Crisis Management and Board Involvement

Tom Mueller 0:08

Hi everyone and welcome to the Leading in a Crisis podcast . I'm your host , tom Mueller . On this podcast , we talk about all things crisis management and we do that through stories , interviews and lessons learned from experienced crisis leaders . With me is my co-host , mark Mullin Mark welcome .

Marc Mullen 0:29

Hi , tom , happy to be here .

Tom Mueller 0:33

And today we have a very special guest with us for the podcast , and she is Anita Perry . Anita is a longtime government and public affairs manager based in Calgary , canada . She recently retired as vice president of one of the largest energy companies in Canada and now serves on a board of directors for a mining company in Canada and does consulting work as well . So , anita , we're very happy to have you with us . Thanks for joining .

Anita Perry 1:06

Hey , Tom and Mark , thanks so much for having me .

Tom Mueller 1:10

So , Anita , if you are walking into a cocktail party and you need to introduce yourself to people who don't know you , what would be that introduction ? What's your story ?

Anita Perry 1:23

I worked my entire career in communications . I worked on the government side , I worked in the corporate side and I worked in the nonprofit side . So all of my roles have always been to do with communications or government relations , public affairs . So that's my whole career Worked for large companies , small companies , government agency , and then ended all of that and decided that I wanted to do something different and now serve on a board of directors . I've served on a few boards of directors , but today I'm active on one board of directors as a director .

Tom Mueller 2:01

What would you say was the highlight of your career in terms of crisis management and crisis communications ?

Anita Perry 2:11

I don't know if there was a high point , but having served on more than 35 active incidents and crisis management events , I'll tell you they were all different and I think the highlight was maybe that I liked doing it , and I'm a firm believer in communication and in a crisis , everybody needs communications , so I think that would be the highlight .

Marc Mullen 2:40

Kind of funny to call it highlights . When you're all responding to crisis , maybe the question should be what was the best of the worst ?

Anita Perry 2:47

The best of the worst was probably one where the media attention died very quickly , and that was the best , because we obviously managed it well , because it was a big incident .

Marc Mullen 3:04

Interesting . Was that a remote incident .

Anita Perry 3:09

It was an environmental incident . Yes , Very remote or Remote . However , a lot of attention .

Tom Mueller 3:17

So , Anita , just drilling in on that point just a moment , because you said you thought you handled it really well . What was it about that response , as you think about it , that you thought went really well ?

Anita Perry 3:32

We had a holding statement out very quickly so we wrote our own story rather than somebody writing it for us . Number two was we were well prepared . We had a really good communication plan and we also had the relationships already developed . So I can't think of one relationship that was missing . So we were quick to get to people about the incident .

Tom Mueller 4:00

So , Anita , I know one of the things you're passionate about these days is serving on boards of directors , and that's an experience that relatively few people get in their careers and lifetimes . So I'm curious you know your experience around working on boards ? In particular , you know what's the focus on crisis management , or what should it be ?

Anita Perry 4:26

You know , serving on the board of directors for a small mining company that had you know yet to begin construction or production , obviously one would think you know why do you need crisis management ? You have no activity and why should it be a priority ? You're really dealing with permitting , funding , engineering and those kinds of things . But I learned that setting up the elements of crisis management is a very long process and I learned that in working for a very large company . It's a long process but if it's done right it's going to pay off and spades once activity begins .

Anita Perry 5:05

So the early work gets management's heads around crisis management and in a , you know , a small company , as a member of a board of directors , you're fairly involved in management involved or informed , I should say . You don't want to be involved in the management and so you know . I mean the board of directors come with their own sets of expertise , and mine was in my career , in my skills , and so you know , early on I said I know we don't have activity yet , but we really need an incident plan , we really need a management plan and a communication plan . And the other thing with small companies and what people kind of forget is that there are many more small natural resource companies than there are large natural resource companies , whether it be forestry , mining , oil and gas , etc . And so there's a lot of them . They don't have huge , big crisis teams or even big management teams , so it's a kind of an all hands on , and that's what I've enjoyed as a board member of a small mining company is you get to help them up and you get to be involved .

Marc Mullen 6:23

And so you know .

Anita Perry 6:24

I put my hand up and said I can help get a crisis management plan started , get crisis communications started , and so that's that's what I did . You know , a few key elements for those early days for a small company is you have to have identified personnel and roles that could serve on a crisis management , because you're going to start activity someday and you're not going to start activity with a fully complimented crisis capable team . So identify the personnel and the roles that will serve on the crisis . The other thing was that you can do early in a small company is make sure that you have accurate contact information of all those government people , all the emergency providers , your neighbors , your stakeholders . Make sure you've got those lists ready because you're going to call on them for support or you're going to have to , you know , notify them and you know a basic , strong communication plan and identification of those authorized spokespersons is incredibly important as well . Somebody's going to have to talk and you're probably not going to have an experienced media relations person on site .

Tom Mueller 7:38

So , Anita , the challenge I think today for directors in companies you know , is figuring out , you know , how to influence what's happening in the companies and asking the right questions , poking around a little bit to identify weaknesses . You see that with ransomware issues now , where boards are becoming much more engaged with management around those types of cyber crime and preparedness issues , you know , as you think back on your experience there , how much of a challenge is it identifying those kinds of issues for directors .

Anita Perry 8:18

I don't think it's a big difficulty identifying the issues , but what you bring is that early work gets management's head around crisis management , because they may not be thinking about crisis management , because they're saying , well , we don't have any activity , but you have to get it in place . So you know , as a board member , we have time to sit back because we're not dealing with the minutiae for the day and you know we're bringing another perspective for that management team , though they have the experience of what's actually happening on site . So the board members is that oversight again , and one of the critical elements today . As you said , you know , in the environment that we live in , you have to have credible plans in place so that , in the event of a crisis , there is going to be a crisis . I don't know what it's going to be , but there is going to be one . You know that you have things in place and that you're trustworthy .

Anita Perry 9:19

So you know , board members on these small boards , I think , can influence management to think about crisis , to think about environmental issues . That was the role that I think our boards are playing .

Marc Mullen 9:34

If I could ask you a quick question , you're talking about a board level involvement . That , to me , is really interesting because you've talked about the crisis management plan and having the input to get the board and the actual organization to begin thinking about a crisis management , but on top of that you're the crisis communicator , so you're basically embodying crisis management plan and a crisis communications plan . Do you see those always working well together or do you see a danger of having a diversion between one and the other ?

Anita Perry 10:09

No , I see them working well together in my experience and I'm a firm believer in how well they can work together and should work together .

Tom Mueller 10:19

One of the other issues I kind of wanted to check with you about today . Anita was working with management and sometimes when we're involved in a crisis response or maybe it's just a deep issues management but you end up working with difficult people or managers who are just abrasive , not good listeners . I wonder if you have had any of that type of experience over your career and what your advice would be for getting on with difficult managers .

Anita Perry 10:54

Yeah , I have dealt with a few difficult incident managers in my career and in those events that I was involved in , I look back . I really believe that the difficult incident commander or anyone on that incident team actually I really think that it was a lack of confidence rather than being difficult and it played out in being a difficult person , because obviously they have skill to be the incident commander , but it's a lack of confidence . So I think a strong crisis or incident management plan that's practiced and that's understood goes a long way to providing that confidence to the incident commander . And the other thing that I noticed too was in exceptional circumstances , deviating from the management plan could be necessary , but I can't think of an incident management experience of mine that warranted the commander on their own to deviate from the plan . That's when we had trouble .

Leadership Qualities in Crisis Response

Marc Mullen 11:53

And also I've noticed that , by definition , when we're doing crisis response , we're working under stress and a lot of times people handle stress really differently . I think what you're describing is some of what walks in there . It's not just confidence . Is they're now under stress and they have to do something they don't do every day ?

Anita Perry 12:12

Yeah , and you know I found so I was always on the communication side of an incident management right , and I found that in the thick of things , my team members , who were all communications professionals , could provide confidence to the incident manager when they had a working relationship ahead of time , ahead of the crisis , with that incident commander . So a specific staff member who on their daily work , worked closely with that person in whatever they did in their daily work . I tried to get that team member of mine in to work with that commander because there was a trust , there was confidence and the communications was so incredibly important because they're managing inside the company and they're worried about what's going on outside the company . So my trick was to put , whichever one of my staff knew , that incident commander from their daily work and it seemed to help .

Tom Mueller 13:13

Yeah , that's fascinating . I think there's a saying in the crisis management world that says you know , the day of the crisis is not the day you want to be meeting your incident commander . You want to have some kind of an established relationship there . And I think back to my deployment out during Deepwater Horizon and into New Orleans and I met the company's overall commander for that response when he turned up in the command post that day . And that's kind of a terrifying thing when you're working a very large incident and now you're working with a senior executive or incident commander who you've not worked with before . You don't have that established credibility yet . You've got to earn it . It just adds a lot more stress and pressure . So your point about you know putting people who know that incident commander in to work with them is a very good one in my view , because it just helps build that comfort level and confidence .

Anita Perry 14:17

I was going to say , and you know it always worked in my case . But you know , I recall one commander you know who tried to play almost everybody's role . What happened ? He burned out in you know a few hours . In the subsequent incident management situation , all over again , that commander was in the room and I'm really happy that his supervisor put him back in the chair because he was skilled . He put that commander , but this time he was not playing the commander role , he was playing a different role and he was awesome . So he , you know what ? He just wasn't , he just wasn't the one to be the commander .

Tom Mueller 14:53

At that point in his career . Yep , right , he had to learn a bit to build the skill sets , the confidence you know , the knowledge and awareness of how this whole response system works , right . So everybody has a role to do . If you're working in incident command system , for example and that's part of the challenge of a good manager or incident commander is letting people do their jobs . So , anita , that raises another question for me is you know , when you think about your team , people you've worked with and developed over your career , you know , how do you , how do you build that confidence in those employees so that they feel comfortable stepping up and leading in a crisis , as opposed to just you know , sort of showing up to be told what to do ?

Anita Perry 15:43

I really believe that it's it's it's in the skill set you know , they have to be a team player . They have to have confidence in their skills and that's where you , as a leader , can help them have some confidence in their skills . They have to have a strong desire to learn . I had some who wanted to be in right away . Put me in , coach , I'm ready to play , you know , because they just had a strong desire to learn my experiences that fades over the course of one's career .

Anita Perry 16:17

But Was was guide them to be inquisitive and resourceful . So when you get into an incident to man situation , you don't want to be the person Asking , interrupting , asking questions Well , what's this , what's that , what's this ? You know , asking all those questions have to be inquisitive , but what I also wanted them to do was to be resourceful . So I told them don't ask your question if it's going to interrupt things . This is a crisis . People are tense . Keep it to yourself or you have your laptop . Find the answer . Go online and find the answer , either whether it's inside the company or outside the company .

Anita Perry 16:58

But you know answer your own question and find that solution and help with the solution , Rather than just sitting there asking questions . But the other one was a tough one , and this was Be available and stay focused on the task at hand . Call your family . I'm not going to be home for 12 hours . I need to be focused on this . It's part of my job and I want to do it . So that was incredibly important . But also tell me if you can't do it , and you know I'll put somebody else in the chair .

Tom Mueller 17:34

So those were some of the things that I think I tried to work with my team on well , often it it seems like , you know , people aren't sure if they could do it or not , and you know , I'm just . I'm recalling an experience that we're working in an emergency incident and I had one particular person kept coming to me and bringing problems , and Every time they showed up in front of me they were bringing me a problem and asking me what was I going to do to fix this problem that they had identified ? In fact , what I needed was a solution . Right , if you've got a problem , go find me a solution and then bring it together . Right , and this person wasn't able to make that connection and it , you know , I ended up just demobilizing that person fairly quickly , because they just didn't have the right mindset to be in crisis at that point in their career , right ? So your your point about you know , answering those questions and being productive Don't bring me problems .

Anita Perry 18:37

Yeah , but you know I've seen people get emotional and I don't . You know we say we're in a culture where don't say they're failing , they're emotional . Well , you know what it should be viewed as a failure if they can't in , especially in the crisis environment . If they can't do it , it's a failure in that environment . It's not a failure in the person . You know one of my most competent and skilled communicators ever , who worked for me early in their career , asked to not be a participant in an incident or crisis environment , I recognized . You know that their skill was in the back room as an incredible and excellent writer . So you know fear , failure was at play there . But I didn't put them in that situation because that's not a time to set somebody up to be ridiculed or to be , you know , to really break down .

Anita Perry 19:27

So I think we have to look at that and we can say you know , I I've had , I've had CEOs who I Counseled to not be the spokesperson Because they just there was no way they were going to do it .

Tom Mueller 19:44

And be an effective communicator . You mean .

Anita Perry 19:48

Exactly yeah .

Marc Mullen 19:52

Conversation goes back to this . You were talking about even the incident commander who lacked confidence From the start through . Each of these conversations were really back to one of the core tenants of incident command , which is you always put the most qualified person in the best position for them . And this is all part of deciding who fits where and and recognizing experience , recognizing temperament . All of that folds in , but I think what's sometimes missing in that . This is back to your comment about you know , somebody failed . All of all of incident command is built around . If somebody can do your job better , let them do the job . It's too important that it be done right to try to hold on to something and and along with that you have to have a sense of this it's not a failure that you get moved over to be a good writer . We need a good writer and you're the best we got .

Tom Mueller 20:39

Anita , as you think about Effective leaders that you've worked with , whether incident commanders or corporate executives , what would you say are the the characteristics that help them to be successful in that environment , particularly in those high stress environments , any any particular sort of incident commanders that that might come to mind and what you thought they did really well ?

Anita Perry 21:09

You know somebody who was a good listener and somebody who was calm and stuck to the plan and stayed with it and saw it through , but also exuded a personality where people could speak up , because an incident-command situation can be very tense , as you know , and you're going to follow the rule and this person talks and this one's reporting and that one's reporting , and then you've got a CEO on the phone demanding to know what's going on at all times . So to me it's really somebody who exudes confidence and calm and that's it . And just because somebody doesn't exude confidence and calm doesn't mean they're a bad leader , but they're just probably not a really great incident-command person .

Developing Leadership Skills in Crisis

Marc Mullen 22:05

I had some training a couple weeks ago and one of the leaders of the organization I was training asked me , based on your experiences , which was the most embarrassing moment that you faced and I know that's a left field question but , as well as what's been best , what was the one thing that you just thought I never want that to happen again ?

Anita Perry 22:27

Not being prepared , not having accurate contact information at the ready . That is probably my most embarrassing .

Marc Mullen 22:38

Does . Everything hinges on that , doesn't it ?

Anita Perry 22:41

Absolutely .

Marc Mullen 22:41

You're talking about what you're doing if you don't remember who to talk to .

Anita Perry 22:45

Absolutely .

Tom Mueller 22:46

Mark , when I think about that question , the phrase that comes to my mind is quotes I'd like to have back . So those just sort of ill time things that you say to a reporter in a high stress situation that proved to be inaccurate or just not the right thing to say at that point in time , and those things happen in those high stress situations . I'll just have a chapter in my book that I will call "that quotes I'd like to have back and the storylines behind them .

Marc Mullen 23:19

I had to say my most embarrassing point was all the times that the communicators would develop content and take it up for unified commanders and command review and it would come back with all the misspelling circled . It's so embarrassing when you try to do your best work and you don't spell words right , Not to mention it just threw you back in the approval process .

Tom Mueller 23:42

Well , that raises another interesting point here , mark , just around the approval process , which , as we know , is one of those things that , if it doesn't go well , can really hamper communications getting out in a timely fashion . Anita , I'm wondering in your experience if you've seen situations where that approval process wasn't working and how you dealt with that or fixed that . Have you seen that ?

Anita Perry 24:10

Yes , absolutely , and it all hinged on the lawyer who was at the table every time . And the ones that went smoothly were not necessarily the most experienced lawyer , but a lawyer who was confident and who respected the communications role . Respected the communications role Often at an incident command table , that's just the PR person . But when you had a lawyer who respected what you as the communicator do , and they were quick to approve and had confidence to approve , all was awesome and I can visualize the great days of having a good lawyer .

Anita Perry 24:55

And the others again nothing to say about their skill , but it was personality . Again , it was the type of person who said well , I think we should change this , we should change that , we should wait , we should change this . Pr did not really value the importance of fast communications .

Marc Mullen 25:13

How quickly could you identify which one you were getting ?

Anita Perry 25:18

Which lawyer ?

Marc Mullen 25:19

Yeah , real quick .

Anita Perry 25:24

Try to control the body language . I liked them all , but some were just a lot quicker than others .

Marc Mullen 25:35

Again . Sometimes they came in and basically they either didn't understand or didn't respect the PIO role . How would you address that with an attorney that wasn't and basically wasn't going to let you do your job ?

Anita Perry 25:50

What I really focused on then was the consequences of them not letting me do my job , and I was very quick to tell them what might happen if they didn't let me do my job .

Marc Mullen 26:02

I'm curious in what you told them .

Anita Perry 26:05

I would tell them that it's going to be a media star . And when asked why we didn't get a statement out fast enough , I will tell them why we didn't get a statement out fast enough .

Marc Mullen 26:17

First , last name and middle initial .

Anita Perry 26:19

Yeah .

Tom Mueller 26:21

Wow . Well , these are huge challenges in terms of just getting through the approval process , and for larger corporations , there's always going to be an attorney at the table or near the table somewhere reviewing things . When you're in a unified command situation , now , working with state and federal agencies in a joint information center , it becomes a whole nother animal to have a lawyer sitting there or trying to divert the approval process through a legal team . Anita , any experience with that in your career ?

Anita Perry 26:58

And having to get another side , other than those in your room .

Tom Mueller 27:02

Yeah , through unified command .

Anita Perry 27:06

Yeah , I do have experience with that , but , again , it really comes down to identifying yourself , maybe even before the meeting gets rolling , to all of those parties involved , and making sure , though , that people know who is the sign-off , who's the signator and what their roles are . Most of those situations , you needed both sides to approve the statement , so work with both sides at the same time . Don't wait for one or the other , because you're not going to have that many changes and have a runner .

Anita Perry 27:42

I would always have one of my staff running to the other side or get them on the phone and say this is what we're going to say . Do you have any issues ? So I did have experience with that , but again , it's honestly . It's making sure they know who you are before you need them .

Marc Mullen 27:59

And by that protecting your organization's role in that response .

Anita Perry 28:04

Absolutely .

Tom Mueller 28:06

Anita , I think we'll kind of wrap it up here . It's been a really fun conversation , but before we do that , just wanted to ask for your advice for people out there in younger staff , perhaps in different roles , who want to develop those leadership skills in crisis . What are some things they can do to start building their experience and to prepare themselves to be effective in a crisis situation ?

Anita Perry 28:36

I suggest getting their colleagues together for short incident training sessions , maybe once a month . Get a realistic example and talk it out and play the roles and maybe half an hour , but just keeping it fresh in their minds and keep themselves . Also , though , keep themselves informed about what critics of their company whether it's the media or special interest group are saying about them , so that they're somewhat ready or they can offer their view to their leaders , that they know what's going on and that they know what crisis information is .

Anita Perry 29:17

The other thing that I did as a team leader and I had various colleagues on the executive team could never figure out why we did it , but anyway we would always have the Rolling News channel on in our office and we had the volume off , but we always had the Rolling News on and I fostered an environment of opinion , so we commented on everything from sports to domestic issues to whatever we would just come and we would talk , and I personally learned a ton from that because I observed my team members and how engaged they were and we would solve everybody else's crisis by just watching and listening , and I definitely learned what my biases and my blind spots were .

Anita Perry 30:04

So it was when I think back to the learning and how much fun it was and how it fostered your team . But we'd have that Rolling News channel on every day , all day , so we knew what was going on . So you have to be current and that's what I would tell young people in communications is you have to know what's going on . You just have to be interested in the news and see what other people are doing and know who your critics are and know who your friends are .

Tom Mueller 30:34

All right , Anita Perry , thank you so much for taking time to join us today on the leading in a crisis podcast and for those of you listening , we hope you'll hit that subscribe button and come back and join us often for future episodes .

Anita Perry 30:52

Thanks , tom and Mark .

Marc Mullen 30:54

Thank you .