The Leading in a Crisis Podcast
What really happens when a crisis hits an organization—and how technology is influencing decisions and reputation impacts. Come hear what happened when experienced leaders were actually in the middle of a crisis—and capture the lessons before it happens to you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Your host, Tom Mueller, is a veteran crisis manager and trainer with more than 30 years in the corporate communications and crisis fields. Tom currently works as an executive coach and crisis trainer with WPNT Communications, and as a contract public information officer and trainer through his personal company, Tom Mueller Communications LLC.
Our goal is to help you grow your knowledge and awareness so you can be better prepared to lead should a major crisis threaten your organization.
Music credit: Special thanks to Nick Longoria from Austin, Texas for creating the theme music for the podcast.
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The Leading in a Crisis Podcast
EP 4 Surviving Business Crises in Venezuela: A Conversation with Maria Eugenia Fuenmayor
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Ever wondered how crisis management operates in a country like Venezuela? Join us in a riveting conversation with Maria Eugenia Fuenmayor, a seasoned PR executive and crisis counselor based in Caracas. Maria transitioned from law to corporate communications and navigated the choppy waters of crisis management in the fast-moving consumer goods and energy industries in Venezuela. She addresses the challenges she faced during labor strikes and NGO confrontations, and outlines her strategies for gaining internal alignment and agreement on strategy.
Maria, with her vast experience, underscores the significance of comprehending the internal and external environment before springing into action during a crisis. She speaks on the power of influence in times of crisis and shares some practical tips on involving operations staff and other decision makers early on. Are you curious about crisis tabletop exercises? Maria talks about how they can serve as an effective tool for executives navigating the labyrinth of a crisis. Loaded with insights, this episode is sure to enrich your understanding of the nuances of crisis management and communication.
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Crisis Management in Venezuela
Tom MuellerHi everyone and welcome to this edition of the Leading in a Crisis podcast . I'm your host , Tom Mueller . On this podcast , we talk all things crisis management and we do that through interviews , storytelling and lessons learned from experienced crisis leaders . With me again today is my co-host , mark Mullen . Mark , how are you ?
Marc MullenHello , Tom , doing well , thank you .
Tom MuellerGood Thanks for being with us again today , Mark . Today , on our podcast , we are heading to South America , and to Venezuela in particular , and we're going to talk with an old friend of mine in Caracas . Maria Eugenia Fuenmayor is a longtime PR executive and crisis counselor in Caracas . She is president of Interalianza Consultores , based in Caracas , where she counsels companies on marketing , pr and crisis issues . Maria , welcome to the podcast .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorThanks , Tom , and thanks Mark , for this nice invitation . I think the first risk we are facing is myself , because I have quite a long time without talking English . Let's see how risky this is .
Tom MuellerWell , we appreciate you coming on . So , Maria , to get us started . If you're introducing yourself to folks you're just meeting for the first time , tell us your story . What would you like people to know about you ?
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorFirst of all , I am a Venezuelan , spanish citizen , based in Venezuela most of the time and since 2013 , I started my own life as a consultant . If I knew this was going to be like this , I would have stopped my corporate life earlier . Nevertheless , here I am . My career originally was low I'm a lawyer but it was a kind of challenge that I wanted to face at the beginning to start learning about environmental analysis , understanding public opinion and how to influence others . So since then , my first steps were in politics . So I started to work in the communication area for a presidential candidate . For me it was a stunning experience and since then I have worked for several NGOs until I started to get serious and start in private sector .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorMy first experience was in what you call FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) . It is an international company today , but in the old days it was only Venezuelan and it was focused in food industry . So you can imagine how this was for me that starting to work in Venezuelan environment with a company that produced most of the important consumer goods in food for Venezuela . So those days were very exciting for me , because crisis management was almost every week in that industry . But after that , someone called Tom Mueller just picked me up from my food industry world and took me to the energy sector . So since then I've been facing a lot of challenges regarding environment , regarding community and human development programs and basically connecting the energy brand with the real people . Sometimes , engineers and a very technical focus divide people or divorce people from the simple life that is around the brand . That was my challenge . After that I joined Kraft Foods and then Kraft Manderles and after that my last challenge was Nestle as a VP and , as I said , if I would have realized that the consultant world was this rich , I would have started Okay .
Tom MuellerWell , it is a very rich sort of background that you bring , with the law background and then working in corporate communications . You and I worked together in the energy , oil and gas business for a while there and now doing consulting . So you've got a very wide range and a very interesting background there , maria . So let me just jump right in and ask you , because I know you've worked with a variety of companies and the major packaged goods companies , as you said what were some of the crisis situations that you saw there and how did management do ? Were there , mistakes made , lessons learned ? How would you characterize some of those experiences that you've been through ?
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorWell , it wasn't an easy task because the realities that you mix in one company are not very similar . When you see the challenges that technicians and engineers face on a regular basis , and probably the soft part of the business , which is normally HR and communications , you see those are worlds that are not definitely dancing together . So this is something that is very challenging when you face a crisis situation . One of the things that were more regular to see in my days in FMCG was workers and labor strikes . Probably for us , that would be one of the most significant challenges that we face and in that particular sense for us when I say us , I mean the soft part of a business was very difficult to let others understand the way that things could be sought out not only internally but externally . One of the most challenging experiences that we lived in Venezuela was very important strike in a biscuit company , which is the biggest in Venezuela , and in those days I'm talking about maybe between 2008 and 2011 . One of the most challenging aspects was that normally in those days the unions were very much close to the government and , as you know , we are under a very weird regime since 2000 . In those days it was very difficult because for a private company . It was very hard to get alliances and to get some kind of understanding of the process of manufacturing , providing , doing all the efforts to provide goods for every , every single town in Venezuela . In those days also , we started to see the human crisis in terms of food , in terms of energy , in terms of fuel . The challenge was absolutely more defined .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorIn this sense , probably one of the things that I've learned was to be more effective , that communications should be more effective internally in educating the leaders from the hard part of the business . I'm talking about operations , I'm talking about finance . When we face crisis , normally we could see in advance , we could foresee that things were becoming tougher and tougher and we tried to alert in several times the top management of these things . But definitely there were other challenges that managers should face , such as getting raw material , which was very difficult in those days in Venezuela . So , at the end of the day , one of the big learnings for me is how to develop a more understandable education to those leaders , since one is always reading what is going on outside the company , what is going on in politics , what's going on in NGOs . We have a lot of information and probably the way we packed , it wasn't as easy to understand to those leaders . This is one of the things that I've learned .
Tom MuellerYeah , Maria , if I can just step in there for just a second , it's an important issue that you highlight here and it cuts across sort of crisis responses for many companies and that's the challenge that communicators have in not only monitoring what's happening outside the company but making sure the executives within the company are aware of that and are aware of how their decisions and their actions might be influencing the external perception of what's happening . And when you work in companies that have lots of engineers and finance managers and such , they tend to be more focused on concrete issues and less on those softer issues that communication staff deal with . It sounds like that's one of the real challenges you're facing .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorAbsolutely .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorIn those days it was critical . But I remember , and I'm sure , Tom , you would remember , there was a time . First of all , our operation was located in a very , very pristine environment and due to that , the community , for example , was only indigenous . What are indigenous is one of the 100 group of indigenous that we have in Venezuela . These were located among Orinoco River and the Venezuelan Amazonia . We started only in exploration phase and in those days , since our company was very big and very notable worldwide , I remember that once we started operating only exploration , no production , only exploration I remember there were some NGOs , international NGOs , flying around , getting around the communities .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorI understand their role and it is important because we also , as companies , we learn from them . But the thing is that in those days they started to show up and create fake situations and it derived in fake communication . They started to say that there were spills in the river and it was absolutely impossible because we were only exploring . But before that happened , I remember I presented a huge program to the company , since we were in a very pristine environment with a very fragile community . I gather some NGOs and some anthropologists and some experts in order to pack a one program that would be 360 . It would include all the commercial part for the indigenous to sustain themselves , all the education , bilingual education it doesn't mean English and Spanish , it means Spanish and Warao . So we created a 360 degree program that covered these indigenous people challenges from all angles .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorWhen I presented to the leadership , they decided that it was too early to think about that stuff . I was really frustrated . I remember in those days that I just wanted to see if there were other ways to influence the leadership . After that these NGOs came around and started to create fake news about our operation . I remember this was read in the headquarters , and in the headquarters they asked to their leadership here in Venezuela what we were doing with the community and environment . And then immediately I received a call from my boss saying what was the program ? You showed me the other the other day . I said great .
Tom MuellerSo , Maria , well , I was just going to ask because , you know , influencing those decision makers is really a critical aspect of being effective as a communicator and as a crisis leader . Right , because you're you're in that situation , you recognize what's happening in the external environment and you're trying to influence those leaders and decision makers to see it your way . I think that's a challenge that communicators all over the world face today sounds like . Eventually , it took news headlines to break through the sort of engineering mindset in that , in that company yes , in fact , that experience really marked my life .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorAfter that energy life , I lived all the lives , as I said , in the FMCG field and I remember my teams when we started to frustrate because the leadership didn't understand the programs and the tasks we were offering to the leadership , I used to say to them let's weigh a little spill .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorWe need a little spill , recreating the experience in Orinoco river with the , in the international NGOs , and if that really happened , in every single responsibility we lived in in other companies , they need to see the sense of urgency to start doing the right . I believe in these days things are becoming different , because I believe that headquarters of the main companies have suffered so much in , in our case , regarding cocoa , coffee and all those commodities that normally come from African countries or a very good countries in Asia . Then you see how the NGOs are always behind these brands in order to alert about problems with the forest and so on . So in that sense , I do think some of the NGOs to start creating this type of noise , although in the reality they are absolutely way saturated with regard to the real stuff so , rhea , can I just ask if you're thinking about trying to train younger communications staff on how to deal with these crisis situations ?
Tom Muelleryou know , if you were going to develop a plan to train younger teams , how would you do that ? What would it entail ?
Maria Eugenia Fuenmayorfirst of all , I would encourage them to be more proactive in terms of influence .
Crisis Communication and Audience Influence Advice
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorNormally , when you influence others , you focus on your own experience , and part of the effectiveness of the influence process is to start talking from their reality and not the reality you're living . But definitely when I did the shift , when I started to feel their realities , when I started to feel in my own skin the challenges with the numbers , the , the pnl and all the stuff that they need to deal with , once you start talking with their own language , things become much , much easier . That would be one of my first recommendations .
Tom MuellerThat's very interesting , maria , because you're essentially highlighting one of the basics around communications , which is audience analysis . Right , it's knowing who's your audience , what are care and concerns on their minds , and then if you can connect with theirs , you know , with those cares and concerns , and weave your message into that , you're going to be much more influential in your communications with them , absolutely .
Marc MullenIt's a point where communicators have to identify their first audience as being the people that they're working around . I think we tend to focus externally , and what you're talking here about is a challenge of having your own leadership understand the importance of what you bring to the table as a communicator . I really appreciate what you said about beginning to basically socialize them to the importance of communications well before you're in the middle of any sort of a crisis , because , by definition , responders want to pick things up and set them down and put things out and start them up and that's what makes them good every day . That's what their company produced something . But they walk into circumstances in an incident or an issue where they're in new territory and again , I think it's good to hear that you see that emphasis on many communication communicators are speaking into that environment every single day .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorAbsolutely . And there would be another advice that I would add , and it would be don't be innocent . And let me explain you why . Compared to the old days , where things more easy I would say in the past I find much easier ways to deal with challenges . When you , for example , understand how the press works , when you are in a special situation , then you know you still have some time to coordinate and to elaborate and to train others and to pick up some other ideas from the environment to put to pocket in one holding statement , key messages and all the routine for these things .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorNowadays it's very challenging , since you know that everyone is a journalist , you don't even know if your main enemies are inside because you don't know what are the agendas that are connected to the outside world in your company . I've seen it . Part of my responsibilities were to deal with Colombia , peru , ecuador , bolivia and in several years also I was taking part of the Central American team . It was exactly the same performance . You see that when you analyze , when you monitor the environment and you start to pick up some contents that you see in Twitter , in Instagram , that you start to , hey , here there is a watch out .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorAnd I believe that in those compared to the previous days . Nowadays you have some trends that you could pick up and start developing scenarios to your leadership . Those things we will not be able to see it as easy as we see it now . The challenge would be how to involve the decision makers in this process in the early stage . How difficult the business agenda is . You need to put people aware of the things that you are starting to watch in media , in digital media .
Tom MuellerYeah , it's interesting . It's almost like you need to do some crisis exercises with the leadership to help them think through some of the challenges that may be coming along . That includes some scenario planning , thinking about different ways this scenario might play out , and that's something we do . A lot of today is running crisis tabletop exercises . Maybe it's just one hour or two hours , but if you can get those executives in the room to sort of think this through , then you have the opportunity to influence them a bit more .
Marc MullenThe description you gave about some of the issues you've dealt with resonated with me and what I've seen some of my clients go through , and I do think that one of the challenges is , even when , as communicators , we have learned to think more rapidly and learn to analyze more quickly , we end up going back to operators who , by and large , are most successful when they're deliberative and when they have time to think through a problem and think through a solution , and they just don't understand that in today's media world you don't have that time . So I do have a question , though , in that in the United States we have a very set way of responding to physical events like fires or floods or oil spills . It's called incident command in unified command , so we all tend to fall into the same sort of process up here to deal with the response . Do you have that sort of structure in Venezuela , where there is a standard way that the government interfaces with a company in a crisis , or a standard way that the company itself responds ?
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorWell , I have to be honest with you . This country and all the countries that have similar regimes in this region have lost the institutionality of the process . I think the world is changing rapidly in front of our eyes and all the rules and the , I would say , principles that normally the companies should have , not only because they believe in do the right thing , but also because there are lots in the country where you are working , this is not anymore . Here we depend on the goodwill of the companies and the good sense they would have .
Tom MuellerMaria , we've been going for a while here . Thank you again for joining us , but I wonder , just as we close out here , if you think about again . You know those young people who might be figuring out . You know what to do with crisis and how to prepare for that . And just your advice Once again . You know what you would recommend .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorFirst of all , always monitor , always monitor your environment . Second , people is first . People always has to be first and when I say people , I mean internal and external . And influence . You need to develop skills to influence others . That is key in a crisis situation . Communications is not anymore an activity for journalists or people specialized . All leadership has to be a communicator . You cannot rely only in a communication team . The responsibility of being transparent and enjoying yourself .
Tom MuellerAll right , Maria , we're going to have to leave it there now . Thank you very much again for joining us on the Leading in a Crisis podcast . It's so good to see you and thank you for sharing some of your experiences and I hope we'll have you back on the program in the future .
Maria Eugenia FuenmayorI hope so . I'm so delighted to see you into Meet , mark , and please , I would like to join as many times as you think there would be interest for your audience .
Tom MuellerThank you everyone for joining us for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast . We hope you'll subscribe to the podcast and join us for future episodes .
