Crisis Comms, Part 1: What PR Pro Bob Reid thinks of Your Biggest Comms Problems

Crisis Communications – among the most challenging disciplines of corporate Communications … Do you need more experience regarding Crisis Communications, or how to do a better job of tackling it? 

In this podcast, Bob Reid, the Director of Brand Reputation for Veritas Communications, illustrates how he brings clarity and counsel to his clients when the often humbling and potentially devastating challenges of a Crisis land on his clients.

Bob Reid's Touchdowns and Fumbles podcast for Newstalk 1010 CFRB Radio, Toronto:
https://www.iheartradio.ca/newstalk-1010/audio/podcasts/touchdowns-fumbles-1.9459916 

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Chapters

• 3:03 Bob Reid, Director of Brand Reputation, Veritas Communications
• 5:50 Which skills help you deal with Crisis?
• 7:07 Is your organization ready for a crisis?
• 8:17 Keeping Crisis in Perspective
• 9:20 Crisis Preparedness
• 12:30 "Hey, Is this a Crisis?"
• 17:26 What can make a Crisis worse than it already is?
• 18:37 Getting ahead of the Crisis
• 19:56 Bearers of Bad News get to Frame the Bad News
• 21:57 Getting Your Own Team on the Same Page
• 23:06 Calling in the PR Agency
• 24:59 Validating Your Approach with a 3rd Party
• 26:46 No One Person is Smarter than the Team
• 31:25 Escalation of Spokesperson Ranking - Maple Leaf Foods
• 33:21 Summation

Transcript

Crisis communication among the most challenging disciplines of corporate communications.

Is it a topic that you need more experience in or more of an understanding? Do you have a

plan, but not necessarily a process to properly approach a crisis? Then this episode of

Speaking of Media is for you. Bob Reid is our guest.

0:00:24

Yet another example in our podcast series of a journalist turned communicator. He

illustrates what he does as a PR pro at his agency in Toronto. Vera TOS Communications

where he brings clarity and counsel to the often humbling and potentially devastating

challenges of actual crises that his clients face. Stay tuned as we dive into what

communicators must do to avoid the complications and mistakes that can detract from

responding effectively in a crisis situation. Here on Speaking of media, the podcast where

communicators and the media come together.

0:00:57

To consider the world of mass storytelling. I’m Keith Marnoch, former journalist turned

corporate communicator, and I’m hoping that you, as a communicator or someone who

speaks on behalf of your organization, will join me for each episode to learn from industry

experts on both sides of the media. Microphone about tangible ways to share your stories

and messages, and also, perhaps as importantly how to avoid getting caught in a negative

media storm. I’ve known Bob Reed since our University days at Ryerson in Toronto. We

actually, grew up fairly close to each other as kids, but never really crossed paths.

0:01:33

Bob has always had a curious and open mindset and artistic and creative flair that comes out

through his music and he is someone who isn’t shy about expressing his beliefs or his take

on a particular issue. These traits, along with the situations he has found himself in his

career over the years, especially in politics, have set him up for success in the media and

communications field. We spoke with Bob from his home studio in Toronto ON, and so it’s

my pleasure to welcome to the Speaking of Media podcast Mr. Bob Reid.

2 - 0:02:07

Bob really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and speak with us tonight.

You’re another in a line of guests that were that we’ve had on and we’re going to have on

that if I like to always say I’ve been on both sides of the media microphone and really are

going to appreciate some of the knowledge and savvy that you’re going to hopefully share

with us on the show.

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3 - 0:02:29

Now Keith, you know the first rule of communications is managing expectations, so don’t set

that bar too high.

2 - 0:02:36

Might well as I. I have explained to you and as our as our listeners know, this show is really

geared most directly to communicators, mostly in a corporate setting and in a more direct

way. Spokespeople people who are assigned the task of representing organisations be at

companies or other groups, and you’ve had all kinds of experience on that. Maybe you

can just give us a little bit of a sense of how I ended up where you’re currently at with

regards to your communications career.

3 - 0:03:07

Sure, my my resume is fairly simple in that it’s got three rather large chapters to it. The first

began in media you and I of course met at the Ryerson School of Journalism Way back when,

and having managed to garner a degree from that institution, I set out into the world of

broadcast journalism in radio. My first job was with a national radio news service called

News Radio, and it was really broadcast. News is. Chief competitor at the time. And so my

first job in media was writing copy intro copy to either voice reports or actualities.

0:03:41

Sound bites. So I was a started as as a news writer and editor and work my way up to

becoming a Reporter and newscaster. And that was my life in radio, in different

incarnations. General assignment Reporter Queens Park Bureau chief. I was the Bureau but

never let the fine print get in the way.

0:04:05

For for the News Radio service. So I had radio stations across Ontario and across Canada.

Taking my reports from Queens Park from the Ontario Legislature and so that was that was

an excellent start into a broader communications career. I made the change cross the floor

as it were from being a member of the Queens Park Press Gallery into working in politics and

government. I started with the leader of the third party, who in those days was a relative

unknown named Mike Harris.

0:04:41

And he went on to become Premier of Ontario, elected in 1995, re-elected in 99, and that

was a big transition for me because I switched sides of the microphone.

2 - 0:04:55

I went from being the guy asking the questions to the guy who was prepping the guy who

would have to answer the question. Getting it from somebody who’s had to deal with it in

politics is so valuable because basically you’re on the hook each and every day, each and

every hour of every day, to be responsible for the. Public trust and a normal day in the life of

a political communications person is probably high end issue to crisis. For most people who

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don’t run into having to deal with large issues on a regular basis, so. What would you say to

our audience, Bob, in terms of from a very sort of 40,000 foot of you? Whatever you found

over the years has made you know people effective in dealing with tricky issues or crises.

0:05:38

What’s the thing that what’s the thread? Maybe that rolls through from a skills POV

that helps communicators the most.

3 - 0:05:56

Couple things come to mind. The first is grace. Under pressure, you really need to be able to

deal with unexpected things, and pretty dramatic things depending on the nature of

the work that you’re in and the kinds of scenarios and issues that you need to manage as a

communicator. Obviously in government it’s it’s very high. It’s very adverse aerial as you well

know, the political reporters who cover whether it’s the legislature or City Hall or Parliament

Hill. Their first question, actually whatever number question is never tell us all the wonderful

things you’ve been doing on behalf of the people.

0:06:31

Lately. It’s a confrontation of here’s a problem. What are you doing about this? How are you

going to solve that? What’s wrong with this? Why isn’t this working properly so it’s always

very, very much defensive, defensive, defensive?

0:06:49

In the corporate world, in public sector in. Pretty much any other incarnation. You’re not

going to be challenged as hard, although that said. If there is an issue that your organization

bears responsibility for, and particularly if people have been have been harmed by it,

whether that’s personally or physically, God forbid, it can be a really terrible situation to be

in and highly, highly challenging. So that’s why I say grace under pressure is essential.

0:07:24

First of all, you have to be nimble. You have to move quickly in crisis situations or. A hot

issue situation. You need to be able to gather information quickly, process it quickly, and

then work with that information to inform your communications. What are the important

messages that you need to get out to the different audiences who may be listening?

0:07:47

People who are directly affected, stakeholders, customers, clients? You know there can be a

tremendous range of different audiences and audience segments that you need to meet

and. Again, you need to work quickly to identify. OK. Who is it? We need to speak to?

0:08:10

What is it they need to hear from us right now, and how quickly can we get that information

out? Another key element is perspective. Being able to first of all have perspective about

your organization’s place in the world and. Perspective in terms of how the situation at hand

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is impacting on people, because ultimately that’s what it comes down to. How does this

affect people?

0:08:37

How is this affecting people and what steps are being taken to to address it? If things have

gone wrong to make them right, if something needs fixing, how is that going to get fixed? If

there’s a problem needs to be solved, how is that going to solve that? How is that going to

get solved? So a number of different dimensions all come together?

0:08:57

In issue management, when things really are.

2 - 0:09:03

Yeah, I think that you know those attributes or traits. I would say with being prepared

and having plans and we talk a lot about that in crisis, communication and preparation you

can probably guess at a good 80% of the bad things that are going to happen to you. Crisis

often happens into that 20% area where it’s a little bit more unexpected. But that said,

keeping your wits I think is a great point because I think even. Well planned even anticipated

when you know it’s hitting the fan and the phone starts ringing, you actually know it’s a crisis

by the amount of perspiration that you know you find on the hand. Picking up the phone, I

think.

3 - 0:09:48

You just touched on another important aspect of good communications preparedness, and

that’s planning. An that is the wargaming exercise that every organization needs to do

before anything goes wrong. And that means taking stock of your organization, your

operation, whatever business you’re in, whatever service you provide, whatever the focus of

the businesses work is. What could go wrong? What has gone wrong in the past, either with

this organization or others in the same field?

0:10:20

What are the kinds of things that on the worst day, might happen and identifying those

things, building scenarios where those things might happen and then having a plan in place?

A crisis management and Emergency Management plan so that when God forbid something

like that happens, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re not going, Oh my God, what do

we do? Who? Who do we need to call?

0:10:49

Who do we need to pull into a room together? Whose responsibility is this? Those are the

kinds of steps that you need to have planned out ahead of time when it’s smooth sailing, so

that if you have to break the glass and sound the alarm, then everybody knows what their

assigned rules are. So who is your crisis management team? Who are the ones who are

going to?

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0:11:13

Begin the work of developing the responses and the messages. Who are the spokespeople?

Who are going to carry those messages forward before you get to that point? Who are the

approvers? Who are going to have to sign off on it?

0:11:26

You know, do you need your legal counsel in a lot of cases, you know if there’s a legal

Department in an organization they want to have. Sign off on things. A board of directors

might.

2 - 0:11:40

Certainly a senior management team is going to have to sign off on the work that’s done

before actual execution happens. Having a plan that is been drafted perhaps by former

employees of former regime. If you’re, you know, changing people all the time, having those

sit on the on the shelf, and suddenly not having gone through the scenarios or work through

what’s going on can really can really be a detriment. There is some thought around, at least

having people understand the process. If you’ve got to go to the book for specifics around

what you’ve agreed to or what might be pre-approved. That you don’t have to worry about

in a crisis situation, but.

0:12:23

Can you just sort of, you know, offer your value on scenarios and having it in people’s

minds? I think the other thing is identifying and everybody being on the same page that you

actually are in a crisis. Sometimes that’s not a commonly held thought and for everybody to

understand that you have kind of flipped the switch and we are into a crisis mode. I often

think that it’s like, you know at the Tennis Club we’ve got the we got the defibrillator and it’s

nice to have that there is a. As a sort of a backup. But only so many people at the club know

how to use it and who is actually going to pull that thing off the wall.

0:12:58

What’s going to be the determinant for that? To kind of spark a reaction? Who’s willing to

rip a shirt off? Somebody to put that on? Is that really what needs to happen?

0:13:13

You know? And that comes with a little bit more of a depth of understanding. Like you say,

perspective. I love that being able to give context to what’s going on and. Really, you know,

being confident about acting on big issues or or problems as they arise.

3 - 0:13:34

You can’t plan for every contingency. You can’t plan for all of the unknowns. That’s a

fact that everybody has to has to acknowledge and understand. But there are a lot of things

that you can plan for, and there are a lot of decision points that are fairly black and white or

or should be in terms of that gradient scale, as you say, when do you? When do you pull the

defib off the wall? An open somebody’s shirt up?

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0:13:59

You need to have those established ahead of time so that there’s no doubt about it that this

we’ve got to move quickly and now is the time to take that step. I know that’s easy to say.

On the one hand, but it’s also one of those things. It’s amazing how many organizations

don’t give enough credence to that, and don’t give enough forward planning to it. And the

other thing about the your defibrillator example is if if whoever is pulling it off the wall also

has to.

0:14:25

Start for the first time reading the How to instructions the How to guide then that hasn’t

been properly planned out, and if you’ve got a dusty crisis communications plan or issue

management plan sitting on a wall and or sitting on a shelf rather and. When something bad

happens, you have to start at Page 1, then your team’s not ready. You know the first couple

of steps knowing who has to get called into a room together or who needs to be notified and

who needs to be activated. Those are the kinds of things that people need to have as

walking around knowledge, not. Oh Gee, let’s pull out the book and start from page one an

maybe you know at some point will be able to actually respond to this so.

0:15:12

Being current on on at least the initial steps is critically important, because there’s

never enough time. There’s never enough time to adequately do the perfect job. You gotta

do the best job you can as quickly as possible and. Certainly speed is of the essence, and

that’s a corresponding scale to the severity of the issue.

2 - 0:15:48

If none of those things happen properly or happen, well, an organization can get into hot

water and end up calling Vera TOS communications. But is there anything that

communicators that you see on in a routine or typical basis? Do early on in something like

this that makes it worse that people should be aware of to try to avoid?

3 - 0:16:12

Silence. Silence is the worst thing in the midst of a serious incident serious issue where there

is demand from media or stakeholders or customers. You know this doesn’t always

have to be direct to media communication, but to an audience that needs to hear what’s

happened. What are you doing about it immediately in the short term, and what are you

going to do in the longer term to prevent this kind of thing from happening? Again? That’s

the Holy Trinity of. Crisis communications so silences your enemy there because the longer

the people who are demanding information don’t get it.

0:16:46

The greater the likelihood that that vacuum is going to be filled by other things, and the

greater the likelihood that your silence will be misinterpreted, because if you’re not saying

anything, then it’s up to the imagination of the people who aren’t hearing from you as to

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what what your silence says or what that suggests about the way you’re operating

things. So back to your question was, what are things that take a bad situation and make

them worse? That’s one of them slowness and silence, and the two go hand in hand.

Turning that around. Thinking of examples of very good crisis communication, they tend to

be the ones who move quickly.

0:17:42

The ones who are as transparent as possible, as forthcoming as possible and as honest as

possible, and key to that is being able to say I don’t have that information at this point.

We’re moving as fast as we can. Here’s what we know till now, but here are a number of

things that we don’t have answers on. We’re going to get them and we’re working right now

to try and get them, and the next time that we speak, I anticipate having more answers for

you. But those who demonstrate engagement.

0:18:17

The we get it factor. We know this is a. This is a big bad thing an we’re on it we’re taking

action. You know the sleeves are rolled up. We’re on the case, that’s the first single most

important message in any circumstance,

2 - 0:18:35

demonstrating that you get it. I often talk about getting ahead of the issue when you get into

a crisis situation. Defining that sometimes can be a bit of a tricky procedure. How do you at

your organization identity are? Sorry, characterized getting ahead of an issue. And what are

some, you know, ways you can do that or or some examples of you know how that gets put

into action?

3 - 0:19:01

Well, the rule of thumb on this kind of thing is it’s way better to have one really bad day than

a series of not quite as bad days, but you know the death by 1000 cuts kind of thing. Day

after day after day of yet more bad news of yet more revelations. If you’re able to, and

you’re not always, you aren’t necessarily in this position, but if you’re able to get all the bad

news out in one fell swoop. Better than, as I say, a steady drum beat a drip drip drip of

revelations that put a fresh top on the story and make it make it news all over again day

after day after day. It’s better to you know Lance, that boil at the outset.

0:19:49

Do it yourself, because if you’re if you are the bearer of the bad news, you’re also the framer

of the bad news, or at least you get to attempt that. If you’re responding to it, if others are

breaking the next bad development that’s come out of it, then you’re constantly playing

catch up and these are hard decisions to make. One of the natural instincts. In any

organization, and I’ve felt it myself is. The self preservation aspect that you know, this just

looks terrible for us an I want to try and contain as much as possible and minimize the bad

story that’s out there.

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0:20:27

Of course you want to try and do that. That can be detrimental though if. If you’re putting

yourself. Or your organization. Those interests ahead of the interests of those who have

been wronged or affected, or negatively impacted by the issue at hand.

0:20:55

That is a critical mistake because it’s not about you at this point, it’s about them. It’s job.

One has to be acknowledging the needs of those who have been affected, impacted, harmed

and detailing the action that’s being taken to address that not. Thinking first and foremost of

how do we? How do we protect our reputation?

0:21:20

How do we protect our brand? Because if you get that wrong, the damage to your

reputation and the damage to your brand is going to be way, way, way worse. It’s it’s kind of

like the crime and the cover up right? The cover up is always worse, and so if there is any

kind of of cover up and I’m using air quotes there, but you know, minimalization not not

recognizing, not understanding, not doing the right thing.

2 - 0:21:48

In the midst of an urgent issue that will bite you twice as hard down the road, and I want to

talk about authenticity. But again, thinking about our listeners on this podcast, even if

you get all of that right, sometimes you have to influence people within your organization,

specifically your senior leaders. That that’s the way, and if they don’t have that as part of

their thinking, that’s where delay can happen. That’s where internal strife can. Caused delays

and you know can make for a bad response.

0:22:19

Basically, and that’s what is sort of the end product sometimes of you don’t mean to be that

way about it, but the realities are. Especially, there’s an organization gets larger and larger,

and there’s more and more interests involved that it can be difficult. Thing to pull off, you

have to have a certain amount of grace under pressure to deal with your own people. As

much as sometimes those who you are responding to. I’m sure you see a lot of that.

0:22:49

My question for you is when do you expect people to come to you when they’re in a bad

situation to come to an agency? What typically is the tipping point for an organization to

come and seek services outside of their own organization?

3 - 0:23:06

It should be right away. I mean it depends on the organization of course and and how robust

and issues and communications team they might have in House, but that said. We have

regular clients who have all of that infrastructure themselves, but they use us in addition to

supplement their team in different areas of expertise that aren’t necessarily crisis related.

But the fact that they know that we have that capability even though they have people in

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place who are very good at managing things. The smart ones call us as well at the first sign of

trouble, and they say here’s what’s happening. Our team is on it.

0:23:48

We wanted to give you the heads up, give you a quick brief. See if you have any top line

advice for us, or anything that we’re maybe not thinking of on our side. So that we can add

that into the mix. And maybe bring me or my colleagues in on an active basis right at

the outset, or to have us on standby for further support as things go, because sometimes it’s

like we think we’ve got a pretty good handle on this. They just want to check are we doing

the right things or we missing anything?

0:24:17

Do you have any any advice on things that we should be incorporating into the messages

that we’re putting out to our audiences? So sometimes that can just be the extent of it.

Other times it can be get ready. We may need you to literally be working side by side with

us for a couple of days or a couple of weeks depending on the nature of it. The worst calls,

the worst calls are the ones when you know we’ve had three days of terrible press because

of the way we’ve handled this thing, can you make it stop now?

0:24:53

Yeah yeah can you? Can you flip that?

2 - 0:24:58

I go back to my comment around senior leadership sometimes. Would you be brought in to

amplify a voice from a communications corner or Unit 2 to senior leaders as sort of a

validator that you know they need to kind of go in the way that communicators are thinking,

or vice versa, perhaps.

3 - 0:25:15

That happens a lot and it always. It always pains me for the in-house folks who have already

come to the same conclusion that I have. That have already recommended the best advice,

but the boss isn’t taking it for some reason, right? The What’s the old adage of profits never

recognizing their own country like it can be, and it’s so unfair and I always feel for the people

when it happens. There can be tremendously bright people who see exactly the right way

forward. They’ve made that recommendation and they get, well, let’s get some outside

counsel and see what they think.

0:25:55

And they’ll hear the exact same thing from outside counsel and go, yeah, that makes perfect.

That’s why you guys are the professionals.

2 - 0:26:08

That’s why you’re the experts in this kind of thing. So we talked a lot about this on this show

about, you know, not saying anything. The no comment world and trying to shut down and

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become, you know, get back into your own shell and not go anywhere. We agree and will

keep iterating that. That’s not the way to go. Now in the age of social media, we’ve got

some, you know, enthusiastic. Inventive, innovative leaders who are wanting to jump in and

speak and offer commentary and so on.

0:26:30

Again, I think it’s great thing to be tried to try to be more authentic. To be more open and

obvious to the people that you’re serving. Whether it’s a private or public organization, but

I’m sure that there’s just as many problems that result from that as there are in not talking

about something and that you can invent your own again crisis by sticking your. Put in your

mouth as much as not saying things. Any war stories about something like that, or are what

you what you perceive around that.

0:27:07

People who want to do more and say more, but can sometimes be. Called out or highlighted

when there’s perhaps another example in the news and a bad story that’s gone wrong in the

past. Gets keeps getting repeated on a company.

3 - 0:27:27

Yeah, well there are two extreme ends of the scale right. There are the there. The CEOs.

Let’s use that title for you know it can be can be anybody to at a senior level. But there are

those who are absolutely petrified about ever putting their heads up or or saying anything

publicly or talking to media. Or, you know, coming up out of the foxhole when things are

bad.

0:27:50

That’s the one end of the spectrum. The other is the. I’ll handle this. I know exactly what to

say or you know, I haven’t even consulted with anybody and I’m on Twitter already

responding to it. We’ve seen for years recently have of how unfettered social media

rants from the top, or comments or whatever you want to call them, can can create untold

numbers of issues themselves.

0:28:22

So, but my point is. There are sometimes those who have no hesitation to plunge in

themselves from a very senior level, and to use the social media tools that let them connect

directly with their audience. That can be a very good thing in terms of transparency and

responsiveness and authenticity, but it can also be disastrous if it’s not done properly, and if

it’s done. Single handedly because in a crisis situation there’s no one person who has all the

answers. There’s no one person who can be just pushed out the door an left to their own

devices and they’ll handle it perfectly and everything will be fine.

0:29:01

Some senior level executives are tremendously strong communicators and are huge assets in

dire situations or extreme issue management challenges. But another thing is. You don’t

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necessarily lead with your race all the time as well. There can be a scale to these things

and escalation scale, and it’s not always appropriate to use the CEO or or the top official in

the company or in the organization right out of the gate. That’s a level that you quite often

in a lot of situations want to want to have in your hand to play later.

0:29:45

If things escalate to that level, and so it’s always. I’m always fascinated when there is an

issue management. Case at play to look and see who the spokespeople are. What level are

they at? And more often than not initially, it’s those in decently senior positions, but who

have who have the specific area of responsibility for the issue at hand.

0:30:13

You know it’s entirely their Department that is having the problem. They’re not, they’re not

the top level executive, they are. Senior appropriately senior, but they have that full level of

responsibility for that particular area. Those quite often are the initial responder’s, the initial

voices in stories like that, and then later, if need be. You can always escalate it to the CEO,

the chair of the Board, the whatever the you know.

2 - 0:30:51

The top level is, and I think when you’re watching people or organizations that you know to

be solid on this, it’s all like you say. It’s telling sometimes to see who it is, who’s out there

speaking, and it almost tips the tips their hand in terms of where they expect. If they expect

to be more, follow up to have that rumor that luxury, I would say, deciding if it were to

escalate, you could come down with the hammer with a higher ranking person at some

point too. Jump in if they think that’s going to go there. So gradients, yeah, but there are.

3 - 0:31:27

There are those times when the top dog is the only one who can appropriately be

out there, that there is there is no multi level escalation when it’s when it’s so big when it’s

so serious that you need the highest level authority to be the voice and face and examples

that come to mind are, well, look throughout the pandemic. Yeah, we’ve seen health

ministers and and. Medical officers of health but first and foremost, we’ve seen the Prime

Minister. We’ve seen premieres in different provinces. We’ve seen the mayors of the cities

right there.

0:32:02

The ones that that we’re seeing and hearing from first because they’re at the top of the

leadership pyramid or diagram and then and then they’ll be supplemented by the others. Or

thinking back to one of the greatest recent memory examples, Maple Leaf foods with the

Listeria outbreak. And the CEO there immediately coming into play and being the one who

was fronting the initial response and then the subsequent updates demonstrating that rate

from the top of the organization they were engaged. They were taking it as seriously as

possible.

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2 - 0:32:39

There’s a real step forward in terms of the practice there, where Michael McCain and there’s

great stories about it maybe will allude to them at some point in the future, but how he and

two other people basically in his office took a simple camera and tried to respond as quickly

as they could when they. Realized the scope of what was going on and that he basically said

he wasn’t, you know, he hadn’t cleared this with the lawyers and this is what they were

responsible for. And in the end, the opportunity that came out of that was their whole

focus turned to food safety and made you know,

1 - 0:33:16

made that a whole part of their culture moving forward. So and so that was a great 30

minutes plus of commentary and perspective from an industry insider within the high end

world of PR and Crisis comms. Bob read from. Fairy tales, communications, and in fact he

had just as many insights in the second half hour of our discussion as he did here in the 1st

30 minutes, which is another way of saying that you have just listened to part one of what

we’re going to make into a two part episode with Bob on Crisis and without creating a

spoiler. And if you related to the crisis comms, convo up to this point, you will definitely

want to take in Part 2 when you talk to experts like Bob about managing crisis, the themes of

being open and authentic repeatedly come up these days. And whether that’s the pressures

of social media or the simple realization that spin does not win ascentia Lee, you need to

open up and not cover up as hard as that might be when you are actually caught in a

negative media storm.

0:34:08

Bob comes from one of the most challenging communication battlegrounds, politics, or did

you hear what he called it? Government thought that was interesting that he didn’t call it

politics, but I suppose that when you’re in it, you are hoping that you can govern and not

deal with all the rest. Anyhow, as you heard, he was the press secretary and media counsel

for former Ontario Premier Mike Harris, a leader who eventually became a lightning rod for

criticism. As so many leaders do on the back end of their elected terms. But no matter how

you cut it, dealing with issues in a contentious political arena is probably the truest test of

your communication response strategies and practices.

0:34:48

For the reasons that we discussed, it was interesting how Bob illustrated the internal

struggles you sometimes have to go through to get on the same page, even at your own

organization. This can be a challenge, let alone the need to appear as such to those

breathing down your neck in a crisis. And really, his insights on the communicators mindset

is exactly the type of perspective that you deserve to hear. As a dedicated listener of this

comes podcast, whether you’re a communicator or someone who can benefit from our

discussion an so I invite you to enjoy Part 2 of this interview with Bob Rita Vera TOS

Communications, either now or whenever you get the chance, we hope to keep bringing you

the best in the business from both sides of the media microphone. Who will help you better

develop and deliver your messages and stories for now.

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0:35:37

Thanks for connecting. Speaking of Media is available on all podcast platforms, including

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comment and subscribe to the cast as this will help us expand the show’s reach and attract

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engage with the guests yourself with questions.

0:36:05

You’ll also find us on Instagram, LinkedIn under my profile and on Twitter at Media speaking.

I’m Keith Marnoch and through other episodes I look forward to our next time together

when we will once again be Speaking of Media.