Citizen Brand

ReNu update

Bausch & Lomb is pulling their product.  It's a good move and I don't think it is too late.  Considering there is still no third party proof that their product is the cause of the 109 diagnosed cases of  Fusarium keratitis, a rare infection of the eye, it says they finally understand the hit to their reputation this week.

109

That is how many people have been diagnosed with Fusarium keratitis, a rare infection of the eye.  And the Center for Disease Control has only talked with 30 of those 109.  But that is all it has taken for Sears, Wal-Mart and Walgreens to pull Bausch & Lomb's ReNu with MoistureLoc contact lens cleaner off all their shelves.

It is a most frustrating time for the company.  It is a classic case of how a crisis situation can be triggered by a small pebble that rolls down the mountain and turns into a landslide.  Retailers are running the other way as are shareholders and stock analysts.  While the stock ticked up today after losing 21 percent this week, several analysts are still making negative comments.  And now talk of a lawsuit has surfaced.

The company has maintained there is no direct link between their product and the infection, but the situation began because the 109 all had one thing in common:  they all apparently used the ReNu product.  Bausch & Lomb is working hard to communicate with their customers.  The problem right now is they have to wait on a third party to ultimately determine their fate.  In the meantime, it is a bit like twisting in the wind.

Is your company ready for its crisis?

Reputations under fire

I have crisis on the brain tonight.  I spoke to classes at Central Missouri State University on the topic Monday and we are preparing to conduct one of our crisis management workshops for a client this week.  In perusing the news tonight, it's obvious there are plenty of reputations under fire out there.  In just a few minutes I found these stories:

College testing is under fire as students received wrong test scores and two organizations that conduct the tests are now being sued.

Bausch & Lomb is halting shipment of a contact lens solution in Asia that may be linked to a rare fungus that can cause blindness.

And Tom Peters tells us tonight he is giving up.  The reason: yet another CEO of a company is getting highly compensated even though the stock is heading the wrong way fast.

I found those in five minutes.  Meanwhile Major League Baseball continues to flounder around on the steroid issue and Dan Gillmor reminds us the entire country is suffering from bad infrastructure.

Plenty of crisis management work to go around it would seem.  But of course nothing bad will ever happen to "us."

Lessons learned

This story from my favorite weekly news magazine, The Week, tells us that someone in the world paid attention to the lessons of Katrina:

"Innisfail, Australia
How to brace for a storm
A Category 5 hurricane flattened part of Queensland, Australia, last week, but not a single person was killed. Tropical Cyclone Larry slammed into the coastal town of Innisfail, ripping roofs from half the homes and destroying sugar and banana plantations. “It looks like an atomic bomb hit the place,” said Mayor Neil Clarke. Officials, though, were pleased with the emergency response. Just hours after the storm hit, state and federal agencies were in place and helicopters began arriving to pick up the stranded. “Everyone here studied Katrina and took a lot of messages away, a lot of lessons,” said Queensland State Emergency Service spokesman Ben Creagh. “There was absolutely no complacency at the planning level at all.”

Hurricane season in the Northern Hemisphere is not far away.  We can only hope that governments at all levels are ready this time.

Heads in the Sand

Why is it so difficult for organizations to manage crises?  Governments at all levels mismanaged Katrina and we are still paying for it.  Major League Baseball owners have ignored the steroid problem for years and it is obviously not going to go away.  And Sanofi-Aventis, the makers of Ambien, have a brewing problem, Rep Man tells us today. 

These are just the ones I could come up with on short notice.

The often used but great quote from George Santayana says it best, "Those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Yet time and again we see companies of all sizes and types ignore what is happening to others around them.  The dynamic of "it won't happen to us" is a powerful intoxicant.  Bad things only happen to others.  Guess what?

The fact is that bad things will happen to everyone.  Crises require strong leaders who are not afraid to take charge.  Why is it that some corporate leaders who are viewed as visionaries in all other aspects of business wilt when it comes to crises?  The truth is that crises actually create opportunities for leaders and for companies to show what they are truly made of.

So we will see what this year's hurricane season brings us.  And we can watch to see how the MLB owners and Sanofi-Aventis handle their smoldering situations.  The biggest question is will the rest of us learn anything?

The right frequency

Hats off to the Chairman and the rest of the Board of RadioShack for moving as quickly as they did to fix a problem.  It was yet another case of a public figure with a misleading resume.  This time it was the CEO of RadioShack, David Edmondson.

Could they have moved faster?  Probably.  Did they make a mistake last week when they first issued a statement of support for their CEO?  Yes.  But the Chairman said that was a mistake and that seems difficult for people in public positions to admit these days.

Why is it so difficult for people and organizations to do the right thing in times of crisis?  The right thing is to build an instant line of communication to the public and deliver accurate information in a timely fashion.  That is the foundation of good communications at any time, especially in times of crisis.

Reputation is a moving target.  It never stands still.  If the powers that be inside an organization are not making the right moves to improve its reputation, then rest assured that outside forces or inertia from within will turn its reputation in the wrong direction.  The RadioShack Chairman, Leonard Roberts, said the move was necessary to restore the company’s credibility.  “One of the most important things we have as a corporation is integrity and trust and we know we have to restore that back to the public,” he said"

That is the statement of a corporate leader who understands that the public does pay attention.  And it demonstrates he understands a good reputation makes a difference to the bottom line.  So too, does a bad reputation.

This may not be the only business problem RadioShack has to worry about these days, but they get high marks for their handling of this one.

What did you know and when did you know it?

I spent five years of my life as a press secretary to a governor.  Watching Scott McClellan, Bush's press secretary, doing a White House briefing is painful.  Paul Holmes says it is sometimes hard not to feel sorry for McClellan these days.  From my experience, I don't feel sorry for him as much as I would like five minutes with him to tell him he has become a caricature of a bad press secretary.

He appears to be more out of the loop than any other person in that position has been, perhaps ever.  The latest brouhaha surrounding the Vice President's hunting trip to Texas is simply another in a long line of issues that McClellan won't discuss with the media because it is apparent by now that he is not close to the room where any decisions are made about how anything is going to be communicated.  It is sad and it does make me feel a bit sorry for him.

At the end of the day, the problem is not with Scott McClellan.  He is simply a byproduct of the real problem.  We have become victims of our own success in public relations.  Everyone wants a message point now.  Everyone expects a strategic plan that will communicate their way out of a sticky issue.  I have a strategic communications plan for the Bush Administration, Congress and for people contemplating running for either in the future:

Tell us the truth in a timely manner.

I guess we will have to see what Scott McClellan knew and when he knew it when he writes his memoirs.