I recently had a chance to visit with a friend who is a pretty well-known crisis manager.  The occasion for the conversation was that he had spoken to a group of people from Toyota, at Toyota's invitation.  Actually, I was curious about what was going on at the company and so I asked him what he told the Toyota executives.  He began by telling me that he had really thought that putting Toyota's Chairman in front of Congress was a major mistake.  According to him, when he mentioned this to Toyota executives, the room practically broke out into applause.  He went on to mention a couple of other things and then asked me, "What would Jim Lukaszewski have done?"  My answer was that I would have moved faster to get before Congress.  I asked him, "When was the last time Toyota was in the headlines, big time, anywhere in the United States?"  He paused and I waited.  Then I said, "I'll give you a hint.  It was before Toyota's CEO testified before Congress.  There hasn't been a similar major story on Toyota since.  In fact, testifying before Congress was one of the smartest things the Chairman of the company ultimately decided to do."  It did help that there were almost no reports of accelerator problems, and that a couple of recent claims were debunked by the media and the company.  At the same time, thousands of cars were being repaired or updated by Toyota every day to eliminate this problem.  This is one of the more powerful lessons in crisis management.  Putting a prepared boss with empathy, sympathy, and productive comments in front of the public will always be a success and help settle people down.

 

Even now, 28 years later, Tylenol is held up as a Paragon of public relations and business communication practice.  Few, however, remember that it took Johnson & Johnson nearly 10 days to remove their product from the market.  There were two poisoning incidents, four years apart.  In 1982, the CIA, FBI, and FDA all recommended that the product be left on store shelves because people loved it, and taking it off the market abruptly would be seen as an overreaction to the situation, and, perhaps, even lead to terrorists boasting of their success and gaining a tremendous propaganda edge.  The fact remains that Johnson & Johnson did a groundbreaking amount of communication and set the standard for corporate response.

 

There is an old saying about Congress that says it does nothing much of the time, then overreacts when it does decide to take action.  There is probably much truth in that aphorism, but that reality allowed Toyota to get its act together and by the time Toyota's took its turn in in front of Congress.

The second lesson from these stories is that if you do things that matter and address the victim issues directly, you can move yourself out of the headlines faster.