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 7 Dealing with a simmering crisis and looking for the red flags with Daren Beaudo
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Prepare to unlock the secrets of managing simmering crises with our expert guest, Daren Beaudo. A simmering crisis is one that starts small - a passenger dragged from an overbooked aircraft, or a routine permitting issue that suddenly becomes a political issue - and then blows up via social media or political positioning. Tom, Marc and Daren dive into the simmering crisis and provide some insight into managing these common crises. We also focus some energy on one recent example that involves Northwestern University, where accusations of hazing kicked off a simmering crisis for university leadership and athletic programs.
Like your cohosts Tom Mueller and Marc Mullen, Daren is an authority in public affairs and crisis management. He has worked for two global energy companies and been part of numerous major crisis response efforts.
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Managing Simmering Crises
Tom MuellerHi everyone and welcome to the Leading in a Crisis podcast . On this podcast , we focus on everything crisis management with the goal of making you and us better leaders in a crisis , and we do that through interviews , storytelling and lessons learned from experienced crisis leaders . I'm Tom Mueller . With me today is my co-host , Marc Mullen . Mark , how are you ?
Marc MullenI'm doing well , Tom . Thank you for this discussion today .
Tom MuellerOn our podcast today we're going to talk about one of those issues that many of us have dealt with over the course of our careers , and that's the simmering , or smoldering , crisis . Now , that's an issue that can start off as a small issue it's not really an incident per se but something small and smoldering but has the potential to grow and become a larger scale corporate crisis . And with us today to talk about that is Daren Beaudo . Daren is a long time public affairs manager and crisis manager for major energy companies and joins us today from his home in central Texas . Daren , welcome to the podcast .
Daren BeaudoThank you , Tom . I'm really happy to be here today .
Tom MuellerDaren , if you're meeting somebody for the first time , how would you introduce yourself ?
Daren BeaudoWell , I would let somebody know that I've had a 30 plus year fabulous career providing communication services , a lot of which included some high stakes , media and crisis incidents . I worked alongside the best of the best , present company included , and I retired after a great 30 year career with those energy companies you mentioned , tom , and now I'm mostly retired , but I do have a consulting business called Palantir Communications LLC , and I hit people with business writing or coaching or crisis communications from time to time .
Tom MuellerDaren , we appreciate you taking time to join us on the Leading in a Crisis podcast today to talk about the simmering or smoldering crisis .
Tom MuellerAnd I know , darren , you've been following one of those crisis situations from your alma mater up at Northwestern University and they've had some issues going on there that sort of fall right into this category .
Tom MuellerBut before we go there , I wanted to just talk at a higher level about the simmering type of crisis you know , and how does it start ? As I think back over my career , there's been a number of issues that came up . In fact , many of us listening on the podcast today , over the course of your careers , you're going to have dealt with issues like this , something that started off as a small incident or even just a corporate issue that over time , escalated and became a full blown crisis situation that had to be dealt with and managed . Now those can start as something as simple as a product recall issue or a labor dispute . Even permitting issues can sometimes get pulled into the public domain and what you thought was going to be a routine permit renewal or application process suddenly isn't and it turns into something political and something much more . So how do we anticipate those types of situations . What can we do to prepare for those ?
Daren BeaudoObviously the basic answer is through good planning . Every large company that deals with stakeholders , that deals with reputation , that deals with potential negative aspects of their business has to have a plan . Those plans need to be forged in collaboration with the leaders in your business . I think you have to stack hands and have sign off on the processes that are going to take place when you have these things kind of pop up . You have to have people with good worldly experience , people who can data mine , people who know how to look at the landscape , social media and the media landscape and try to anticipate what could happen from a seemingly innocuous incident that could , to your point , blow up at any moment . So good planning having a chain of command that's all signed up for the way that you're going to behave and do things and then general awareness of where this might lead .
Tom MuellerAs I think about the issues that I've worked over my career . You're always looking for those red flags . What is it that in your gut tells you there's an incident going on ? I've got a couple examples here from recent events , something like whistleblower complaints that can start off as something relatively innocuous but can then grow over time , especially if information is slow trickling out and your company's caught on the back foot and isn't prepared to meet these challenges and the messaging of these challenges head on . I also think about unusual customer complaints about a product or service that your company offers . Sometimes that consumer complaint can be the trigger that starts something much bigger . I've got a quick story about that .
Tom MuellerDaren , you might have heard of this incident , but it was a product recall issue that happened to a client I was working with out of Chicago . I remember on a Friday evening a holding statement came in via email from a colleague in Chicago and it was simply saying hey , there's been this off-spec product issue . We expect it to be resolved over the weekend and don't expect it to go any further . On Monday morning I came into the office after the weekend out and on my company voicemail is a message from a very distraught woman who says that she missed her wedding because of this off-spec product issue that the company was dealing with . Now , for a woman in the Chicago area to call a guy in Houston looking for help for a major issue that she's dealing with raised huge red flags for me . I was able to escalate that and we stood up a crisis team , flew to Chicago and stood up a team to start working on this issue .
Tom MuellerIt was one of those that every day or two it got bigger . Where it started out as being just a small area , after a couple of days it was sort of the whole Chicago area and then after another couple of days it was across the whole state and then it was across multiple states and in the end it was four state crises that started off with just a small incident . What's important for me , taken away from that , is following your gut and realizing that this one call that came in is a red flag and we need to treat it seriously . Daren , how would you advise people sort of thinking about how these crises can happen ? What action can you take to make sure that you're seeing those red flags ?
Daren BeaudoWell , I think part of it is having people in place , as you indicated , who have good instincts , good experiences and actually have a little bit of out-of-the-box imagination . One of the things that I've always been proud of as a communicator , working with my communication colleagues , is the ability to envision how these things might expand and being sort of a canary in a coal mine . Sometimes Now you have to be careful with that , because otherwise you're crying wolf a little too often you can go to your management team and say , hey , this has the potential to really be a problem , this has the potential to expand . But I think that comes with the label , with the job that we're doing is because oftentimes communicators have , I think , unique insights and maybe relationships with the public and they might think a little bit differently .
Daren BeaudoTaking your example , there are a lot of brilliant people who work in the petrochemical industry . They're engineers , they're detail-oriented , fix-it kind of people and sometimes they have a little bit of blinders on because they're looking at it from a very specific point of view . What's the engineering challenge ? How do we change out the fuel that's off spec ? What do we have to do with the blending process to change that ? That's the world they live in the world we live in as a public affairs practitioner or a crisis communicator , is to think about the public . So we bring an extra special , maybe second sense , and we should always , I think , hold that responsibility of great importance and try to utilize that knowledge , that little bit different antenna that we have , in order to influence next steps .
Marc MullenA great question on that , because I totally agree . It's absolutely critical and most responders simply don't see the world the way communicators do . But how do you get your voice at the table , particularly when you don't want to cry wolf too many times ?
Daren BeaudoThere's not an easy answer to that , Marc , because I can tell you in every functional meeting that we ever had in my 30 years between basically three different companies , our department would always kind of complain about having a seat at the table . You don't always take us seriously . We're marginalized to some degree . That has to be earned . Part of it is making sure you have the right team on board . Part of it is just how you approach your leadership with these options .
Daren BeaudoYou don't do it in a way that's frenetic . You do it in a common , controlled , thought-provoking fashion . You build pros and cons , you allow them to see the different sides of where this thing might go . But I will tell you that in my experience , if you have that gut feeling , if you really really are bought into a direction , I think at that point you have to sell it and you have to be committed to it and then you have to deliver it . It's a little bit of playing jazz , but if you establish those kinds of relationships , if you have a few wins with your leadership team , they're going to find you credible . The next time it's when you start out poorly and your results are bad , then maybe you shouldn't be in that role to begin with .
Marc MullenIt sort of reflects back to the example Tom was giving in . Tom , that incident was when my thinking changed . I always told my clients , people I was working with , that an issue is an incident in slow motion . It's just you have more time , you have time to do analysis and so on . You're ending up with actions . But what the one you're talking about brought me to realize is just because it's smaller and doesn't mean it can't burst into flame instantly in the environment we live and work in these days .
Marc MullenI think we have smoldering crisis and everybody's carrying gasoline . So it's just a matter of having to be ready . And I guess I keep going back to how often do we look at the issues facing our organizations and do we do that spot analysis on each one ? Both of you guys should probably sit down and take the top six issues in our organization and probably come pretty close to telling which one was going to be most likely to erupt and what would happen when it did . So I think we got to find a way to get credibility so we can go in and say this guy just might fall tomorrow and be listened to .
Tom MuellerOh , guys , and Mark , as you've pointed out , the risk profile seems to be a little bit higher today , given the polarization of society here and the proliferation of social media . Things are happening very quickly now and of course that's been happening over the last 10 to 15 years , but companies and even agencies that might be dealing with issues have much shorter time frames for forming up messaging , for getting out in front to try and get ahead of the crisis . It's a bigger challenge today than I think we've ever faced . One of the things that we coach people on is when you're thinking about an issue or you become aware of an issue , just stepping back and asking how bad could this get . And when you ask that question now , it suddenly opens up the realm of possibilities here and you can start thinking about and war gaming out scenarios like that . When you think about that , asking that question , how bad could it get ? Where does that take you ?
Marc MullenYou're an airline and you're on a flight and the flight is over booked and you ask your passengers if anybody would take a later flight and nobody says they will . So after a while you realize the last person to book this flight has got to get off the plane . So you ask them to leave and they refuse to leave . So you call security and security comes on the airplane and drags the pain passenger off of the airplane in front of 180 other people . Nobody thinks about giving up their seat , but they all think about taking a video of it . And by the time that guy is up the ramp , your airline is now on all across social media for literally beating somebody up and dragging them off an airplane .
Daren BeaudoI think the best thing you can do is try to create a culture at all of these customer touch points or sensitivity and empathy . Ultimately , you may have to take a hard line . You have to be self-aware when you're in that moment about what it might look like . I think the default today is no matter what kind of encounter you're having , nine times out of 10 you'll be somebody will have their phone up and they'll be videotaping you . I think there's a constant awareness that needs to go through the organization , both to understand this , to try to divorce yourself of the emotion and to try to behave in the best way possible , always thinking that you're going to show up on the evening news .
Daren BeaudoI mean , that might be the highest level way that you can approach that because everything after that is clawing back is having to explain and having to rebuild your reputation based on that one incident .
Tom MuellerWe had a conversation recently with a friend down in Venezuela for a recent episode of the podcast , and she talked in great detail about being able to influence leadership within your department , within your company , but then also about running tabletop exercises to try and raise management's awareness to the potential issues that could be coming forward . Darren , what's your view on the value of tabletop exercises and have you had success with that in your career ?
Daren BeaudoI think there's a lot of value to tabletop exercises . I would say that my success in that area , in a leadership role , has been not always what I hoped it would be . The thing that I've always found is that until it's completely needed , until you can really put your finger on it and say this is tangible , a lot of people can find ways to not find time to take part . I know in your previous podcasts I've heard some of the same messages . I think some of the recommendations in a previous podcast about shorter duration , more frequent kinds of little tabletops with your communication team . I think that's an excellent idea . I will share , though that candidly
Managing a Smoldering Crisis
Daren Beaudo.
Daren BeaudoMy experience was it's hard enough to get people to check the box on the once a year tabletop drill or actual full-scale drill . Then it would be to try to implement something on a regular basis because , let's face it , people are busy . Somebody with a job title like mine director of crisis communications and media relations that's my focus . I've got all the time in the world for that . My colleagues around are helping to run the business . They are creating communication products , from town hall materials to printed materials to just messaging , and it runs the gamut on a daily basis . They're focused on trying to make the business itself successful . This can be a distraction to them , even though intellectually they all know it's important and it's vital . That is the tension that I still think probably exists in most companies today .
Tom MuellerWell , Daren , one of the issues I know you've been thinking about lately is another smoldering type of crisis that's been happening at your alma mater up at Northwestern . They've had some issues raised around potential hazing incidents and it's one of those crises that started off seemingly relatively small , but now it keeps percolating , it keeps growing , getting legs , and it just feels like a good example of a smoldering crisis that needs to get managed .
Daren BeaudoSure , Tom . The head coach has been there since 2006 . Some whistleblowers back in the end of last year , former football players made accusations of hazing the university . The first part of the year put together a panel to investigate it and then in July they came out with the results of that , which ultimately led to the firing of the head coach .
Daren BeaudoThis one has been really interesting because one of the big keys in here is that the decision taken on the coach changed from a Friday afternoon to a Monday after some reflection by the school president over the weekend . I think that complicated things a little bit . They came out with a two-week suspension , which then became a full termination . Subsequently to that , there have been a couple of other pieces of the athletic department that have had some similar issues . The bottom line is people don't go to Northwestern generally to play football . It is not a football powerhouse , but it's still a source of pride , it's a source of revenue and it's something that's really important to the culture of the campus . To your point , it flamed up from a Friday afternoon to a two-week suspension , to all of a sudden national media attention . With what ?
Daren BeaudoI would call , maybe a slow trickle of information coming out .
Daren BeaudoIf you're an alum , it's particularly important , you know , and I think the thing I go back and look through my career and working with leaders , ceo level in my last job and you know , having those relationships as a communicator to try to influence are really important . And it goes back to this , this whole notion of what are the possibilities of this , how should we handle this and how and to what level of detail do we communicate what we know about this ? And , as you guys know , one of the big determining factors in a lot of these cases , whether it's a corporation or this university in this case , are legal ramifications , which are often a huge driver in how communications are conducted .
Tom MuellerAs we've seen with other smoldering crises , it seems like information trickles out a bit at a time , and I think we've seen that with this particular issue where , over time , more and more information is coming out . And , of course , the challenge for leadership and for management is situational awareness , right , and understanding what's happening , understanding the full scale of that , and it could be quite challenging to keep your hands on everything that's happening or has happened within your company or your university . So , Daren , in this case the sort of change of direction for dealing with the coach was kind of unusual , right . It's like more information came out and then , instead of just a suspension , it was a full firing .
Daren BeaudoYeah , I think for me , the surprise was , if you're going to do a big investigation , let's all stack hands and let's all agree to what those results are . Let's make sure we've reviewed all the data and then let's make the decision one time and not kind of come back . And as a professional in this area , the real thing that interested me is not really even the details of the case . It's things that I wonder about , giving my background and I know your background in the incident command system , where you have a structure of managing all of these kinds of activities . Well , I don't know what kind of process the university might use to get their team together and to think through how they should respond . We know what we do through ICS and how that all works .
Daren BeaudoAnd the other thing that I think has always been real important to me , especially in my previous career , is how to use your leaders as spokespeople . There are often times in a crisis where you have to consider when do I play the big card ? When do I bring the CEO out ? It's not always first out of the box . So in this case , should I have my president stand up and actually do a full blown news conference to address these issues openly , transparently , try to rip that bandaid off and get everything out . Or can you do it with other people in your organization , and so those are the kinds of decisions that I think practiced communicators , experienced communicators , can use to influence whether or not you do a full fledged press conference , or who you use and how you coach up those folks in anticipation of that press conference .
Tom MuellerThat raises some interesting issues , because when you get into personnel type issues now , you're dealing with people right , and they may be colleagues . These are people with careers , with families , and now you know somebody in the company or in the university is passing judgment on them , and that can be challenging to do when it's somebody you know , somebody you like , you work with . So there's some emotional factors that can come into play as your management team is evaluating what's happening here . There's also legal issues . So the lawyers around the table are going to be weighing in forcefully on this , as we see in all crisis situations and probably counseling not to say anything , to just let things play out . It's not important that we say something at this point . It's important that we protect ourselves from lawsuits .
Daren BeaudoYeah , I definitely think that there is a balance . I would like to challenge leaders to think beyond the inevitable , because I think in this case it was going to be inevitable that there was going to be litigation . And what do you do ? You accept that and you work your messaging to be respectful of that process , to certainly not denigrate anybody through the process , but to lay out facts as you , as you know them , to discuss how more facts will be developed and you are able to respond to the tough questions that come about . Where do we go from here ? How do we reestablish the culture ? What needs to be done ?
Daren BeaudoIn those early moments you're not going to have all the answers , but showing that you are , you have a conviction that you will do the same thing and that you will continue to communicate results over time will help demonstrate to your audience In this case , alumni faculty , the people in the athletic department , the players that you have their interests in mind and that you have a empathy to have discovered that any measure of this has occurred in the first place . And I think it's again . I think it's easier to work around the tough legal questions in the messaging than some people think it is . So I think you could have your cake and eat it too in those cases .
Marc MullenSo , Daren , you are an alumni , right ? Did you receive any information directly before it was in the news , particularly a weekend ? Did you receive any information ?
Daren BeaudoNo , and I didn't even realize that there was an investigation going on . I mean , I have to tell you I don't pour over information and really closely follow my alma mater . This just happened to jump out . What I did receive , I think on the Monday or Tuesday afterwards , I did receive an email from the President , through the Alumni Association , articulating what actions were being taken . There were some reasonable things in writing that were posted , but they were minimal . I think if I had had an opportunity to coach anyone in this circumstance , I would advise them to get out ahead . We've had a couple of kerfuckles here at the beginning On the Monday when they decided to fire the coach . Ultimately , I would have come out with a press conference to explain the rationale for that to the public , facing the public , rather than just doing it in writing . I think there was some opportunity lost because I think there's greater weight and credibility ability for people to latch on and believe in the message when it's delivered in a forthright manner like that .
Marc MullenIt's almost like they lost track of the unruly stakeholders that weren't going to be automatically supported . They didn't think about parents , they didn't think about as players , that there seems to be not an acknowledgement or an understanding about who your stakeholders really are , whether it's college athletes or parents , a student or whoever . The decision might have been wise and good , but it was so fast from one decision on Friday to another decision on Monday , without a lot of effort to try to explain .
Tom MuellerAs I look at that , mark , I see clearly more information came into the sphere of awareness for the board or the head of the university . More information came in and changed their decision . This is not uncommon for a crisis situation or developing situation like this , where it's fluid . There's more information coming in and tactics need to change accordingly . Of course , that's the operational side of a crisis response . You still have to balance that with the communications side . It's incumbent on the company , the university , whoever it is , to manage both sides of that equation in order to successfully thread the needle of dealing with a very unfortunate crisis and personnel situation .
Marc MullenIf I were advising any college , I'd tell them you have to be ready for charges of malfeasance . They may be true , they may not be true , but you're in a charged environment . That's changing right now because students are getting more power . But every organization should look at that , just like every airline should have looked at United's incident and say what are our overbooking procedures and what is our communication .
Daren BeaudoTo me , a core part of any investigation , when you're going to announce the results of an investigation , are having a thorough bowtide on it .
Daren BeaudoYou have to really fully understand and accept the results of that investigation and then you have to stand by it . To have information flowed out that you either didn't pay attention to or weren't made privy to shows a flaw in the process of investigation , which is obviously what led to the initial result . So you have to have a thorough investigation . You have to have a real good dialogue with your board of directors , with your senior leaders on your team , in order to help them understand the fullness . This isn't something where you just send an executive summary and say here's what we're going to do . You should meet , I think you should have a thorough vetting of everything you've learned and you bring a number of voices into the room and maybe they did this , I don't know , but these are the things that I would recommend you do and bounce off all of these potential issues . As the communicator , you have your antenna , you have your set of experiences that are going to allow you to have a voice in that room , unless that voice isn't welcome .
Diving Into Crisis Management Techniques
Tom MuellerWe've had a really enjoyable conversation today , diving into the intricacies of dealing with a smoldering crisis . Daren , I want to thank you for joining Marc and I today . We really appreciate you being with us and sharing your insights into dealing with this particular leadership opportunity in a crisis . Thank you both .
Marc MullenEnjoyed it . Thank you , Daren .
