Crisis Management and Leadership Discussion

Tom Mueller 0:05

Hi everyone and welcome to the Leading in a Crisis podcast . On this podcast , we talk all things crisis management with a focus on leadership . We deliver this through interviews , storytelling and lessons learned from experienced crisis leaders . I'm Tom Mueller . I'd like to welcome my co-host , Marc Mullen , joining us from Washington State . Hi , Marc .

Marc Mullen 0:27

Hello Tom , happy to be here today , particularly excited about our guest .

Tom Mueller 0:32

Our guest today is Sam Sacco , a crisis management expert and consultant based in California , so welcome Sam .

Sam Sacco 0:41

Thanks , tom and thank you Mark . Great seeing you both again . I think the audience should also know that I've had the pleasure of working with both of you on different projects in the past , and you guys are two real pros . Great to be talking to you .

Tom Mueller 0:57

You're very kind , Sam . Thank you . Mark, I understand you have a story about Sam from early in your career . Do you want to share ?

Marc Mullen 1:05

Sure Happy to . It was a foundational point of my career as a crisis communicator In 2000 . I had just started in this field and I went to my first exercise and it was in Portland , in Savvy Island , and I walked into the JIC and there was this guy up front who was leading the JIC , teaching everybody in the room , coaching . He was right in on a white board , pointing at a black board , circling things on the walls I'm stopping everything to basically have a briefing when he would help us understand what we were trying to do or should be trying to do at that point , and that was Sam . So the first time I was involved in an exercise it was under the caring tutelage of Sam Sacco .

Tom Mueller 1:52

What a great story and a great way to start off this podcast . Well , Sam , clearly you have kind of an illustrious following here . Tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience working in the sort of public affairs and crisis management worlds .

Sam Sacco 2:10

My company, S trategy and Communications, is based in Oakland , California . We work worldwide for different clients and of course , some of the mainstays of my business over the years has been companies in the energy industry . I've done a lot of work with BP over the years , starting with their response in Huntington Beach California back in 1991 , which was the American Trader incident and with them in training and exercise programs through the years up through Macondo and and beyond . Also , I've done a lot of work over the years with Chevron , who I've done a lot of work with over the last decade or so , and Shell , so some real good experience with companies in the energy/ oil business . And one of the things and one of the reasons why I bring them up is that industry and companies like the ones I've just mentioned really take this whole concept of crisis communications , crisis management , seriously . They invest in it , they train their people in it because they understand how important it is , not just operationally and of course operationally is very important but also from a reputational management standpoint , that they have a brand and an image to protect and that it takes training their own people to understand how important it is to be able to move from their day job into a , an emergency response role and a moment's notice , and that having that capability is so very important .

Sam Sacco 3:52

I also do a lot of work with companies in the shipping industry . One of the bigger ones is Matson Navigation , a cargo carrier . My company was founded in 1998 , or 25 years old this year . Prior to that , I worked with various public affairs agencies: Hill and Knowlton , the PBN company and others on public affairs programs , but really dug in on the whole area of crisis communications and emergency response when I opened my own firm back in 1998 . And one last thing , Marc , I do remember that day . We met back in 2000 and seems just like yesterday , and neither of us have changed at all , have we ?

Marc Mullen 4:37

We are both filled with that infectious joy of adrenaline .

Sam Sacco 4:42

That's right .

Tom Mueller 4:43

The adrenaline junkies . Yes , we're all here , and Sam , you mentioned you deployed out to the Meacondo response in the Gulf of Mexico . Where were you working through that spill ?

Sam Sacco 4:57

Most of my work during Macondo was out of Sector Mobile where we oversaw the operations on Mississippi , Alabama and Florida Panhandle and then coordinated with all you folks who were over in Louisiana on certain programs and then also operated kind of independently of Louisiana because of our own unique geographies that we had to work with . I also did spend some time at Area Command in New Orleans on some projects work that aspect of the response as well .

Tom Mueller 5:35

Okay , yeah , I was curious . Marc and I were both in Robert , Louisiana , for the early part of that and then on down to New Orleans , working in and building up that PIO function there at Central Command . So it was so great to know you were out there helping keep things rolling in the field .

Sam Sacco 5:54

Yeah , and just to clarify on that one , most of my work in that was on the liaison side and the community outreach and community relations side .

Tom Mueller 6:04

Let me just carry that forward a little bit and just talk for a minute about liaison , because you know I've worked , as you have worked , in a number of different companies and it's interesting how different companies perceive the liaison function differently , particularly when compared to a state agency , for example , or even a federal agency , who tend to think of it as a regulatory or an agency to agency function , whereas when you get into corporations it's considered more of a regulatory affairs and government affairs type function . How did you see that ? It's there to help agencies who aren't part of unified command ?

Sam Sacco 6:46

Liaison is there to keep agencies informed that aren't part of unified command, to keep informed of what's going on . But even more important , or at least equally important , it helps to keep other stakeholder groups informed and updated , such as NGOs , business associations , residential communities that are being impacted by an event . All of those now are part of the liaison function , making sure that people who have informational needs have those needs met . And also another key part of liaison is people who have distinct issues or concerns that need to be rectified or addressed by the response , and liaison takes a lead role in helping work out those kinds of problem areas . At least that's my take on the way I see a liaison function today .

Tom Mueller 7:42

The government affairs piece of that . Do you see that playing into liaison Sam , or is that generally handled elsewhere ? I mean , I'm thinking back to the Costco Busan incident in California where it was the local stakeholders who you know didn't feel like they were getting enough information and that in my mind came back to liaison not quite meeting the mark there .

Sam Sacco 8:06

If one can envision an organizational structure for a liaison operation , I think that structure would have a liaison officer and maybe a deputy , but then the operational staff , the functional staff , would be specific leads for stakeholder groups . So you would have a government outreach box , you would have an elected official outreach box , you would have a community outreach box or a community relations box , and so and you might , if there are tribes involved , you might have an indigenous people's or a tribal box . So again , that's , the beauty of a liaison operation is that you can make it work for the specific geographical area that you're in . Unlike a PIO structure , which is pretty much said in concrete , that structure is not going to change . But a liaison structure is very flexible and you can plug in the right people to help you manage the different demographics , the different groups that need attention .

Tom Mueller 9:16

In a response , yeah , this liaison officer role that we're talking about is just so critical to keeping the information flowing out to these different stakeholder groups , and Sam did a great job here of just sort of identifying what an organization chart might look like for a liaison officer team and again for agencies , for companies that might get pulled into a major incident like this . The ability to be able to scale up your response is just critical to being successful there , and that means being able to reach out and pull in staff quickly to augment those who are on the initial response team and scale that up .

Marc Mullen 9:56

Which means your government relations people can show up and participate . Do you see drift b ecause of technology ? I mean , when this was all invented , you got your information through the news media . That was it . But as basically every stakeholder group becomes broadcasters , how does liaison begin to work with the JIC to deal with the real sensitivities of message multiplication ?

Sam Sacco 10:22

I think one of the things that has to take place in a successful unified command , jic and liaison operation is close and seamless cooperation between the PIO and liaison functions . PIO is going to have the probably the leadership role in a number of these . For example , when it comes to information gathering or social media , those are housed within the public information office . However , those functions are critical to the liaison group as well and rather than mirroring that and having their own , which would drive everybody crazy in a command post , it is essential that there be close cooperation and coordination so that those functions can be shared .

Sam Sacco 11:16

Social media is one of those .

Sam Sacco 11:18

That's so important . If you , if you tell a person who's going to be your social media person or leader within a PIO that you know they're there to monitor social media and they're not informed that they're also facilitating liaison . They're only going to look for media , press coverage , journalists , whatever , but if they're , if they're primed and instructed to also look for key influencers who might have impacts on communities or who might have impacts on various business groups or associations , now they're wired in and they will be able to share that information through their monitoring with the appropriate people in the liaison group . So , again , same goes with information gathering . If you're looking for information on key issues , there's one way to take that information and kind of condense it for media output but or liaison . Sometimes they need more in-depth information because they're working specifically with people who have specific issues and you have to drill down more in working with them . So information gathering needs to know and understand what the depths of those information requests should be and that it's got to be more than a couple of sentences .

Marc Mullen 12:45

Yeah , it seems like having liaison and the JIC work closely together has benefits all the way up incident command , because you can have single meetings instead of dual meetings and you avoid dual information tracks . And so I think we saw that some in the Refugio incident where the JIC and liaison were literally in the same room working together , and that seemed to be a real enhancement to the functions of both . Have you seen that in other responses too ?

Sam Sacco 13:20

I mean , we have a joke that sometimes when you come to an exercise and those who've organized the exercise say , oh , here's your public information office , and on the other side of that wall will be the liaison group , and we say " tear down that wall , mr .

Marc Mullen 13:41

Mr . Gorbachev , tear down that wall .

Sam Sacco 13:45

Tear down that wall . No , it's just so much more efficient and effective when they're all in one . Now you can have them in two different sections of the room , but you want them to be able to stand up and walk from table to table and if they need to go over to the PIO , needs to walk over to a liaison person to get some information . That exchange takes place right then and there , in real time , real people talking , rather than having to go to a different room or down a hallway or whatever . It's just so much more efficient . There's nothing that can substitute getting up from your table and walking over to somebody else's table and actually having a real conversation , and that's why I'm a big believer of PIO and liaison in the same room .

Tom Mueller 14:31

So , sam , can I guess that you're not a big fan of a virtual JIC operating in a Teams environment ?

Sam Sacco 14:38

Only if you have to . I mean , we all experienced that during the pandemic , as we did exercises and training in a virtual format . But it's just tough . It's tough to do and it's also makes it more difficult to get those creative juices flowing . And when you have good , smart people , whether they're from the liaison side or the PIO side , working together , it's amazing what kind of solutions they can come up with when they're in kind of that open environment and not restricted by cameras and computers etc .

Tom Mueller 15:17

Yeah , well , technology gives us the opportunity to remotely engage more staff these days , it seems , using the team's environment or Zoom calls or whatever it is , but you just can't beat the face-to-face engagement and synergy that you get work inside by side with people . Well , Sam , we did a deep dive on liaison there , but fascinating conversation , especially around some of your experiences there . But let's pull the lens back just a little bit and talk a little bit about leadership . When you think about incident commanders you've worked with , or PIOs or other section chiefs , what would you say are sort of the characteristics that helped that leader win the day or the week , or the month , depending on the thing ? What do you reckon those are ?

Sam Sacco 16:07

I would say the first thing a good leader recognizes is that a successful response has two key components , and that first component is obviously the operational aspect . So you've got to have an operations that is action-oriented and that's critical it is . But no matter how good your operational response is , your company will never get credit if it doesn't do the job of communicating . So a good leader also understands that you have to have an active , viable external communications capability . In fact , a good leader recognizes that they are the face of the response . If you have a major press conference , you're not putting up the PIO up there , you're putting up that incident commander , that leader of the response

Approval and Relationships in Crisis Response

Sam Sacco 17:04

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Tom Mueller 17:04

The approval process is again so critical and I've worked with some clients who you know . The PIO team does a good job of getting information together , getting it up , but then the approval process becomes a challenge and it isn't always with command . Sometimes it's with management that doesn't recognize a different approval process in the crisis situation where you have a unified command or even an incident management team stood up and then throw in a legal review on top of that and you can have all kinds of challenges that can slow down getting that important information out to the public .

Sam Sacco 17:43

I love my legal friends , but they can be the biggest bottlenecks in an approval process . That , to me , is what you always need to watch out for . I will tell you one of the things we did with one of our clients and it's worked well and this has been . We're in year five or six on it now . We actually , rather than having the lawyer reviewing it at the command level , we embed the lawyer in the JIC and they may win , they may lose , because if you're in a unified command you're going to have agency people involved too , but at least legal has a role and then that way it doesn't get bottlenecked by the time you bring it up to command and command says well , this is okay with us .

Sam Sacco 18:25

Has it been run through legal ? The answer to that is yes , because legal was part of the process early on in the development stage . And the other place where the bottlenecking can really set you back , whether it's on social media if your social media program is not timely , if you're six hours behind breaking issues and everybody's long past those issues and you're in a whole other area before you start posting or tweeting anything about that , you're lost . You're done . If you're not a part of the conversation when it's relevant . Nobody's going to be looking at you or listening to you when , all of a sudden , you come on to the scene and say something that's now considered irrelevant because it's old news .

Tom Mueller 19:10

One of the things I like to do in this situation , sam , is for the PIO to go in with an approval process written down on paper hand , that to the members of the unified command or the IMT , and get that approved straight away , and one of those line items for me is that we will immediately post a social media using approved informations from the unified command . Now you've just created license for the public information team to get out there and be timely and be active , but I've seen some clients , though , that want to approve individual tweets before they go out .

Sam Sacco 19:48

That's the hamstring I was talking about . When that starts happening , your information program is not going to be successful . One of the first efforts of that PIO is to ring to command that suggested approval process . They may have some tweaks they want to make to it , but to really emphasize how important expediting that process is as far as getting out good , timely information and how it will help them to position themselves as the most as the primary source of credible information , which to me , is the place you want to be in a response . When you are considered the primary source of credible information , that's a powerful place to be .

Sam Sacco 20:35

Another thing where a PIO and liaison group can be very successful in getting timely approvals of information is doing incremental FAQs Rather than that big FAQ document that has 25 questions and 25 answers that takes you eight hours to put together and put in front of command and then they go . We don't have time to look at this big document . Do it incrementally , three or four questions per hour . Now you are getting new approved information that can be used not only in press releases and in fact sheets but also from a social media standpoint . The point is is we're getting approved information in a timely manner and then , when our two comes , we've got four or five new questions . Whatever is trending , we can kind of keep up to speed , and now everything we're putting out is relevant and not eight hours old .

Tom Mueller 21:32

I think the corollary to that too is the approval process . If you've got one or two of those questions that you know get question mark put by them , they send the whole document back to you to get reconsidered and then you're you're again back redoing that back through the approval process again , so doing it incrementally , sam , as you've mentioned,

Marc Mullen 21:51

I consider that a best practice for a JIC to get things out quickly , and part of the best practice is do the most important ones first . Yeah , don't put those important questions at the bottom of a list of eight nine critical FAQs .

Sam Sacco 22:05

Right , finding out from media , your media team , what kinds of questions are you getting right now and so , and then also monitoring social media what's trending right now and you can . That will also help you formulate the four or five key questions that need some kind of a response .

Tom Mueller 22:27

So , Sam , w hat we've been talking about here now is sort of relationships within a unified command , kind of within a response team . Fr om your perspective how critical are relationships once you get started on a crisis response .

Sam Sacco 22:46

I think building relationships with key agencies is a critical objective , I mean , and these relationships need to be built before the incident , not in the incidents aftermath . And so how do we do that ? It's up to companies when they're training , when they're drilling , exercising , that they invite agencies to participate with them , that they don't have to have perfection before they invite in their agency partners . They can work together with those agency partners , they can learn together with those agency partners and , lo and behold , they'll actually learn some new things themselves from from those agency responders . And also , don't forget about the local agencies fire departments , emergency services . All of those bring something to the party .

Tom Mueller 23:40

So , Sam , thinking about PIOs or liaison officers that you've worked with in the past and those who've did it well , what is it that made for a really good public information officer or liaison officer or incident commander ?

Sam Sacco 23:57

And I've seen this in the past where you've had timid PIOs or liaison officers who say , well , this is important , but I'm going to wait till the command and general staff meeting before I bring it up . Well , that's three hours from now and this is a critical , raking emergency situation . Okay , Now got to go in there , tug on the shoulder of the incident commander , the federal line scene quarter , to say I've got some important information that I need to share with you right now . They will appreciate it . Also , I think it's important that PIOs and liaison officers keep their teams up to speed , up to date on what they are hearing . They need to know what you're hearing from command , what you're hearing from other parts of the response , and also be clear with them on giving them direction on messaging from a PIO standpoint or liaison officer standpoint .

Sam Sacco 24:51

One of the biggest shortfalls I've seen with some is they do the disappearing act . It's kind of like all of a sudden they're there , they meet their people First thing in the morning on day one , and then six hours go by and everybody's going . Where's the PIO , Where's the liaison officer ? That can be a real recipe for disaster there . Even if you've got a good , strong chick manager or a good , strong deputy liaison officer . You need some direction from the leaders and while they're going to be at meetings and they're going to be out of the room often they need to make a concerted effort to get back in there and work with their folks and , again , not only share with them what they know , but also listen to what they're hearing out there in the outside world so that they can take that information and work with it .

Tom Mueller 25:46

So , sam , can I just drill on that for a second ? So they're disappearing . And then where do you think what is it that's keeping them out of the jig and away from their team ? Is it just the need to be next to the incident commander the entire time ?

Sam Sacco 26:02

I think there's a comfort zone there . I think a lot of times it's people who maybe aren't ready for the position and they've maybe been elevated into a position that they're just not ready for prime time yet . That could be it , and for some it might be just a matter of arrogance , I don't know . I think it's more of a way to kind of hide an insecurity I do .

Tom Mueller 26:29

Sam , one of the issues I think you're highlighting here is the need for training for people , right To help people be prepared to step into these leadership roles as they go . So , as you think about that , well , let me say , when I think back on my time working in large companies , there's just not a lot of time for training and exercises , even if you do get to participate . The opportunity to be a leader in one of those exercises is actually quite rare if you're in a large company , right ? So how do we help people get comfortable with the leadership aspects here and be prepared to step up and lead in a crisis ?

Sam Sacco 27:14

Yeah , it's kind of a dilemma . I will agree with you , tom , call me old school , but I really don't think there is a shortcut . I really believe , when you're talking about reputational management , protecting your brand , protecting your license to do business in a community , that companies need to make this a priority .

Tom Mueller 27:38

One of the best examples I've seen of this just lately is companies that have relatively inexperienced staff , but they will bring in more experienced people who've been through real incidents and understand the leadership qualities and then put them inside by side with their teams going through a large exercise, Then we are coaches and can even jump in and help out with the response as we need to . It's just huge value when you bring in some experienced hands to sit alongside and coach less experienced staff . Shifting gears here for just a minute , Sam , Over the course of your career you've worked a lot of different incidents . What's one of the strangest things you've seen along the way ?

Sam Sacco 28:23

I did a response in Russia . It was the first ever Western-style oil spill response in the former Soviet Union . It's after the Russia had become its own separate country . There was a major pipeline in the Comey region of Russia , which is kind of Western Siberia . There was a major rupture in that pipeline . They were getting 30% of the oil through the pipeline , so they kept it running because they wanted that 30% . The other 70% was spilling into the environment , including a river system , etc .

Sam Sacco 29:03

The World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development stepped in and met with the Russian government and said look , we will fund a response , but we've got to get this taken care of because it's going to end up polluting the ocean , waters around Finland , Norway and all that if we don't get this thing under control . So anyway , make a long story short , there was an agreement and we were brought in a team of Americans and Aussies to do the response . Well , you know , we were all smart people , we knew our stuff . But now we're working in a very different and strange environment . But a lot of what we're doing in media relations , working with both Russian media and Western media , we're working with various stakeholders all of that's going according to plan .

Sam Sacco 29:49

All of a sudden comes the curveball . Some local villagers are concerned that the oil we're cleaning up is radioactive . And they think it's radioactive because the Americans over at the camp where we were staying have water filtration systems and nobody else does , and so they thought that the oil was radioactive . This was eight years after Chernobyl , so it was still big on the minds of people in that part of the world . So we had to mount a program and go to the various local villages and have meetings with the mayors and other local leaders to explain to them why we had water filtration . And it's only because we were in a former Conoco Phillips camp that were Conoco Phillips had put in a water filtration system . That's why we had it . It wasn't for any nefarious reasons or anything like that , but we had to win their , their trust , and so we did put out full court press out there . We met with all the local villagers and leaders and we were successfully able to overcome it . But boy did it catch us by surprise .

Sam's Passion for Crisis Management

Tom Mueller 31:02

Great story . Sam and congratulations on winning the day in Russia .

Sam Sacco 31:09

Yeah , in Ussinsk .

Tom Mueller 31:12

All right . Well , Sam , this has been just an exciting and fascinating conversation with you today . I'll be honest with you I had forgotten the level of passion you bring into the conversation here around crisis management . It's been a lot of fun kind of revisiting that and just feeling the passion that you do bring into this . So thanks for sharing that with us today . Really appreciate your time and I hope you'll you'll find time to come back and join us again soon .

Sam Sacco 31:41

Thank you . All right , hey guys , it's . It's been great to see you and thanks for inviting me to participate . I'm glad to see you guys got this going . Congratulations and good luck .