Readings on Bad News - These notes are vital for the course, if you want to pass and get an easy A PDF

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These notes are vital for the course, if you want to pass and get an easy A ...

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Resource #1: ● Downplay effects of the oil leak, environmental effects of oil spill would not be stopped until July ● The bad news wasn’t delivered properly here it only kept getting worse and worse ● Boycotts ● One bad news event can spiral into more bad news ● “It’s business nothing personal” ● Receiving bad news is always personal, the key to delivering bad news is to manage the response to bad news ● Offer the bad news by emphasizing with the person and provide as much additional information as needed ● Must know circumstances of the bad news before delivering ● Must project empathy and maintain a professional tone, while being reasonable and choosing your words carefully Resource 2 ● Failing to deliver bad news effectively can damage your credibility over time ● Honesty and openness are key ● During the Great Recession many companies struggled to effectively deliver bad news, but it was learned through research that the stronger the bad news delivery is, the better chance that customer relationships will strengthen ● Planning is critical to delivering bad news and must be taken on as soon as possible ● Make the delivery of bad news to recipients better by understanding the nature of the bad news and how the person hearing it will feel and the impact it will have on them ● Never wait too long to deliver bad news because the information could be taken in a different way and the person waiting to receive news about something could be hearing many things from other people that isn’t necessarily true, but don’t deliver the news unless you know all the details ● Bad news is best delivered in person ○ Allows rich communication ○ Immediate feedback from person receiving bad news ○ Respond right away with options/solutions ● Bad news in writing can also have advantage ○ Control message carefully and state it precisely ○ Cannot respond immediately ○ Many people could take this form badly ● Severity, Controllability, and Likelihood ○ Severity is how serious or detrimental the bad news is ○ Controllability is the degree to which the bad news message receiver can alter the outcome. ○ Likelihood relates to the probability of the bad event occurring ● As controllability decreases and likelihood and/or severity increase, richer channels of communication are most appropriate. ● Preferred communication may not always be available.

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Gather as much information as you can before delivering the bad news Making message more or less direct Less direct bad news when you work with customers, clients, and contacts you don’t know very well When working with colleagues you can typically be more direct than you are with customers and clients. In written situations, several techniques can help the bad news recipient prepare emotionally. ○ Neutral subject line often helps reader recognize that the news is most likely not positive ○ However, since it is not direct it will allow reader to emotionally adjust Buffer is a statement to establish common ground, show appreciation, state your sympathy, or otherwise express goodwill. When you show sympathy to your reader, you let them know you share with their sorrow or trouble, but limit to 1-2 sentences Teaser message - often written, signal to recipients that an upcoming conversation or other communication may involve unpleasant news. Throughout delivery find ways to express concern for recipients ○ Get to the point quickly ○ Make buffer statement short ○ Don’t want readers to get their hopes up Clearly explain the reasons for bad news, customers will feel more trust toward them. Simple and specific language will be interpreted better up front and people struggle to process information in bad news situations Do not skip the step of explaining immediate impacts to the recipient because in turn this will shed a bad light on the company you are working for and you will lose trust with this person. Describe realistic solutions, steps to overcome the temporary setback, or benefits that the recipient can control for time being. Keep the door open to working together constructively in the future is a top priority in most cases. Use tone and nonverbal behaviors to show your interest and concern. ○ Ability to manage emotions - influences your future working relationship. Tone of genuine concern in a professional manner. Use a writing style that is simple, accurate, and jargon-free ○ Helps people process information quickly and accurately ○ Use clear language that will not be misinterpreted Cindy’s delivery to Juan Many employees are reluctant to share bad news, they don’t want to disappoint others or be blamed Mum effect occurs when the chain of messages within an organization is filtered at each level to leave out or inaccurately state the bad news. ○ 1986 Space Shuttle Explosion ■ Probability of machine failure at between 1 in 200 and 1 in 300.

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When employees deliver bad news and negative feedback to one another in an open, honest, and caring environment organizations tend to exhibit lower higher morale. ○ Vica versa with bad news delivery not happening When turning down requests or ideas with close colleagues, one of the most common mistakes is to offer token appreciation ○ An expression of thanks or gratitude for a request or idea while immediately dismissing the request or idea as implausible or even inappropriate. ○ Often perceived as manipulative. ○ Yes-but statements Explain immediate impacts, provide rationale, discuss the future Bad news messages to customers contain the same essential components as other bad news messages. ○ Emphasize the options available ○ Solutions customer has control over ○ Thorough detailed options for helping customer ○ Customer does not want to be blamed for anything ○ Level of responsiveness Apply the FAIR Test ○ Spend time reflecting on each component of the FAIR test before delivering the message

Resource 3 ● FedEx took crucial steps in responding to the crisis of the FedEx man throwing a package and breaking it. ○ Verified the video wasn’t hoax, found the customer and resolved the situation, and communicated to public ● It took a lot of time to track down the customer and during that time the video was being spread more and more ● First concern was taking care of the customer, with a strongly worded statement on Twitter ● Felt it was important to engage in social media and media because the issue started on YouTube ● Emplacing trust in every employee - people- service - profit ● McDonald’s Hoax photo that did not receive viral attention for a year ○ Asking influencers to spread the facts of the image being phony ○ Worked to share with their followers that it was fake ○ Commitment to diversity ○ Kept their cool ● Prepared for this type of crisis and knew how to communicate effectively ○ Internal team to monitor overall conversations about the brand and products ● Crisis communication plan ● Managing social media is a 24/7 endeavor - customers have high expectations for response and interaction with organizations on social media.

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42$ of customers complaining on social media expect a response within an hour from organizations KitchenAid tweet - embarrassing ○ During the first presidential debate the tweet about Obama’s grandma was posted ■ Instead of his personal account it was accidentally posted to the real account of KitchenAid ■ Head of communications handled the situation quickly and directly ● Apologized directly to president Obama on Twitter with a serious tone American Red Cross ○ Accidentally tweeted to actual page instead of personal ○ Director of social media strategy responded with speed and humor ○ Turned it into a fundraising opportunity ○ Avoid having personal accounts on same device ○ How organization respond’s is crucial Instagram situation with changing guidelines In order to fix these issues the organizations had to carefully respond with ○ Planning ■ Had a plan and prepared for potential situations to react quickly ○ Monitoring ■ Monitoring programs in place to alert them to potential issues ○ Responding quickly ■ Speedy response ○ Setting Tone ■ Joined in on conversation and did not use corporate speak in their responses ■ Appropriate language ○ Addressing the Appropriate Channels ■ Addressed situation and what was happening ○ Putting Together the Common Threads ■ Handle a social media crisis with a good plan in place ■ Engaging Anthony Weiner Scandal ○ Nudes posted on a twitter account ○ Political Firestorm ○ Blamed elsewhere and suggested he had been hacked and joked about it ○ Blamed others and then admitted to the scandal a month later ○ This made him look bad and his response was not taken the right way Chapstick ○ Taken the wrong way ○ Many people view things differently and with a different aesthetic. ○ Level 1 crisis to Level 2 crisis where communications responses were needed ○ It was a non apology apology

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Sandy Hook NRA response ○ Silence of the matter of fact to respond to the situation ○ Disabling its facebook page A copyright gives an originator of a creative work the right to publish it and sell that work A trademark is legally protected words or symbols or certain other distinguishing features representing products or services Infringement involves any violation of the exclusive rights of a copyright or trademark owner. Not understanding the nature of social media is the first common thread - you can learn how to manage it without understanding it. You must be aware of what is going on. It is important to address your audience with the correct use of language and tone Not engaging with users creates challenges for organizations WAtching the timing of response is important Preparation is key in ensuring that the way you react and handle a crisis leads to a positive outcome ○ Important to have a written plan in place ○ Crisis communication plan that can serve as an adjustable blueprint for any situation Every business should have a crisis response team for each department of the business ○ Must factually assess a crisis situation ○ Coordinate a timely response ○ Keep key audiences informed ○ Review the situation after it is resolved ○ Determine how to mitigate future similar issues ○ Final decision rests with CEO One or more spokesperson should be trained to deal with media ○ Role play scenarios and conduct crisis drills regularly ○ Help them really become a team Face to face interaction for crisis response team ○ Central to business operations or place of issue ○ Skype ○ Reviewed and analyzed information comes through ○ Checklist with a written plan Monitoring ○ Monitoring landscape before a crisis happens is critical ○ Environmental scanning - process of gathering, analyzing, and dispensing information for tactical or strategic uses ○ Average lifespan of a tweet is less than an hour ○ Mission control center to monitor all online activities affecting their brand in real time ○ Development stage is a good place to start identifying influencers or where to find them ■ Positive/negative/neutral toward your organization ■ Be able to reach out to these influencers in a crisis

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■ Share information Define a specific desired outcome from the crisis ○ Everyone agrees on what survival means Define your audiences and your relationships with them ○ Good and bad Define your benchmark Measurement criteria ○ Measurable outcomes ○ Performance indicators Measurement tool ○ Surveys, focus groups, etc Analyze results ○ See what is going to make a difference Make changes and measure again ○ If something isn’t working try different things SWOT analysis ○ Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats ○ Inventory of both internal and external strengths and weaknesses of your organization. ○ Crisis response team ○ Important exercise in the planning process ○ What are our organizational strengths? ○ What are the weaknesses of the organization? ○ What opportunities exist in our external environment? ○ What threats to the organization exist in our external environment? ○ Record all ideas verbatim - storyboard - categorize Outrage factor ○ Hazard versus outrage model ○ How much damage a crisis will do to people versus how upset it will make people ○ Hazard is based on facts while outrage is emotional ○ Community outrage is an emotional reaction to a situation, often without full knowledge of the situation ○ Outrage is commonplace on social media ○ Social media is based on emotion Organization’s identity ○ Do not underestimate how angry some people can get toward your organization ○ Create unified user names in social networking platforms ○ Grab negative focused twitter handles, which could be ripe for spoofing Developing Holding Statements ○ Statement gives the basics of who, what, where, how and why ○ Acknowledged that a situation is happening, the organization is aware of it, and action is being taken. ○ Released to all channels, including social media Establishing Notification Systems

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Multiple channels of communications to get information quickly and efficiently More than one channel to reach people within and outside organization Internally you want to use email and intranet to send out information in a crisis Externally the type of industry depends on the notification system...