeah,’ or… or I mean, I’ve definitely had arguments at home like this, where I’ve gone, ‘I’m sorry, but actually you were being completely unreasonable,’ which clearly is not an apology, is it? It’s just not. 

TL: And I’m sorry that you felt that way. 

KH: I’m sorry you felt like that. So, that’s the, that’s the really famous one, and that was the best example of that, I think, was Priti Patel in lockdown, where after she was being accused of having kind of created these failings in provision of PPE, and it was when she was home secretary under the last government, and she says, ‘I’m sorry if people feel there have been failings,’ and that really puts the blame, doesn’t it, on the person who feels there have been failings. 

It wasn’t my fault; it’s you who feel that, so, you know, I’m sorry that you felt that. And then there was another issue, because she was the master of this, in a way. There was another issue when she’d been accused of bullying, and she said, ‘I’m sorry if my behaviour upsets people.’ Now that’s really different from saying, ‘I’m sorry I behaved badly.’ 

TL: Yeah. It’s out of my control.

KH: Yeah, exactly. I’m sorry if people were offended, you silly people, for being offended. It’s really just really fascinating. I think this kind of non-apology, so a good apology has to not carry a justification for the behaviour, it has to be about the other person, not about you, and it has to be backed up with very, very clear action about what you’re going to do to put it right. 

TL: And I think the public have become so much better at spotting a good apology. You can feel it in your bones when it feels sincere and it’s human, and this was a lot of what we were talking about, with, you know, when it is done right, and equally, as you say, when it just doesn’t hit the mark, it becomes a little mini crisis in its own right, you know. Then people will complain about the apology. 

KH: The memes, I mean, around the Priti Patel one, there were some brilliant things. It was around Easter, and my favourite one, I think, was somebody saying, ‘Me apologising to my wife: I’m sorry if you feel I’ve eaten your Easter egg.’ I just love that, so we can really spot a bad apology as well. 

TL: Yeah, I think we’re all hardwired now, and something that I have been fixating on since the conversation with Abby, and since, uh, since that podcast, is about the scenario planning for the CEO doing something rogue. And I know that we asked Abby, you know, that’s that difficult conversation of how do you have a conversation where you sort of say we’d quite like to plan for you if you do something outrageous or bring the company into disrepute?

And actually, very sensibly, she sort of took it in a different direction and was talking more about preparing for the team behaviour and being sort of clear about, you know, what behaviours are acceptable. 

And that’s something that I’ve really sort of taken away and thought about because I think I was slightly obsessed about: but surely you need to scenario plan everything. And I guess the truth is you can’t scenario plan everything, but what you can do is be focused on creating an environment where there is a strong culture and that people can whistleblow. I know that’s come up in some of our other episodes as well, that there’s a sort of transparent leadership and that sort of open culture. 

But also just that if you have strong values and you have strong processes in place, that it doesn’t matter who on the exec team messes up, or anyone in the company, that those rules apply to everybody. And perhaps it’s more important about having clear processes, clear values, and if someone does step out of line and do something that does bring the company into disrepute, it’s about responding really fast, taking action according to your internal values and processes, and actually the CEO is just as culpable. 

KH: It’s so important to remember that, isn’t it? And to take the personal out of it, because we started that podcast episode slightly flippantly, with me asking you a series of questions about, have you ever, and not as a drinking game. 

TL: No. I passed the test, and it was funny, but actually, you know, I was saying to you, have you ever stolen a hat from a small child at the US Open, or, but actually, those things are all things that have happened, so I’m not suggesting you’re going to go and do any of those things, or that I am.

KH: But we, I mean, maybe we should prepare for that, not the specifics, as you say, but prepare for somebody within the organisation doing something wrong. If you take the personal out of it, it goes from being a deeply uncomfortable conversation to have to being something that is just a system or a process within the organisation, and therefore it’s like it’s not personal, this is just what we have to do, because it’s in our risk register. It becomes much easier to do, doesn’t it? 

TL: Yeah, and it also highlighted to me the importance of the board, because in those situations where, you know, the CEO, so the CEO can’t fire themselves, but that’s when a board has to step in, and I think just being clear again on what is the situation where someone does have to be removed very quickly. Again, is there a clear policy? Has the board gone through the crisis training themselves? 

TL: Because usually it would be an exec role to drive the crisis, and internally, and it’s the internal management team, the comms team, you know, all sorts of different people. It would rarely be the board actually running the crisis response, but in a situation where it was someone on the exec team, that’s when the board has to step in. So that kind of just led me off, just thinking about that little bit more. 

KH: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the other things that has to be included in there is it has to be very, very clear to everybody on that exec team, or everybody in the company, actually, that this is the point at which the board will step in to do this, so it doesn’t come as a surprise, and it’s not a last-minute thing. It’s like, if you cross this line, these are the consequences, and that applies to everybody, including the CEO. 

And if the CEO knows that at the beginning, then there’s literally no excuse for breaking your own rules on, for example, having relationships at work that you don’t disclose. We’ve seen that, you know, with CEOs recently leaving organisations because of that. So, those rules were in place, but possibly, if you’re very, very clear and say that rule is in place, but it also applies to you, and you will be held to the same level of account as everybody else in the business. I think sometimes people at the higher ends of organisations don’t really think those rules do apply, and you can be very, very clear about that when you’re doing that scenario planning.

Outro

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