Clinton or Letterman, That is the Question with Jeff Bell

 Leadership Test: Are you Bill Clinton or David Letterman?

When crisis hits your senior living community, there are two ways leaders show up:

 Deny, deflect, and damage trust (Bill Clinton strategy)
 Own it, address it, and build stronger relationships (David Letterman strategy)

 The truth?
 You can't lead through crisis by pretending it’s not happening.
 You can only lead through it with influence, authenticity, and proactive communication.

 In this week's episode of Aspire for More with Erin, I sit down with PR crisis expert Jeff Bell to break down:
▪️ Why crisis communication isn’t about perfection—it’s about ownership.
▪️ The 3 biggest mistakes leaders make in times of crisis.
▪️ How to lead through vulnerability, not around it.

If you're a senior living leader, you can't afford to miss this conversation.

 Your reputation is built in the hard moments.
Your influence is measured when things go wrong—not when everything’s going right.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:51 Jeff Bell's Professional Journey
01:31 Think Tank and Parenting Insights
02:37 Crisis Management: Clinton vs. Letterman
03:38 Lessons from Clinton and Letterman Scandals
06:22 Crisis Management in Senior Living
08:27 The Importance of Transparency and Honesty
12:56 Handling Online Reviews and Personal Accountability
15:03 Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
19:38 Media Training and Public Relations
23:02 Humility and Power in Crisis Management
25:05 Understanding True Humility
26:05 The Short-Lived Pain of Truth
27:25 The Consequences of Hiding
29:41 Handling Criticism and Crisis
30:26 The Importance of Crisis Planning
37:16 Transparency Over Perfection
40:16 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Connect with me on LinkedIn


Follow me on Facebook where I educate, equip and empower family members how to proactively care for their elderly loved ones.

Follow me on Instagram where I educate, equip and empower family members how to proactively care for their elderly loved ones.

Join my email list where I will lift you up, and send tactile advice weekly to support you to grow your experience in your senior living career.

Transcript

Erin: 0:35

Welcome back to another episode of Aspire for More with Aaron, where I have Mr. Jeff Bell and we are gonna go over a question today, Clinton or Letterman. That is the question that we're going to be exploring. You're going to have to stick around to figure out why we're talking about Clinton. Letterman, but first, Mr. Jeff Bell, who is the founder, CEO of Bell PR and marketing, a crisis manager expert, a new dad of girls that is a, also a dad of older boys. And so his life has completely been changed upside down in the last few years. Kansas City Chiefs fan and royals. Baseball fan. Anything else that I can add? Jeff?

Jeff: 1:24

no. You hit it right on the head. I would say, yeah, crisis manager former, radio broadcaster. I cut my teeth in. News was a journalism major in college, about 10, 12 years. As a reporter News talk host, and then made my way into the PR world, founded Bell, as initially just a PR and crisis, agency. And we have since evolved and morphed into a full service digital marketing agency just based on client need and demand. And so we really do it all now. Everything from PR and crisis to website builds to, digital marketing, social media management, you name it, we do it. And, I'm the crazy guy who started a company at the beginning of the pandemic and, somehow we're still standing and doing well.

Erin: 2:06

yeah. I first met you at Think Tank. We've been to think Tank now twice together. It's so much fun to just hear your perspective and all your insights and how you're not scared to go there, even from an emotional answer. To a tough guy, answer your insights and encourage has been something that I've really watched from afar and appreciated.

Jeff: 2:30

Think Tank is, as we say all the time, it's so unique among, events in our industry and, it's that like-minded like-hearted approach. And, as I've learned from being a boy dad to being now, a dad of two young girls, it's you gotta have that, hard approach, but sometimes you've also gotta be the tough guy. So there's like a fine line there.

Erin: 2:49

I can only imagine. I have a boy and a girl, but I can only imagine being a boy dad and then your life completely turning upside down to being a girl dad. And you realize all the rules have changed.

Jeff: 3:01

Everything's changed. Yeah. It's like going from power tools and football to Barbie dolls and tea parties I'm loving every minute of it. I'm learning as I go.

Erin: 3:10

That's funny. That's funny. Okay, so we're gonna dive into, I think crisis management is an excellent topic, especially for community level leaders because we don't always get to see what it is at the very top. Like how do you know the corporate upper echelon people handle all the different crisis? And nor do we as a community leader know all the crisis that are going on within the portfolio of the company and all the things they have. To all the fires they have to put out. And I know that I, in my community, had an experience where crisis management was something that, that I had to walk through. And when we talked about this podcast episode and what to talk about, you blew my mind when you said, do you wanna be Bill Clinton or do you wanna be David Letterman? And I was like, oh my gosh, this is such a great topic. So take it away from there from a crisis standpoint and what you mean by that.

Jeff: 4:13

Yeah. it really is for those of us, I guess for any of our younger listeners or viewers, who didn't, maybe experience the 1990s, when those of us who did think of Bill Clinton, no matter what else he accomplished as president and he accomplished a lot and did some really good things. We think about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. And for those of us who think about David Letterman, we don't think about his scandal. And you might even have to scratch your head for a second and say, wait a minute, David Letterman had a scandal. And the reason is crisis management and approach to crisis management, and it's amazing. The difference of how those two reputations turned out. And if Bill Clinton had listened to this podcast before the, Lewinsky scandal, he might've come out smelling, much differently than he did, on the other side. So I can expand on what I, what I mean by that. so the Clinton Lewinsky scandal. Most people know about it, whether you live through it, whether you've read about it. Bill Clinton was having an affair when he was president of the United States, married man, having an affair with a White House intern. Monica Lewinsky eventually got found out, mostly because of, some untruths that he told during a deposition. Came back to bite him. But when it really got into the public eye. He went into deny, deny mode. Wagged his finger at the camera. I did not have so on and so forth. Eventually the pressure mounted and he had no choice but to come clean. I did indeed do this. I'm sorry it was wrong, so on and so forth. But by that point, the damage was done. Flip side, David Letterman. Had multiple affairs while working at CBS with people who worked for him with staffers. What happened was one of those, staffers told somebody else who thought it would be a great idea to try to blackmail Dave. Dave handled the situation completely differently before it even got out. It was gonna get out, but before it even got out that he was having an affair, he opens his show live monologue and says, this is what's been happening. People thought it was a joke. At first, people were laughing like, wait. Is he serious? He just flat out owned it and when this is what's happening, police are helping me with this black male situation. My wife and I are going to have a lot of tough conversations, and we're gonna have to work our way through this. We would appreciate privacy. But here it is. I have been a bad boy, and that's it. So again, the difference is no one thinks about when I say name five things about David Letterman, no one mentions that. No one even remembers it because he owned it and it went away. So what's the lesson for Senior Living Crisis folks? Don't be a Bill Clinton. I don't care what the scandal is. I don't care how bad you think you're going to look, you will look worse if you take the Clinton approach versus the Letterman approach. People love transparency.

Erin: 7:13

They really do. So not only did Clinton, deny it, like you said, he had his waving his finger in the camera moment, which is so like. how dare you like real ego style. I'm the president of the United States. And that righteous in indignation just fired up people. And of course you give people an emotional reaction, it's going to go and if people think you're lying, they're going to, there are people that are gonna go to the ends of the earth to prove you wrongly. And so you absolutely just gave them ammunition.

Jeff: 7:49

Absolutely. And it led to an impeachment which cost the taxpayers money. Yes. Possibly you could make the argument Al Gore losing an election a few years later, because he couldn't shake off the dust, so to speak, of the impeachment scandal. All of it could have gone away with that transparency. Most of us in senior living are not gonna have a scandal on the scale of the president of the United States having an affair and lying about it. But whatever it is, whether it's big or small, we're gonna face a crisis at some point. And the reputation of our organization, the reputation, frankly, of our residence, is on the line. The reputation of ourselves personally is on the line. And if you make a mistake, own it, or even if you didn't do anything wrong, but some things happened that. Even with the best protocols in place, fell through the cracks, own that sometimes our reputation, or not our reputation, but sometimes our instinct can be like the kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar to go, I wasn't in the cookie jar, or like the shaggy, it wasn't me. kind of thing. And it doesn't do any good. We get caught and we end up looking like gaslighting horrible people. I teach a college class on PR as well, and I tell my students, let's even take out the morality of just the right thing to do, is be honest from just a pure business standpoint. Being dishonest hurts you. Every time it will cost you money. It will cost you trust, it will cost you in senior living residents. It will cost you maybe even buildings. It can spiral out of control so fast and it's so hard to recover. So when mistakes happen, I always tell our clients, okay, if you're gonna work with us for crisis, we're gonna be David Letterman, and I won't bend on that.

Erin: 9:38

yeah. Denial, resistance, damage to long-term trust, all of that. It's hard to recover from, you're gonna have to go on a long mea culpa campaign and people are going to always look at you from an angle of, can I even trust what you're saying? Even to the smallest entity. Like it, it's, it is crazy. the last. Like you cannot think of Clinton, you cannot look at the Clintons without thinking about that scandal. And then in an excellent comparison, you look at David Letterman and even with the show that he's doing now on Netflix, you look at him as a wise man. At one time he was a dirty man, and yet we look at him like a wise man because he realized that he was making a mistake. He took accountability, he was transparent about it. He was uncomfortable. You've got to know that moment was. So uncomfortable and so painful, but because he took accountability, it took the power away from anyone that wanted to destroy him.

Jeff: 10:56

It did. It did. And then on the flip side, if you look at the damage down the road for the Clintons, I mentioned Al Gore. When Hillary Clinton ran against Donald Trump in 2016, she tried to paint him. As what he was, frankly, an adulterer, a locker room, braggadocio, whatever you want to call it. It fell on deaf ears because people looked at her and went, your husband's the same thing. No one took it seriously. And so a political opportunity fell by the wayside. And we don't ever think about that when we're in the midst of a lie that 20, 30 years later, this is still gonna come up. Yeah. and it's, we have to treat our relationship with the truth. The same way that we treat it in or should treat it in a marriage, in a friendship, in a relationship with our kids, whatever it is, if I start lying to my daughters, it's not too long before they don't trust dad anymore. And when dad comes with good advice, maybe they don't take it because why would I trust him now? You lie and, one lie turns into another lie and so on and so forth. it's very common sense stuff. But I'm amazed at how often the instinct of someone who reaches out to us for crisis management, their instinct is to do exactly that. We've gotta cover this up. And I always say, no. If you want someone to help you cover something up, we're not the agency for you. We don't do that.

Erin: 12:17

proactive communication. In the moment you can take this down to a very micro level as somebody inside senior living as a leader, inside senior living as a director of nursing or an executive director, when something happens and you have the crossroads of saying, if I don't do anything about this, if I don't tell anybody about this, then no one has to know. Or you can just say, I'm just going to make the decision to be proactive, to communicate about this, to learn from it, to take accountability, to face whatever needs to be done. I'm going to grow trust, I'm going to grow credibility, and I'm gonna learn from the experience. Like we think that crisis are these big moments and they are, but we can avoid these crisis, big crisis. If we just understand the power of proactive communication, and it really is as simple as making the choice of saying this happened. Here's what we've done about it, and here's what we're going to do about it to prevent it from happening in the future. Again, that is crisis management. On a very micro level,

Jeff: 13:30

it absolutely is. And there are different forms of crisis too, now that we live in this digital world, a crisis can be an online review because all of the data says people take online reviews as the gospel truth. They trust them as much as they do word of mouth. So it doesn't matter whether what the person's saying in the review is true or not. What matters is someone's gonna think that it is. And so how do you handle that? The other thing the data tells us is that almost anybody who sees a response from an owner that takes some sort of responsibility for a negative review, no longer views the review as negative, but so often responses go, nothing. It's silence and people see silence and they go, oh, that must be true. They didn't even respond. Or they responded in a way that sounds very plastic and thank you for your response. Please contact us at it doesn't do any good. Own it. Acknowledge we understand how you're feeling. We understand that this situation was upsetting. Here are some things to consider. Whatever it is. Own it. So often we're so quick and we do this personally too. someone calls us out on something and we just dive into defense mode. And if we would just take those two seconds to go, hold on. They're actually right about this. this happens with my wife. Just, you go call me out on something in a moment and I start to go, you're just, and I'm like, wait a minute. Okay. Ego, go away. She's right. I don't put my socks where they go or, whatever it is. And so let's just, take a step back and realize that's okay. We're human. And people understand that and they accept that. And, one of the things I always tell people is the most important decision you make is. How you respond to your second instinct in a situation. What I mean by that is our first instinct is always defense mode or always to put a shell around ourselves. But then if we stop and we react differently to that first instinct, and we handle a situation rationally, honestly and correctly, we end up coming out on the good side most of the time.

Erin: 15:36

Yeah, that's true. I've been really studying like emotions. I think that senior living more than a real estate company or more than a healthcare profession. I say that, that senior living is like an emotional tornado of. Everything going on. And when we study emotions, we can actually be, become more self-aware and better leaders because we realize that we can control our emotions and emotions go away in 90 seconds if you sit there and you let them. And ego, ego is another part of emotions that we have to be aware of. And so you're right, like that initial pain of being. Hot or being called out, like all you wanna do is defend yourself. And I am a naturally defensive person, and have certainly done that in my career a lot. And I realize now, and I was actually really good at this, inside the community was outside the community that I struggle with it more. But like you have to allow people to advocate for themselves. And then you have to realize they've shown you how they're gonna react when situations come up. So plan for it. It's, if they're gonna react a certain way because the soup is cold, they're certainly gonna react a certain way when something of greater importance is happening. So allow the emotion to rise up and yes, go for the second instinct. Don't defend yourself, because when you defend yourself, you carry on this legacy with that family and with anybody else who's watching. they're not gonna know how to talk to you. They're gonna feel like it's a waste of time, all these things, because you're just going to defend yourself and you're, that is a battle you will never win. And when Brene Brown said this. We, at some point figure out that the armor that we've been carrying no longer serves us. You let it down and in a crisis, the armor does not serve you.

Jeff: 17:46

It doesn't serve you at all. And you're so right about it doesn't, emotions in senior living too. if I could think of the two organizations where your crisis. It reaches a fever pitch just because of the nature of what you do. I would say senior living and daycares. Yeah, because you are taking care of precious people. Someone's extremely precious child. They're precious grandparent. They're precious parent. And yeah, there are times when they're gonna be upset. And to your point, if you start going into defense mode, and maybe your first instinct is right on some level, but think about perception. They want to be heard. They want to feel like they're heard and they wanna see you attempting to solve a problem. And you can't do that if you're spending so much time defending yourself. Now, there are gonna be situations where yes, absolutely you have a team member that you have to defend. You have an organizational. Reputation to defend. And that's why agencies like ours are helpful because we can help you navigate that. But never, leave a conversation where a family member or a resident feels like they were unheard and that you were uncaring. And it's so easy to do it without even meaning to, because most of us, at the end of the day, do care. We do want them to be heard, but sometimes we get so caught up in our own ego without even realizing it, that we end up, hurting our reputation and furthering the damage instead of repairing it.

Erin: 19:12

Yeah. It's not about if I didn't do the act, so we'll talk about there was a huge crisis moment inside of my community. I don't really give it much airtime because it was painful for the family, but. I was not the one who made the choice. I was not the one who did the action. I was the one that had to be a representative to the families, to potential news organizations, and I could not be defensive. I didn't need to be defensive because I didn't do the action, but I had to be very, very humble. I had to take accountability and I had to say, we're still the same community. one person made a choice. It's not exactly how it's portrayed in the media, but it was a choice that was inappropriate and painstakingly, hurtful to our community and that family. We're still the same,

Jeff: 20:13

And that's so important and there are so many lessons, and I can say this because I used to be a reporter, so I really do have a very fair, I think in insider's viewpoint of the media, both the faults and the positives, there are great reporters out there who really are just looking for the truth and they view themselves as that watchdog for the public. There are other reporters who are more trained in, maybe through no fault of their own Gotcha type journalism. And that's where we have to keep our composure. Because like you said, that situation may not have been portrayed in the media the way you wanted it to be portrayed. But sometimes we stop there on the surface level, we go, oh my gosh, this is terrible. This is a Christ. Look what they wrote. But we forget that. hold on. What they wrote is not nearly as important as how we responded to what they wrote. Yes. Or how we responded to that question. In Public, I saw an interview the other day, that just popped up on social media with Elvis Presley in the 1970s, and they asked him his opinion of war demonstrators. Remember, this was the height of the Vietnam War. The country was very divided, and he basically said to the reporter, I'm an entertainer. I keep that stuff private, it's not really my place. then she pressed him further. do you believe all entertainers should keep it private? And he said, I'm not gonna go there. That I don't feel that it does any good for me. Why would anyone listen to me? A singer on an issue as important as that? And kept pressing. He never lost his cool. And she ended up sounding silly. 40, 50 years later when you're watching that interview because he didn't lose his cool and give into the pressure. And it's so easy to do and that's why we offer media training because not everyone's ready for that. Not everyone has even faced a reporter in their lives before. And so if you don't have a little bit of training and a little bit of preparation, yeah, you're probably gonna blow it your first time,

Erin: 21:58

Yeah. You give into the pressure because you think, oh my God, there's gonna be millions of people. Watching you, but what's interesting about that Elvis is that he knew the difference. The difference is when you understand what the goal is, you can stay committed to the action and the reason. And if you don't understand, then you can get caught up in the emotional tornado and just react and respond.

Jeff: 22:24

Yeah. And sometimes it goes back to the instinct conversation where what's my first instinct versus what's my rational approach to my first instinct? And it's so important to remember that you can only control what you can control. You mentioned I'm a Chiefs and Royals fan. I always go back to, Patrick Mahomes and the way that he handles things in the scrutiny in the media, the scrutiny from fans, the scrutiny from fans from other teams. And all he does is control what he can control. He doesn't bad mouth other people. He doesn't say things that are super controversial. He goes out and lets his playing, do the talking and when he fails, like losing the Super Bowl very recently. He takes responsibility and puts it all right here. He doesn't point fingers, he doesn't cast blame, he doesn't throw teammates under the bus. I remember reading that when he first got to Kansas City as a first round draft pick, they were amazed that he was calling the people at the front desk in the regular lobby of the home offices. Sir and ma'am. so humble and, you could do a masterclass on just PR from Patrick Mahomes, compared to other athletes who maybe haven't learned those lessons so well.

Erin: 23:36

Yeah. When you talk about controlling what you can control, and I often refer to it taking your power back, it is literally. Is humility, proactive communication, and listening. Because if you were pointing fingers, you've just given media, social media, so much fodder to dive into. But when you swallow your pride and you say, it doesn't matter. Nothing else matters. It was my choice, it was my decisions, it was my lack of preparation or whatever it is. You have taken the air out. Of anything moving forward. And that is power. that is power.

Jeff: 24:20

That's power. And when do you have the courage to use that power? Because I'm gonna bet somebody at CBS did not like the idea of David Letterman walking out and announcing that on a monologue. I'm gonna bet he got pushback. And I don't know whether he did it because he was advised by somebody or whether he did it. My gut tells me he did it because he's just. That wise of a person and he realized and understood that I can either destroy myself here or I can try to handle this with humility and obviously he made the right choice, but I guarantee you the network execs. Whether they knew he was gonna do that or when he did, it went, oh, panic mode. He's destroying his reputation live on the air. he wasn't. He was doing the exact opposite. He was repairing it in real time. It was like watching a surgery in real time.

Erin: 25:13

So when I talk about humility a lot, I had to rebuild myself after, I like to call it like a Mariah Carey, like on TRL, where she completely had this meltdown. I am like, yeah, I feel like I did that. But anyways, humility hurts. It's so easy to say, be humble. Take the humility route and humility hurts. Like being David Letterman, we talk about it, okay? And standing there, and then even if you're in a community and talking to a family member about where you may have failed at that caused an outcome that was uncomfortable or could have hurt a resident. When we say humility, we mean the gut punch. Yep. The heart brokenness, the, oh my God, I have to talk about this in real time as it hurts conversations and it knocks the wind out of you and you feel like there's nothing that you can do and it is one of the hardest times of your life that is humility. Yep. that's humility. It's not just being able to say, oh, this is what happened. It is having to say the words while you're hurting.

Jeff: 26:34

Yep.

Erin: 26:34

And that is far more painful than lying about it in the moment. But as you can see through our two different scenarios, the pain is short-lived. Versus carrying on forever.

Jeff: 26:49

Yep. Do you feel the gut punch in the moment? Do you have the courage to take the gut punch in the moment? Yes. Or are you gonna take that easy way out and realize, I remember when I was a kid, that feeling of having to remember lies to my parents. Yes. and they were silly things like I rode my bike further than I was supposed to, or I went to someone's house when I was supposed to be at. Football camp or whatever the case may be, and then all of a sudden, okay, hold on. I told this lie, and then I gotta remember this, and now I've gotta remember this lie. And it's oh my gosh. The truth is so much easier. Even if it hurts in the moment, it's so much easier. And to your point from earlier in our conversation, people still trust you because we all instinctively know as human beings that we can make a mistake. So if I make a mistake and I hurt you. But I own it. Okay. Yeah. Jeff's human, so am I. But look at the integrity that he showed in owning it versus, oh look, he lied to me again and he lied to me again, and now he's still lying to me. And trust is broken and it's very difficult. It's not impossible to repair, but I'd rather repair a crisis in real time that I would repair the fallout from. Crisis is down the road. We had a client several years ago during a hurricane who made the choice before they ever called us to shut down their Facebook page because, people are saying negative things that, no. You shut down that Facebook page and now it looks like everything that they've been saying is true. And you went into hiding. Yeah. Okay. This is a hurricane. You didn't create the hurricane. You have your protocols in place. You know you're doing the right things. Why are you hiding? Don't hide. Respond, be honest, be upfront. If you made mistakes, own them. But so often we want to go into shells like we're a turtle and just hide and hope that when we come back out, things will be better. And they never are.

Erin: 28:36

No, they aren't. I follow this page on Facebook. It's a community page. I'm trying to be very like non-descriptive here and. Some people were making some comments about a part of their aesthetic and the response that the community gave, it was so bad, it was defensive. It was blaming, and the comments after the initial com, it just spiraled.

Jeff: 29:09

Yeah.

Erin: 29:09

And just admit We are, we've got this under control, we're, this is what we're doing. But instead it was very much the wall is coming up.

Jeff: 29:19

Yep.

Erin: 29:20

And now people are chiming in. And this is again, a very micro level of crisis PR management in a very small area of a small, Town and I'm just like, That was an initial, that was that emotion that you just, you have to let pass before you respond,

Jeff: 29:41

and it takes maturity to do it. And we always see those people who post the gif of Michael Jackson eating popcorn. And those popcorn watchers are out there. And actually they're bigger than the commenters. Yes. And those popcorn watchers are watching and boy, they're judging like you would not believe they are the judge Judys. On the internet and they're watching to see how do you react, how do you handle this? And you don't want people posting the popcorn Jif because that means that uhoh something has escalated into a place that you don't want it to be. And again, we've all been there, we've all made that mistake. I've made that mistake in my career criticism when I was a reporter. you talk about. you have a news talk program. you are going to get inundated with criticisms and sensitivities related to politics and the whole nine yards. And I didn't handle all of those correctly early in my career. And then as time went on, I learned to. Handle them better. And it's, it's experience, it's maturity. And in some cases it's listening to a podcast like this one, using it as your training. You don't need to go hire someone and pay them to train you. If you're a leader in a senior living organization, have you had those conversations with team members? Because often the press will just show up or they'll call the phone and get your concierge or whoever it is. Are those people trained? Have those people been briefed even just a little bit on how do we handle this? There's a great example from several years ago where there was a fire at a senior living community, and it was minor. It was a situation where someone had left a stove on or something like that in an apartment put out very easily. But of course, the news media showed up. And what did they see when they arrived? No spokesperson from the community on site at all. Residents sitting outside in the cold with blankets on them. Firefighters, the worst possible optics that, that you could have. And the only thing you needed to change that was a crisis plan. Because in that instance, someone would've been called, someone would've showed up. Someone would've known what to say. Someone would've known how to dress. Whole thing solved by just having a plan.

Erin: 31:50

Yeah. So you think having a plan. Or being aware, honestly, like when a crisis happens, that forward facing is really important, and that's part of preparing to be a Letterman instead of Clinton style damage control.

Jeff: 32:10

Because you've gotta have that spokesperson out there, but they've also gotta know what to say. Otherwise they Bill Clinton, you and forget about it. But have a plan, talk through that stuff. And there are people on your team who are not, they're not the people that you want to talk to, the media, and they probably don't want to talk to the media. Filter that stuff through. This is who these calls go to, whether it's the executive director, whether it's the marketing director, whether it's your. PR contact. we take calls for a lot of our clients, they refer them. Yeah, call Jeff Bell, he has our statement. But the bottom line is, once you get to that point where people are trained, you still have to follow the Letterman rule. You still have to be transparent. You still have to say the right things. And another thing that is so missed so often, it's okay to tell a reporter you don't have an answer to their question right now, and you'll get back to them. Don't make up an answer on the fly, because that's when you start to get into dishonesty or half truths. Just say, I don't know, but I'm gonna get you an answer as soon as I can. And then follow up. Make sure you do get them an answer. But so often we think, oh, we gotta answer every question. No, you're in control.

Erin: 33:16

Yeah. You're in control. Not them.

Jeff: 33:19

it's empowering.

Erin: 33:20

It's, and it, you do think they're in control because they have the microphone and they have the camera, but they're not you give them the information and that they figure out what to do with, you wanna be smarter than them. And it's funny you say that, like if, as an administrator, as an executive director, I always told my team, if a surveyor comes in and you don't know the answer. You say, I don't know the answer. I know where to find it. Let me get back to you.

Jeff: 33:48

Yeah.

Erin: 33:49

And so it's the same thing for you as the executive director or regional director when a crisis comes, the same rule applies to you.

Jeff: 33:59

I mean, that's half the battle right there. If you're already trained that way for handling a surveyor, take that training and apply it to the media. They don't have a soundbite without you, and so don't give them a soundbite that's gonna do anything to damage your reputation. It's not deflecting if you truly don't know. Now, if you know the answer, then you need to be transparent and you need to give the answer. But if you truly don't know the answer. That's okay. People understand that. We've talked in my PR class about different crises that were in the public eye, and one of them was the recent, situation with the plane crashes. And United Airlines in particular, the way that they handled that a taped message from the CEO and he's in his. Three quarter vest. It didn't come off well. Came off very plastic. It came off as okay, this is just rehearsed damage control. This isn't really anything. We talked about in class how, how would you have handled that? Who would you have had speaking on behalf? Or if it was that person, how do you change the optics? There's so many things to think through, but sometimes it just comes down to, let's watch this, or let's rehearse this. And how does that actually look? Put yourself in the place of a viewer or a resident or a family member or whatever the case may be. And sometimes stuff happens in real time. You don't have that luxury. But if you do have the opportunity, take two seconds to think through your statement. Does it really say what you want it to say? Does it really make you look the way you want to look and go from there? When in doubt, go back and watch Dave and go from there.

Erin: 35:32

The optics are really important. I mean, this is not political by any stretch, but you think about George W. Bush, after nine 11 and what the optics looked like then. And that was a moment we know with the megaphone and what he was wearing. And then you look at Zelensky and the Ukrainian War, Russia war, and everybody at the beginning of it, everybody thought he was so heroic and he, is, and. politics aside, the optics were and still is. He doesn't wear suits. he's in, war attire, so to speak. Yeah. Rugged attire. And that's his optics. Those are his optics. That's what he can control. And it does send a nonverbal message.

Jeff: 36:18

It does.

Erin: 36:19

His optics were soundly accepted.

Jeff: 36:22

especially when you contrast them with Vladimir Putin. But Zelensky had the benefit too, of people had seen Putin. Putin's been around for years. People already had their opinions way before that war. There were pictures of Putin riding bears shirtless and all this stuff. People have an opinion. Zelensky had the opportunity to create. His own image. And you go back to George W. Bush with nine 11, and I know that was, it was this impromptu moment with the megaphone, but when he said, the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon, he said what every American, regardless of political party was feeling in that moment. And that's why his approval rating was up in the nineties for a time now. It didn't stay there. And you could go all into the optics of other stuff, but that moment he said what, at least most people were feeling. And it united the country in a way that nobody had done for a long time prior and no one has done for a long time since. And sometimes, you get lucky in those moments where it's impromptu and then other times you have impromptu moments that don't go over so well. And, that's just the way it is. And life goes on.

Erin: 37:34

Yeah. He didn't go in a suit. Like the optics were real. and yes, and it was authentic. I don't know. I, we'll never know if those words were scripted, right? But

Jeff: 37:46

Right.

Erin: 37:46

It was an authentic moment,

Jeff: 37:48

yep, it did.

Erin: 37:51

Okay, so the lesson here is transparency over perfection.

Jeff: 37:57

Transparency over perfection, and always listen to instinct number two, and not instinct number one.

Erin: 38:03

Instinct number one is not your choice. Let the emotion die down after 90 seconds, because that's really important. Timely action over reactive control, right?

Jeff: 38:14

Yeah, absolutely. Are you actually saying something? Are you actually doing something? Are you portraying that you're doing something and are you doing it in a way that makes sense with the timeline of whatever you're dealing with?

Erin: 38:25

Do not let problems fester.

Jeff: 38:27

Exactly.

Erin: 38:29

Do not let them fester. It only gets bigger. Empathy and ownership over blame and deflection.

Jeff: 38:34

Yeah.

Erin: 38:34

Every time.

Jeff: 38:35

Absolutely. That makes sense. No, no one likes someone who blames others. think about that. Even in your own life, if you have a disagreement with someone, do you ever come away with someone who casts blame on other people going, I really respected them in that moment? No, of course not. But you do respect, you really respect someone who takes ownership beyond maybe even. What they should take ownership. the buck stops here mentality is really important. And yet, whether it's politics, whether it's sports, whether it's whatever, how often do we see someone who does the polar opposite? They start casting blame. And it's cost people elections. It's cost people, reputations. It's cost people in the business world and it just takes that two seconds of going, hold on, I need to swallow the humility pill here. And I need to swallow the empathy pill and then we can start to talk.

Erin: 39:25

Yeah. And it's gonna hurt.

Jeff: 39:27

It is,

Erin: 39:28

humility is a soft word, but it's not soft.

Jeff: 39:32

It's a real skill. And we make no bones about that. Of course it's gonna hurt. it's kinda yeah, the medicine is gonna taste bad, but you need it, Yes. The vaccine is going to sting as I, tell my 2-year-old,

Erin: 39:43

Yeah. I always say this, your team doesn't expect perfection. They do expect leadership no matter what you think. They think they do want leadership. And your families do not expect zero issues. They just expect the truth,

Jeff: 39:59

They don't, and there are so many examples of that. there are leadership courses based on people who followed that in different times, and no one. No one's gonna take a leadership course on Richard Dixon saying, I am not a crook. That's not a course you're gonna take, but you will take one on FDR saying, Hey, stuff's really bad right now, but you know what, we're all gonna be okay and I'm gonna get you through it. And was he perfect? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Was every decision he made a good one. No, but Americans were glued to their radios during his presidency because he was saying the right things at the right time. And his biggest job, frankly, wasn't to fix the economy. It was to keep a complete all out panic. From breaking out in the country at the time, and he did that by leading with empathy and leading with realism and not trying to sugarcoat things.

Erin: 40:51

Yeah. Okay, final question. If a senior living leader is in the middle of a PR or operational crisis, what is the first thing that they should do?

Jeff: 41:01

If they don't, the first thing they should do is before that crisis ever hits, the first thing they should do is have an organizational wide crisis plan in place. And that is who is responsible for what? How do we handle it? Do we have an agency? Do we not have an agency? Do we have an internal PR person? Do we not? That's step one. Once the crisis hits though it is following those things that we've talked about. Take a breath. Nothing is as bad as it seems. And just remember going in that, being transparent, being empathetic. At the end of the day, no matter how bad it hurts, it's going to save your reputation on the other side versus going with those initial instincts of lie, defend, deflect. None of that helps.

Erin: 41:51

Yeah, do not catastrophize the moment, right? Say in the moment. And the worst thing you can do is,

Jeff: 41:59

is go lie

Erin: 42:00

and do nothing.

Jeff: 42:01

Go into your shell and do nothing or lie. there's the old adage that I would rather, be quiet, be thought, a fool that opened my mouth and remove all doubt. That doesn't always apply in these situations, because you don't wanna be thought a fool, you wanna open your mouth and. Get rid of any bad perceptions. You wanna open your mouth and be someone that people look at and go, oh wow, that's a courageous individual. That's someone who understands the gravity of the situation. And the other thing too, get all the facts before you put a statement out before you talk to the media. Make sure you have as many facts as you can possibly have. That's the biggest thing. And just remember, no matter how bad it seems on the surface, you are in a position to either make it better. Or make it worse and don't make it worse. Don't be Bill Clinton.

Erin: 42:50

Be David Letterman.

Jeff: 42:51

Be David Letterman. Yes. Bill Clinton did lots of good things and he has lots of qualities. But when it comes to handling a crisis, don't wipe your finger.

Erin: 43:01

No, it's a great class. It's a great masterclass, really, of comparing the two successful men who had. Some life moral choices that they made the wrong choices. You know what I mean? So

Jeff: 43:15

one owned it,

Erin: 43:15

That's it. Oh gosh. This is a great conversation. Jeff. Thank you so much. Had a blast. Just being able to talk about it so freely and with an expert like you was a lot of fun. So make sure, where can people reach you if they wanna get more information about Bell PR and marketing?

Jeff: 43:32

Yeah, so we're at bell pr.org, just www.bellpr.org. You can reach me at j Bell, J-B-E-L-L, at bell pr.org. And like I said, we do everything from crisis management, crisis consultation, all the way down to your regular pr. Um, and I would say that's another thing. Just one more thing to add. Build your reputation up before someone tries to tear it down. And you do that by telling the positive stories that exist within your communities through good pr and make sure people already have an opinion of you. That's a good one before a crisis ever hits.

Erin: 44:04

Yeah, that's good. Masterclass today, folks. Masterclass today. Thank you, Jeff for being here in your time. And as always, for my listeners, aspire for more for you. Humility hurts, but it is worth it. Every time have a good day.