PR Resource

How do you motivate employees when your company has no future?  This is the task facing Takata, the manufacturer of millions of faulty air bags.  Takata is now working for consumers who need replacement parts.  It is not selling many air bags for new installs.  There is a strong possibility that the company will go out of business or will shrink to a fraction of its former size.  It has already lost contracts with major Japanese auto makers, and it is not likely to get them back.  Every time another death is reported because of faulty propellent, another nail is driven into the company’s coffin.  So, how do you keep employees focused on the task of replacement when there are better job opportunities elsewhere with a future?  There isn’t much one can say other than “we owe it to our customers.”  Most employees, however, were not part of the decision to use one explosive over another.  It was an engineering specification. Chances are most employees were not aware of the danger.  That makes it harder to motivate a workforce that had nothing to do with the decision.

Communications are essential when dealing with the fallout of a crisis.  That is why the British government is appealing for calm.  There is little that can be done physically while the country breaks away from the EU, so the best thing to do is to carry on as normally as possible.  The exit will not happen in days or even in weeks.  There are too many regulations, agreements and understandings to unwind.  Keeping British citizens up to the moment as each one of these breakaways and their implications is effected will be essential.  There will still be confusion and a goodly number of individuals will not get the message, but the government must try in order to prevent a worse crisis.  The rule here is to over-communicate, to be in the citizen’s face with the message, to make sure that every rumor is addressed with facts and every outburst handled calmly.  The government should project a sense of control even though it doesn’t have it and of the ability to deal with each situation as it arises.  Beneath the surface and among bureaucrats there will be a sense of panic that also must be handled for they are the ones who will formalize the rupture and they have to be kept at the task as it unfolds.  There will be plenty for communicators to do in the weeks and months ahead.  Little of it will be pleasant.

On rare occasions the news is so startling that one is at a loss on where to begin comments.  This morning is one of those.  There is the Supreme Court decision on immigration yesterday that struck down President Obama’s executive order and at the same time, there is Britain voting itself out of the European Union last night leading to the Prime Minister stepping down this morning.  Both actions have implications for the public and communications.  The Court’s decision places millions of immigrants in jeopardy of being deported.  The British decision upsets the relationship of the country with hundreds of millions.  It will take time to see how both decisions play out and the messages they send.  The financial markets have already reacted negatively to the British vote.  It is too early to determine how the political sphere will respond to the Court.  In any event, yesterday was an historic day and one hopes not soon repeated.

Costco, the wholesale retailer, has a disaster on its hands.  The company ended its credit card agreement with American Express and moved to Visa.  The problem is that Citibank, which is issuing the Visa cards, has bungled the job.  Rather than just blaming Citi, irate shoppers are haranguing Costco about the mess.  Some have vowed to stop shopping at Costco stores because of the botched transition.  The problem is that there isn’t much Costco can do to straighten out its vendor.  It has to wait until all cards are issued then try to rebuild good will with customers.  One can ask how it came to this in the first place.  Was Citi too confident that it could handle the job?  What are the fallbacks Citi should have had in place, or did they fail as well?  One can imagine the pressure both companies are under, especially knowing that it didn’t have to happen this way.

What does one do when it is hard to attack a message?  Attack the sender.  This is a rhetorical tactic in which Donald Trump is an expert.  An economic study shows Trump’s plans for the economy would damage it and cause a recession.  Attack the author of the study for being in bed with Hillary Clinton.  Don’t bother with the study itself.  Assume it is worthless and anyway, who but the “sleazy” media are going to read it.  The average voter is cynical enough with the ways of Washington that he is only to ready to believe that such a study is shilling for the Democratic nominee.  Ad hominem attacks are misdirection.  Rather than arguing the merits, they argue the person behind the contention.  Sometimes that is all one can do because his armory of argument is bare.  This appears to be the case with Trump.  He has no study to make a counter-argument.  He is likely not to get one before the serious campaigning begins.  His only argument is “Trust me.  We’ll make America great again.”  That seems to be a weak proposal from someone who has an inflated ego and is a narcissist.

This is an example of the immense damage a single employee can do to a company. One disaffected worker ruined 27 tons of chicken.  The size of the damage is understandable when one considers what one chicken weighs — about five pounds.  This person ruined the product of several giant chicken houses.  The article doesn’t state what the grievance was that caused the individual to go over the line, but it is a reminder that a company is only as good as every employee in it.  One wonders about the state of employee relations at the processor and whether workers understand the absolute need for cleanliness in the lines.  If they do, then this worker’s action was especially egregious and he or she deserves dismissal and legal punishment.

Peter Thiel was a darling of Silicon Valley until the Gawker case.  Now he faces being voted off the board of Facebook.  His reputation as a savvy investor is intact.  His reputation as a balanced participant in the media is in tatters.  It is a reminder, should anyone need one, that business and news do not have to get along, and indeed are in some ways opposed.  The profit motive can and does stand in the way of higher principles promulgated by the media, such as a fair and decent wage, healthcare and fundamental benefits.  When a company owner gives these, he is acting above and beyond the economic transaction.  Even when a business owner says he is acting out of self interest to keep valuable employees, he is stretching the meaning of an exchange of goods and services for money.  So Peter Thiel is acting like a normal businessman.  The question now is whether that is acceptable to Mark Zuckerberg who has aspirations of being a media baron.

A major tech company — 105 years old — is seeking to reinvent itself.  What else can the company be but IBM?  IBM has changed constantly since the days of the mechanical tabulating machine.  It has been in and out of numerous businesses, and it is in the process again of changing the corporate DNA.  The company is a competitor whose dominant days are behind it, but there is always a chance, particularly with its artificial intelligence called Watson, that it will emerge at the head of markets again.  The internet age has not been kind to IBM and Silicon Valley tech companies are  not afraid of the company or its size.  That is a huge turnabout since the days of the FUD factor (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) that kept IT people in the IBM camp.  We are in an era when it will be difficult for any one company to dominate for long.  Alphabet holds the title of Big Dog temporarily, but it is uncertain it will last.  Apple dominates with consumer devices, but already there are complaints that the company no longer innovates as it has.  IBM is a huge company that will require major new businesses to turn around.  Can it reinvent itself again and tell its story credibly?

The communications director for the Disney Grand Floridian Resort and Spa must have been shocked by the news that a two-year-old boy was attacked by an alligator on the property and dragged to his death in a lagoon.  How does one prepare for an unusual crisis such as this?  The family assumed, as they should have, that vacationing at a Disney property would be safe.  That they lost their son is devastating.  Disney had posted alligator signs around the lake but there is no indication the family saw them.  Disney also routinely removed alligators from the lake but it clearly had missed at least one.  There is no indication that the company acted irresponsibly, but it now must comfort the family, rebuild the reputation of the resort and address any lawsuit stemming from the incident.  None of these steps are going to be easy.

This is a public service and smart PR.  Offering tools on Facebook to combat suicide is a logical extension of the social medium.  It is a creative use of the pages that depends on the friends and acquaintances of an individual to report their concerns.  This might be seen as a weakness, but who knows a person best?  Some see it as an invasion of privacy as well, but there comes a time when interference with one’s intent is good, especially if one is planning to take one’s life.  Kudos to Facebook for inserting itself into the well-being of its users.