by Jacqui | Jul 18, 2023 | Issues / Crisis Management
In July, the WHO made noise about aspartame as a carcinogen. This isn’t the first time asparatme has been the subject of controversy, nor will it be the last. The truth is that if we look hard enough we can find any number of carcinogens in our food supply. The...
by Jacqui | Oct 19, 2020 | Issues / Crisis Management, Leadership
Especially in times of crisis when speed and accuracy are of paramount important, it is critical that your message can be delivered through layers of the organization without misinterpretation. In other words make your message ‘media proof”. Inside the...
by Jacqui | Oct 5, 2020 | Issues / Crisis Management, Uncategorized
In my book, Stuff Happens, I use the resilience cycle to demonstrate that organizations need to be in a continuous cycle of preparation, management and recovery to become resilient. Crises have lifecycles. Being able to communicate effectively with stakeholders...
by Jacqui | Mar 31, 2020 | Ideas and Musings, Issues / Crisis Management
Often those who live outside North America think that Canadians and Americans are the same. The COVID19 pandemic is a stark example of how different we really are. My friend, Pierre Pettigrew summed it up for me one day like this: Canada = Peace, order, and good...
by Jacqui | Sep 26, 2017 | Issues / Crisis Management
Most of us who deal with crisis management are adrenalin junkies. Nothing gets us more energized than pitching in to deal with the immediacy of the crisis. Team cohesiveness and management is critically important in a crisis. The team will develop a bunker mentality...
by Jacqui | Sep 19, 2017 | Issues / Crisis Management
Preparing for a crisis can feel like a daunting task. But, what if I were to tell you that you can get a good head start in the time it takes to have a coffee break? Would you give it a try? Since you decided to read more, I will take your answer as a “yes”. Grab...
by Jacqui | Sep 12, 2017 | Issues / Crisis Management
It should not surprise anyone that hurricane season is upon us – it happens every year. What is surprising is that it takes the devastation of a hurricane to make the people who live in those regions take preventive measures seriously. Businesses and organizations...
by Jacqui | Sep 5, 2017 | Issues / Crisis Management
When a crisis strikes, there isn’t much time to formulate a response. That’s why I advocate a pro-active preparation strategy to help you absorb the shock faster and take action. Like most communications strategies, responding to a crisis involves reaching and...
by Jacqui | Aug 15, 2017 | Issues / Crisis Management
The number of reporters has dwindled. The number of negative Tweets has decreased dramatically. You have returned from the war room to your regular desk. So, is the crisis over? No! The underlying issues are far from gone. Now you face the legal battles and the...
by Jacqui | Aug 1, 2017 | Communication Tactics, Issues / Crisis Management
When an organization is facing an issue or a crisis, emotions are running high. I’ve been there when the proverbial sh***t hits the fan. Trust me there’s lots of emotion involved. The leaders I have worked with generally turn their initial emotion into...
by Jacqui | Jul 18, 2017 | Communication Skills, Issues / Crisis Management
I don’t subscribe to National Geographic although after reading a friend’s copy of the June 2017 issue, I may. The feature article is an in-depth treatise about lying and why we do it. So, what were my key takeaways as a communicator? Lying is a very human thing to...
by Jacqui | Jun 6, 2017 | Issues / Crisis Management
I am currently writing a book on issues/crisis management, so I have been doing a lot of thinking about the topic. What I have come to realize is that issues management is really a cycle: prepare, manage, recover and repeat. Since this is a cycle, people and...
by Jacqui | Dec 13, 2016 | Issues / Crisis Management
Reputation management is a particular passion for me. I help my clients become reputation resilient by thinking about how they will prevent incidents, mitigate damage and rebuild their reputation. Here are 10 tips for reputation management from Jamie Watt from...
by Jacqui | Nov 1, 2016 | Issues / Crisis Management
Sometimes communications is like first aid. We arrive on scene after something terrible has or is expected to happen and we are expected to apply “communications band aids” to the problem that will make it go away. Of course, professional communicators have the...
by Jacqui | Oct 25, 2016 | Issues / Crisis Management
Recently, I met with a colleague who wanted to prepare his organization for issues management/crisis communications. It is something every organization should do but it isn’t really much fun to think about disasters and it doesn’t sell widgets, so it often gets put on...
by Jacqui | Oct 18, 2016 | Issues / Crisis Management
On July 6, 2013, a horrific train derailment in the quiet Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic killed 47 people and destroyed the downtown core of the town. One week after the disaster, the Chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway company ‘s (MMA), Ed...
by Jacqui | Sep 27, 2016 | Issues / Crisis Management
Some people make errors in judgement – the world is very quick to judge them and slow to forgive. So what is my advice to the person caught in the act? Apologizing, a Canadian pastime, is a start but there are some rules and the reality is that restoring your...
by Jacqui | Jul 19, 2016 | Issues / Crisis Management
What constitutes a communication mistake? Is it misrepresenting the facts, disparaging individuals or groups, or not responding to issues? In today’s world of instantaneous communications, the world is very quick to judge and slow to forgive. So what is my...
