Logos team blog posts

“You f*&#ing stupid Asian!”

On a sunny afternoon in 2017, a man hurled this insult at me as I was crossing Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, minding my own business. I didn’t take it seriously at the time. It was my second year living in the U.S., and I thought I just had an unlucky day.

However, the longer I have lived in the US, the more I realize that what I encountered that day was just the tip of a devastating iceberg.

I didn’t have an unlucky day. The six Asian women killed in Atlanta nearly two weeks ago weren’t unlucky. Nor was the 84-year-old Korean man killed in San Francisco. Nor the Chinese man stabbed walking home near Manhattan’s Chinatown.

This hatred is real, and it has been real the whole time.

The Forgotten History

The escalation of Anti-Asian hate crimes is neither new, nor the result of isolated incidents. It is a natural consequence of America’s history of neglect for and xenophobia against Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders.

This vague, and almost innate fear of Asians and Asian Americans can be traced back to the “Yellow Peril” period in the late nineteenth century. Across majority white, Western countries, this “Yellow Peril’ imagery was designed to stoke fear of a faceless, nameless existential threat posed by Asian people immigrating to the West. This racist concept centered around the core imagery depicting Asians as, “apes, lesser men, primitives, children, madmen, and beings who possessed special powers.”

A soap advertisement from the 1880s, sub-titled ‘The Chinese Must Go’

 

Since then, Asians and Asian Americans have suffered from lynching, hate crimes, and lawful incarceration and discrimination in the US for more than 100 years. To name a few examples: the 1871 Chinese Massacre, wherein 10% of L.A.’s Chinese American population was killed; the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which prohibited all Chinese immigration to the US; the 1924 Immigration Act, which was a race-based immigration ban against Asians; and Japanese internment between 1942-1946, wherein 120,000 people of Japanese descent were incarcerated in concentration camps.

But Asian Americans’ suffering and contributions to this country have been erased from history, often missing or glossed over in textbooks. This systemic racism and erasure have set the tone for Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders in the United States for generations. No matter how hard we try to fit in or how successful we become, our sense of otherness persists. We don’t belong; we are always the aliens.

There is another insidious effect to this history – the “model minority” myth. The model minority myth, the perception of universal acceptance and success of Asians and Asian Americans, pits us against other people of color who also suffer from systemic racism. The model minority myth also puts the onus on Asian Americans to prove that they are worthy of respect and of being American. Combined, the effects of this myth strengthen and sustain systems of white supremacy.

 

How Chinese American Women Changed U.S. Labor History (Click the image to see the article)

 

“Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

The anguish and sadness I have been feeling in response to anti-Asian hate is personal. I am Asian, Chinese more specifically.

But it’s more than that. I’m devastated because I dream of a world where all people live in dignity, where all people are treated with respect as human beings, and not selectively because they’re “diligent Asian people” or “the good kind of people of color.”

I remember watching The Pursuit of Happyness when I was in high school, and tearing up with a smile when Will Smith said, “If you want something, go get it, period.” That feeling still lingers with me. It was the feeling of hope, of freedom, and of acceptance. It was a feeling associated with a beautiful name – America. That is why I, and many others, came to this country in the first place.

This current state has demonstrated how far we are from that dream. I can’t remember exactly when – as an Asian, immigrant woman – I began to feel fear walking down the street. But since the pandemic started, I have felt more and more reluctant to introduce myself as Chinese. Amidst the rise of anti-Asian and anti-Chinese hate during COVID-19, I worried about how possible bias could cost me professionally. Would I be judged differently than my colleagues by partners, clients, and students? Would such a bias jeopardize professional opportunities and relationships?

Hate is plaguing today’s America. People are dying, being attacked, spit on, and insulted. And we remain divided. Nineteen years later, Rodney King’s words cross my mind quite often: “Can’t we all just get along?”

 

Solidarity

The answer to this rise in hate and violence may be deceptively simple: We must stand in solidarity with one another – with the Asian community, with the black community, with the Latino community, with the indigenous community, with the LGBTQIA community…

The systems of oppression and hate that we face thrive off our division. White supremacy relies on each of our communities that have been oppressed to fight alone and to fight against one another. But when all those who face oppression and our allies stand together, when we fight for one another instead of against each other, when we lift up each other’s struggles rather than tear down and compare our struggles, when we recognize that, as Emma Lazarus said, “until we are all free none of us is free,” we have a chance to make the dream of a better, freer, more just country a reality.

But solidarity cannot be reached without leadership. In darkness, people look to leadership to bring us together and to point us in the direction of light.

For those who lead our government, a cause, or an organization, there is much you can do to stand in solidarity with the Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander community right now. Reach out to the Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islanders on your team, in your network, and in your stakeholder groups to offer support and to demonstrate your care. Remember that trust is built by meeting expectations and fulfilling promises. The common expectation among all people and all groups is that you care. The perception of indifference is the single biggest predictor of a loss of trust and confidence. If people who matter to you expect you to course correct, course correct. If they expect you to speak out on social justice issues, speak out. Show you care. Your demonstration of care doesn’t have to be public, but it does have to be genuine – especially toward and for those people most affected.

However, leadership is a mindset, not a job title. Each of us can be a leader in this work, no matter the size of our platform. Each of us can do our part to stand in solidarity with those who are oppressed, within our circles or beyond. Each of us can build bridges and foster greater understanding, within ourselves and our communities. Each of us can create space for us to share our stories. When we tell our stories, we can build lasting connections that inspire change. No one is born to hate after all. If we can learn hate, we can also learn love.

If you hope for a better future, as I do, then we must stand together and stand up against hate, bigotry, and racism in all its forms.

Nearly every rising business leader can talk to you about their technical skill (read: job) until they (and you) are blue in the face. It’s what they do and what they are good at.

But technical skills, also referred to as “hard skills,” can only get you so far in a competitive environment. That is why accomplished business leaders are committed to strengthening their “soft skills.”

Why soft skills matter

“Soft skills” are those interpersonal and communication skills that help you translate your hard skills to build trust and convince those who matter most to work with you.

Take the Oracle of Omaha, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett. Buffett is one of the most successful investors in the world, and also one of the wealthiest people in the world. He is also one of the best communicators in the world – but that wasn’t always the case.

Early in his career, Buffett learned that he was really good at picking stocks. However, he was also really bad at getting people to care that he was good at picking stocks. This is in part because, at the time, he would simply approach people with the facts: “Here is my investment record.” Simply showing his investment record did not help Buffett convince people to listen to him. He was also afraid of public speaking.

He realized quickly that his business education had failed him for this particular leadership challenge. In a 2019 interview with CNBC, Buffet explained that “in graduate school, you learn all this complicated stuff, but what’s really essential is being able to get others to follow your ideas.”

He knew that he needed to find a course that can help him inspire people to follow his advice and ideas. Therefore, in 1952 he enrolled in the Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking, Leadership Training, and the Art of Winning Friends and Influencing People. In the course, Buffett was put through a variety of seemingly crazy and uncomfortable tasks. But when he left that course, he was equipped with powerful soft skills to help him advance in his career. And they did.

Buffett attributes much of his success to his investment in building these skills and to this day, he displays his certificate of completion for this course in his office.

Buffett understood that to get people to follow your ideas, you need to invest in building up your soft skills, including the ability to communicate effectively. “If you’re a salesperson, you want people to follow your advice. If you’re a management leader, you want them to follow you in business,” Buffett explained to CNBC. “Whatever you do, good communication skills are incredibly important and something that almost anybody can improve upon, both in writing and speaking.”

Two years ago, Buffett returned to his alma mater and addressed the graduating class of Columbia Business School. During his remarks, he explained that you can improve your personal value in the marketplace by 50% if you invest in the soft skills.

Our team at Logos couldn’t agree more. We have seen time and again how a person’s ability to inspire, explain, and motivate helps them advance more quickly in their careers and become a stronger leader.

The key lesson

Hard skills are not enough to advance in your career. If you want to succeed, grow, and advance in your career and leadership, invest in the soft skills.

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Did you find this article helpful? Sign up for one of our Logos Learning Center webinars, where you can learn more about how you can reach your leadership potential. Learn more at www.logos-consutling.biz.

Reach out today for personalized coaching by visiting www.logosconsulting.net or email the author directly at [email protected].

 

About Maida K. Zheng

Maida is an Advisor at Logos Consulting Group and a Senior Fellow at the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership, where she helps corporate leaders maximize presence and enhance communication skills to become more effective in managing both their reputations and relationships. She also serves as the Chief of Client Services.

About Logos Consulting Group

Leaders change the world. But they don’t do it alone. They ignite others toward a common cause.

At Logos Consulting Group, we believe in this world and we see this world in the work that we do. Our mission is to build a better world by equipping people to become leaders who ignite change in the world for the good.

We do this by helping our clients inspire those who matter to them to make a difference in their own industries and communities, and the world at large. We advise and coach our clients in three key areas: crisis managementcrisis communication; and executive coaching.

 

The Feeling

For most of us, the days start the same way. You turn over, turn off your alarm, and then check your phone or email notifications.

Most of the time, the notifications you find are the typical daily intrusions or distractions.

But imagine this. One day you read the email, urgent text chain, social media feed, or news story and you discover that your organization has found itself in a crisis that has the potential to jeopardize the future of the organization. A future you and your colleagues have worked so hard to create.

Maybe it is a crisis you had foreseen.

Maybe it takes you completely by surprise.

But in that first moment, you feel the walls coming down around you. For many, a heavy feeling hits them in the gut and weight compresses their chest. A question inevitably sets in:

What are we going to do?

The feelings of fear and desperation are real. In that initial moment, panic quickly sets in and it may feel like the end of the world.

That feeling is okay. In fact, it is natural. In another blog, I will explain the neuroscience behind what’s happening to your brain and your body, and why you feel what you feel during a crisis, including the immediate inability to make rational decisions. (Check back on our site for the release of this blog.)

In the meantime, I’d like to talk through some things you can focus on right now, so you know how to move past that initial flash of panic and gain ability to make decisions. The goal is that in that moment of crisis you are able to move forward and respond to what is happening calmly, clearly, and effectively.

The key to doing so is readiness.

Readiness

Readiness determines how an organization responds to a crisis. The common misconception is that the severity of the inciting incident determines the response. However, when properly prepared and applying the right mindset, your level of readiness will be the deciding factor of whether or not the organization will get through a crisis unscathed and stronger than before.

Most organizations have some structures of operational readiness to respond to a crisis. But the truth is that well-built structures alone are not enough in moments of crisis. That is why so many companies that have well-built structures of operational readiness still fail to respond to a crisis effectively and suffer meaningful harm as a result.

The key is combining operational readiness with mental readiness.

Mental Readiness

Effective crisis response is a combination of both operational readiness and mental readiness. This combination equates to the ability to make smart choices quickly and execute them well in a crisis. Mental readiness helps people faced with crises respond calmly, think clearly, and make smart choices when it matters most.

Mental readiness consists of three parts:

Emotional Discipline. The ability to regulate your emotions to execute decisions well in moments of crisis. In a crisis, making smart choices in timely ways is not always easy. Sometimes there is no good choice, free of pain or discomfort. Sometimes there is only the least bad choice, which may involve discomfort to you but will ultimately serve your stakeholders (those who matter to your organization) the most. Discipline and practice is required to remain calm and make the difficult, but necessary choices.

Deep Knowledge. The understanding of the patterns that drive effective and ineffective crisis response, including why some actions always work while some other actions never work. By studying as many different crises as possible, you are able to learn from others’ mistakes without having to live those mistakes yourself.

Intellectual Rigor. The ability to think clearly and ask the right questions in the right order in order to identify the problem accurately and understand the best course of action forward. The ability to remain focused and ask the right questions, rather than letting distraction take hold, enables you to make smart choices quickly.

By building your mental readiness for moments of crisis, you will be able to foresee crises that are foreseeable. You will be able to assess unforeseen crises and respond effectively as they arise. And you will be able to move past that initial moment of panic when the crisis breaks to lead your team through what needs to happen next.

This is part of a series of blogs on crisis response principles. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series.

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Did you find this article helpful? Sign up for one of our Logos Learning Center webinars, where you can learn more about how you can reach your leadership potential. Learn more at www.logos-consutling.biz.

Reach out today for personalized coaching by visiting www.logosconsulting.net or email the author directly at [email protected].


About Maida Kalić Zheng

Maida is an Advisor at Logos Consulting Group and a Senior Fellow at the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership, where she helps corporate leaders maximize presence and enhance communication skills to become more effective in managing both their reputations and relationships. She also serves as the Chief of Client Services.

 

 

About Logos Consulting Group

Leaders change the world. But they don’t do it alone. They ignite others toward a common cause. At Logos Consulting Group, we believe in this world and we see this world in the work that we do. Our mission is to build a better world by equipping people to become leaders who ignite change in the world for the good. We do this by helping our clients inspire those who matter to them to make a difference in their own industries and communities, and the world at large. We advise and coach our clients in three key areas: crisis managementcrisis communication; and executive coaching.

The Dilemma

If you are a communication professional, then you have probably experienced that moment of frustration when you’ve given vitally important advice to your boss, but it landed on deaf ears or they didn’t seem to be interested at all in what you had to say. You may also know that feeling when the event or consequence you warned the boss about actually happens, and then you have to scramble and try to fix something that was completely preventable.

This frustration is common in the communication field and explainable. In some instances, the boss simply doesn’t know what you do. In others, they may think that they know what you do but they couldn’t be more wrong. This misalignment often leads to you being marginalized in your role and doing work that does not capitalize on your professional capabilities. For some communication professionals that can mean becoming a glorified speech writer or copy editor; for others it means planning company events or posting what others write on the company website. But for all – the frustration is real.

The Good News

The good news is that this is preventable (assuming you have a reasonable boss who wants to do well). Part of the challenge for communication professionals is that we often become our own worst enemy. As professional communicators we tend to focus on the communication itself and in the process fail to speak to the direct concerns of our boss.

To win a seat at the table and get your boss to listen to you, communication professionals should keep in mind the following mantra:

It isn’t about the communication. It is about the effect of the communication.

One of the sad realities is that as communicators, we know that communication is a rigorous, strategic discipline. But the word ‘communication’ itself is confusing. Because if you think of communication as reading, writing, and speaking – well, we’ve all been doing that our whole lives, so we must be very good at it and your boss probably feels the same way.

“The true value of a professional communicator is not that we can string words and sentences together and get them out into the right hands,” explains Helio Fred Garcia, the president of Logos Consulting Group.“The value of the communicator is that we can influence those who matter to our bosses to feel, think, know, or do something they otherwise would not.”

Predictive Ability

One way communication professionals can think about what they do is to understand their role as “applied anthropologists.”

This idea was first espoused by the father of public relations, Edward L. Bernays. Bernays explained in Crystallizing Public Opinion, “Public relations is a vocation applied by a social scientist who advises a client or employer on social attitudes and the actions to take to win support of the public upon whom the viability of the client depends.” In other words, the professional communicator shapes the opinions of those they try to influence.

Nearly a century after this book was published, the idea of the communication professionals’ function as an applied social scientist still holds true. With this concept in mind, the communicator understands the social and power relationships within groups and among groups. And the applied part of anthropologists is that the communication professional knows how to then engage any given group to secure a predictable outcome.

“As professional communicators our job is to predict the future – to know the reaction and counter reaction to everything we do,” said Garcia. “If we subject this group to stimulus A for example, then we can predict how they will react, and to stimulus B…to stimulus C…and so on.”

This predictive ability is the value that communication professionals can bring to the table. Therefore, if you want the boss to listen to you, you need to demonstrate this predictive ability when you give advice to your boss.

It is not enough to say, “We need to release this statement.” The key is to focus on the outcome you seek, and then lay out the steps required to move those who matter to your boss to think, feel, know, and do what is necessary to reach that desired outcome. The strategic discipline to keep in mind, however, is that we must never make communication decisions on personal preference, but rather on the desired reaction and outcome.

The more you as a communication professional can show that you can predict the future and provoke the desired action to reach a desired outcome, the more respected your function will be and the more likely your boss will invite you to take a coveted seat at the table.

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This week, the Logos Consulting Group launched our new online learning platform, the Logos Learning Center. The Logos Learning Center is designed to help everyone bolster their leadership skills so that they can ignite and inspire those who matter to them to create positive change in the world.

Below, we answer some basic questions about the Logos Learning Center to help you understand more about this online learning platform, why we created it, and how it can help you on your leadership journey.

 

WHAT IS THE LOGOS LEARNING CENTER?

An initiative of Logos Consulting Group, the Logos Learning Center provides online interactive workshops on a variety of leadership skill sets to help people advance at any stage of their leadership journey. The Center is just one way that Logos is working to fulfill its core mission: to equip people to become leaders who ignite and inspire change in the world for the good. The Center offers high-quality and highly interactive workshops on a variety of leadership skill sets to help our learners reach their leadership potential.

 

WHY DID YOU CREATE THE LOGOS LEARNING CENTER?

The COVID-19 pandemic turned our world upside down. In many ways, this global crisis highlighted the challenges leaders face and the skills required to lead effectively. We recognized an opportunity to help leaders and aspiring leaders from every walk of life to meet the challenges of the day in a 100% virtual form. And we developed and delivered workshops to organizations, groups, clients, and our network to help them better understand the dynamics of the crisis and manage and communicate effectively.

 

WHO IS THE LOGOS LEARNING CENTER FOR?

We know that leadership is a mindset, not a job title. Anyone who is willing to put in the work can become a leader who ignites and inspires others to action. Whether you are a seasoned executive, an emerging leader looking to supercharge the rest of your career, or just starting out and finding your professional path, the Logos Learning Center can help you develop the mindset and skills you need to create the change you seek. The Logos Learning Center is also 100% virtual, ensuring that learning can happen right at home, from your office, or anywhere across the globe.

 

HOW IS THE LEARNING CENTER DIFFERENT FROM THE WORK YOU DO WITH CLIENTS?

At Logos, we help our clients inspire those who matter to them to make a difference in their own industries and communities, and the world at large. Our work with clients is highly customized and tailored to meet our clients’ specific needs, with relationships spanning long periods of time. However, the Learning Center provides new opportunities to share our knowledge, lived experience, industry insights, and best practices to people at any stage of their leadership journey and at an accessible price.

 

WHAT COURSES DOES THE LOGOS LEARNING CENTER OFFER?

The Logos Learning Center combines decades of experience and expertise from our instructors and in-depth research on many areas of leadership to deliver a high-quality and high value learning experience at an affordable price. Our online workshops focus on essential leadership skills help our learners navigate and respond to the leadership challenges of the day. We provide workshops, videos, and learning materials on skill sets essential to effective leadership, including a variety of offerings on leadership communication and crisis management. We also offer timely courses relevant to what’s happening in the world right now to help you navigate emerging situations and challenges facing you and your organization today. For our list of upcoming workshops, please click here.

 

WHAT CAN I EXPECT OF THE VIRTUAL IN-CLASS EXPERIENCE?

Interaction is an essential part of the learning process and our workshops are built to include high-level engagement for our learners. Our team of instructors come from a diversity of professional backgrounds, which enriches our offerings, allows our learners to connect more fully with us, and inspires new ways of thinking about how to tackle everyday leadership challenges.

All of our Logos team members are experienced teachers in a variety of leadership disciplines. Several of our team members are adjunct faculty members and visiting professors in undergraduate and graduate programs across the country and around the world. We also invite industry experts and leaders from other disciplines to teach or guest lecture in specialized workshops on a variety of other leaderships skills. Our learners are also encouraged to continue engaging with us after a workshop ends, and as they take the skills learned in our workshops and apply them in their professional life.

 

WHEN ARE CLASSES AND HOW DO I SIGN UP?

Our online workshops are designed with the working professional and learner in mind. The majority of our workshops are offered on a variety of days and times, allowing convenient access for our students to find the right time to take a class in the midst of their busy schedules. Learn more our upcoming workshops and sign up here.

 

Wherever you are on your leadership journey, we are here to help you bolster your leadership skills to create the change you seek. We hope you will join us!

PS: If you have questions about the Logos Learning Center, please email us at [email protected].

The year 2020 will go down in the history books forever.

This year is riddled with so much emotion. (It has all of the elements of perfect storytelling; I have a feeling there is enough trauma, drama, ridiculousness, and entertainment here that someone may even make a Broadway play out of it many years from now. Who knows?)

But in all seriousness, I want to start this blog post by channeling my inner Brené Brown and acknowledge that I don’t really know what to say, nor do I have all the answers. The fact is that so many of us – too many of us – have endured pain, loss, heartbreak, and unfathomable change over the course of 2020. There is nothing I can say to make that pain go away. All I hope I can do is acknowledge that what you are feeling is real and hope you know that it is okay to feel whatever you may be feeling.

As we enter the new year, we don’t quite know what will come next. But we do know that as more and more people get the COVID-19 vaccine, we can start to reimagine how we will move forward and thrive in 2021.

In reflecting on this past year, our team at Logos Consulting Group thought about the biggest lessons learned in 2020 and what the most important skills will be in 2021.  Here are the five key skills we identified:

Be Ready to Adapt

Near the beginning of the COVID pandemic, my teammate Katie Garcia talked about the importance of adaption. She said, “our ability to adapt is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.” She added that we need to be on, “adaptation alert as circumstances change, and when the pandemic finally ends, organizations must be prepared to adapt yet again in a post-COVID-19 world, whatever that will look like.”

Regardless of what lies ahead, we need to tackle it with the resiliency that has helped us through this past year. (Read more about adaptability here).

Be Prepared

Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Good planning is an iterative process that helps us understand first and foremost the problem we are dealing with, as well as the risks. Good planning encourages us to take risks seriously. Good planning helps us foresee the foreseeable and be ready to tackle the unforeseeable. Good planning helps us adapt. And good planning prepares us for the pain when we realize that we didn’t plan enough.

2020 has taught us the necessity of good preparation, even in the face of the unknown. As we enter a new year, we need to be ready to tackle what is to come and take the pain when it is needed.

Be Authentic

As we look to lead our people in 2021, we need to be present, consistent, and authentic for our teams – in our behaviors, and with the signals we send.

Leadership expert Dr. Patrick Donahue talks about authenticity in his new book: The Power of Genuine Leadership: How Authentic Leaders Earn Trust. One of the key lessons in his book is that authenticity without guidelines is irresponsible; that authenticity without empathy is careless; and that humility is much more than a willingness to be vulnerable. To build trust requires authenticity, and authenticity is a combination of consistent communication, consistent coaching, and consistent respect over time. (You can read more about his new book by clicking here).

We need to be authentic as we face and lead through the uncertainty before us. And that requires both authenticity and empathy. As Dr. Donahue notes, “There is a common denominator between being a leader in the corporate world and in athletics – you need to be there for your team.”

Sometimes being there for your team means being there from the bench. Hall of Fame Soccer player, Abby Wambach said, “if you’re not a leader on the bench, then you’re not a leader on the field.” Be authentic and there for your team.

Practice Empathy

To empathize is to feel with someone. To be there for our team and for those we lead, we need to feel with them through the hurdles we will face in 2021.

Brené Brown talks to us about the nature of empathy in the animated video below. She reminds us that true empathy is the ability to connect with someone’s emotions, even if we may not have experienced the same struggle the other person is facing.

One of the things we saw time and again this year was the power of empathy in leaders and organizations. A good example of this analyzed by another one of my teammates, Yinnan Shen. Yinnan highlighted the empathy and leadership demonstrated by Arne Sorenson, the Marriott President and CEO when he delivered incredibly tough news to his employees around COVID-19. (You can read the article here).

If we want to show our people that we care for and are there for them, empathy is essential.

Empathy is the lifeblood of connection.

Stay Connected

2020 demonstrated to us the significance of connection and the toxicity of division. Recovery will not come unless we unite people together around a common goal.

2021 will require us to be connected (both literally and figuratively).

While many of us are burnt out from back-to-back Zoom meetings and jonesing to regroup in person as soon as possible, we need to remember that 2021 will be another year of change.

Next year, we must maintain connection to those who matter most to us, the corporate world calls them our stakeholders, at home we call them family.

We must find innovative ways to sustain and build connection while some people are able to regroup in person, while others are not yet able to. This means being prepared to adjust business plans (once again) and being prepared to flex your empathy muscle, because your people will need to know they are still connected to you and what you represent.

We don’t exactly know what will come next, but I have a feeling that 2021 will be a great year. And I hope you do too.

 

 

On Thursday December 10, Logos Institute Press held a virtual celebration for the launch of its third title, The Power of Genuine Leadership: How Authentic Leaders Earn Trust by Patrick Donahue PhD. It is also the third title in the Logos Institute Best Practices Series.

Over forty of Patrick’s friends, former and current colleagues, and family attended the online event, which included a live Q&A with the author and remarks from special guest speakers representing different eras of the author’s career and leadership legacy.

One special guest speaker, Kerry Burrell, was a student athlete on the men’s basketball team at Bradley University where Patrick was an assistant coach. Kerry shared how, after one particularly bad game, Patrick stayed late into the night with him to practice his shooting. “I still call you Coach D, because you’re a life coach, and thank you for impacting my life,” Kerry said.

Another guest speaker, Liz Krumsee, was one of Patrick’s early hires at the global pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly. Liz read from a letter she wrote to Patrick over a decade ago, when he was transitioning to a new role at the company: “Every leader is telling a story about what he or she values. Your values and actions are consistently aligned, and your story’s theme is clear: integrity, team, family, authenticity, loyalty, and respect. To learn from you, all I had to do was observe. Thank you, Pat, for your leadership.”

The author also shared his reflections on what he learned through the process of writing his first book, and what his book’s biggest contributions are. “Something that I learned over the course of writing this book is that you can always learn more,” said Patrick. “Staying curious is really motivating, and important.” He also noted how all of his guest speakers mentioned the book’s emphasis on consistency. “Sometimes just a simple thing like consistency is really the game changer. As a leader, if you stay consistent with your behaviors, people really appreciate that. They want to come in everyday and know what they’re going to get.”

The Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership stands at the intersection of scholarship and practice, providing rigorous analysis and practical application of key leadership principles. It is in this same spirit that the Institute’s publishing imprint Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership Press was created, to produce written material to help clients and students build their own capacity for leadership and effective communication, in crisis and other high-stakes situations. You can purchase your copy of the Power of Genuine Leadership today by clicking here.

On November 4, the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership Press published the third title in its Best Practices Series, The Power of Genuine Leadership: How Authentic Leaders Earn Trust by Patrick Donahue, PhD. The Power of Genuine Leadership draws upon Donahue’s doctoral research on the relationship between trust and authenticity, as well as his decades of experience working as a senior executive in leadership development at two global corporations.

The Power of Genuine Leadership is an accessible, clear guide on how to effectively – and measurably – build trust and enhance one’s leadership ability. “It can take a lifetime to earn a reputation of being a great leader, which is earned through consistent behavior over time,” says Donahue. “This book makes a complicated concept easier to digest through models, stories, assessments, and applicable tools.”

Donahue’s research reveals the true power of behavioral consistency as an essential yet under-appreciated driver of trust. His Authenticity Trust Model (ATM) helps readers visualize the relationships among the behavioral components that, when applied consistently, create deeper trust: communication, coaching, and respect.

Of the many valuable learnings in Donahue’s book, perhaps his most insightful, is that authenticity without guidelines is irresponsible; that authenticity without empathy is careless; and that humility is much more than a willingness to be vulnerable. Readers can assess their leadership strengths and development areas using the Authenticity Trust Assessment (ATA), which can be taken time and again to track progress and compare results for deeper analysis.

“With so many books, articles and webpages clamoring for our attention, it’s hard to decide what’s ‘worth the time.’ As a leadership professional, I can tell you, this book is a winner,” says Darryl Spivey of the Center of Creative Leadership. “Dr. Donahue captures the stories of leaders and their impact on people. The engaging anecdotes are entertaining and readable, but interwoven with valuable lessons of introspection, laser focus and excellence. It’s a quick, valuable and important book for leaders.”

The Power of Genuine Leadership is the third volume in the Logos Institute Best Practices Series. The Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership stands at the intersection of scholarship and practice, providing rigorous analysis and practical application of key leadership principles. The Logos Institute Best Practices Series showcases conceptual frameworks that help clarify complex issues, combined with insightful case studies, examples, and actionable tools, tips, and techniques that help leaders make smart choices and build competitive advantage.

“In each of the companies where I have had the privilege to have Patrick as a client, I have watched Patrick as he created leadership learning opportunities for high-potential future leaders from around the world,” says Publisher Helio Fred Garcia. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share Patrick’s insights into the relationship between authenticity and trust with the broader world.”

The Power of Genuine Leadership is available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.com. Logos Institute Press is hosting a virtual book launch event on Thursday, December 10 at 5:00 pm EST, where attendees will have the opportunity to hear from the publisher, the author, and endorsers of the book. If you have not received an invitation or would like to request one, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/logos-institute-press-book-launch-for-the-power-of-genuine-leadership-tickets-129244719435?ref=estwhttps://www.eventbrite.com/preview?eid=129244719435

Many crises are not foreseeable, but civil unrest after the election is and leaders and organization should prepare for this.

On Monday, October 19, Logos president Helio Fred Garcia presented a pre-conference briefing on how to foresee the foreseeable and be ready for it when it happens around the US election at the Professional Speechwriters Association’s World Conference.

During this session, Garcia helped attendees understand a mindset to help leaders think through what to do and say ahead of election day, how to organize their thinking (and schedule) for various Election-Day scenarios, and how to prepare for and respond to five possible scenarios for what might happen immediately after the election.

Watch the full webinar here:

By: Helio Fred Garcia @garciahf and Maida K. Zheng @maidazheng
Logos Consulting Group

“I call the head of Exxon. I don’t know, you know, ‘How are you doing? How’s energy coming? When are you doing the exploration? Oh, you need a couple of permits?'” Trump told supporters at a rally in Arizona on Monday. “I say, ‘You know, I’d love [for] you to send me $25 million for the campaign.’ ‘Absolutely sir, why didn’t you ask? Would you like some more?’”

This quote, as reported by the Washington Post is important for several reasons.

What President Trump suggested was not only a possible violation of federal law, (we can save that for another time) – he, in one statement, put Exxon Mobile in a reputational crisis while at the same time signaling big organizations that he would be happy to accept large campaign donations and that he would “wink, wink, wink” take care of them later. Trump’s tendency to imply a connection is a pattern that Helio Fred Garcia describes more fully in his book: Words on Fire: The Power of Incendiary Language and How to Confront It.

From a crisis management perspective, the first rule is to fully understand the risk, and to mitigate that risk quickly. In this case, the risk is that someone might interpret the comment as referring to an actual call with the Exxon CEO, who would then seem compromised.

The crisis communication strategy is to take control of the narrative and obtain the first mover advantage. If you don’t have the first mover advantage, you must respond and take control of the narrative within the “Golden Hour of Crisis Response,” a metaphor from emergency medicine. The Golden Hour refers not to a particular period of time, but to the observation that incremental delays in responding to a crisis – whether a medical emergency, a flood, or a more routine corporate setback – has greater than incremental impact on the outcome.

However, if an organization is first to define the nature of the crisis, its motives, and its actions, as Exxon Mobil did here, the result is that the organization will likely demonstrate caring and end up controlling the narrative. By capturing the first mover advantage, Exxon also deprived their adversaries of the chance to form a harmful narrative against the organization.

Upon hearing the statement from President Trump, Exxon Mobil immediately responded, posting on Twitter that, “We are aware of the President’s statement regarding a hypothetical call with our CEO…and just so we’re all clear, it never happened.”

This was an important and timely move on Exxon’s part. They named it a hypothetical call, thereby defining the nature of the crisis. And they made clear that the call never happened. If they hadn’t acted as quickly and clearly, they would have lost control of the narrative, leading to negative consequences.

Effective Crisis Response as a Competitive Advantage

Effective crisis response is a competitive advantage; ineffective crisis response causes a competitive disadvantage and can even put an enterprise’s existence into jeopardy.

Whether an organization survives a crisis with its reputation, operations, and financial condition intact is determined less by the severity of the crisis than by the timeliness and effectiveness of the response.

Two Oxford University researchers demonstrated the extent to which effective and ineffective crisis response affects a company’s enterprise value.[1] Rory F. Knight and Deborah J. Pretty studied the stock price performance of prominent publicly-traded corporations that had suffered significant crises. They calculated each company’s stock price performance attributable to the crisis – stripping out market movements and other factors unrelated to the crisis that might have affected the stock price, and thus calculated what they called the ‘‘cumulative abnormal returns’’ for each company.

Knight and Pretty found that companies that mishandled crises saw their stock price (calculated as cumulative abnormal returns) plummet an average of ten percent in the first weeks after a crisis, and continue to slide for a year, ending the year after the crisis an average of 15 percent below their pre-crisis prices.

Companies with effective crisis response, on the other hand, saw their stock fall an average (cumulative abnormal returns) of just 5 percent in the weeks following a crisis, about half the initial decline of companies that mishandled the crisis. More significant, companies with effective crisis response saw their stock price recover quickly, and remain above their pre-crisis price thereafter, closing an average of 7 percent above their pre-crisis price one year after the crisis (Exhibit 1).

In other words, the tangible difference between effective and ineffective crisis response was, on average, 22 percent of a company’s market capitalization. Knight and Pretty assess the reasons for this disparity and conclude that the most significant factors are not the scope of financial damage or reduction in cash flows caused by the crisis. Rather, the most important determinant of a company’s ability to recover and increase its market capitalization after a crisis is the management team’s response. Knight and Pretty conclude that positive stock performance:

“. . . springs from what catastrophes reveal about management skills not hitherto reflected in value. A re-evaluation of management by the stock market is likely to result in a re-assessment of the firm’s future cash flows in terms of both magnitude and confidence. This in turn will have potentially large implications for shareholder value. Management is placed in the spotlight and has an opportunity to demonstrate its skill or otherwise in an extreme situation.” [2]

Exhibit 1: Effective vs Ineffective Crisis response

Source: Knight and Pretty (1997)

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Lessons of the Past

Looking to a relevant historical example, Exxon suffered immense reputational and organizational damage following its ineffective crisis response during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Exxon suffered significant loss of reputation and eventually a great deal of financial loss – because the public perceived that its primary concern was not the harm that the spill caused.

Fifteen years after the spill a federal appeals court upheld a lower court judgment of $4.5 billion against the company (in addition to the more than $3 billion it had previously paid for cleanup and related costs). The Court said its purpose in upholding the award was to achieve ‘‘retribution and justice.’’ The New York Timesopined that such a judgment and such a purpose were entirely appropriate given Exxon’s seeming indifference in the initial phase of the spill.[3]

This perception of indifference is the single largest contributor harm in the aftermath of a crisis, especially when there are victims.

Companies, governments, and leaders are forgiven when bad things happen. But they won’t be forgiven if they’re seen not to care that bad things have happened. This is a lesson that many leaders fail to understand or to act on in the initial early phases of a crisis.

Exxon’s early response to the Exxon Valdez spill demonstrated lack of both situational awareness and self-awareness. They also demonstrated a lack of leadership discipline and command focus. In both cases leaders fell into one of the common missteps in a crisis: denial. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch describes the need to get past denial quickly. In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece soon after the flood, Welch said:

“One of the marks of good leadership is the ability to dispense with denial quickly and face into the hard stuff with eyes open and fists raised. With particularly bad crises facing them, good leaders also define reality, set direction, and inspire people to move forward. Just think of… Churchill during World War II. Denial doesn’t exactly come to mind – a forthright, calm, fierce boldness does.”

Effective leaders demonstrate this forthright, calm, and fierce boldness early. They see crisis response not as an interruption in their stewardship of a company, but as the test of that stewardship. And as the exodus of CEOs in 2004 and 2005 showed, ignoring a crisis won’t make it go away, but it may result in the CEO going away.

It seems that Exxon has learned this valuable lesson because on Monday, Exxon’s stocks were XOM, -1.99%, and after providing the clarification, their stock rose to 0.69%. The numbers don’t lie, and reputation management is indicative of the numbers being reflected in the stock market.

Guidance for Leadership

Exxon clearly learned from its crisis response failures around the Exxon Valdez spilled. Exxon — now known as Exxon Mobil, was ready when Trump put the company and its CEO in the media and social media cross-hairs.

So, what can CEO’s do when faced with a crisis? Here is a CEO checklist for crisis response preparedness:

  1. Have a clear sense of what constitutes a crisis, and know how to mobilize energy and resources quickly:
  • Develop an early warning mechanism/rapid response capability.
  • Designate a senior executive as responsible for crisis preparedness and response.
  • Make this executive accountable and provide sufficient resources to conduct a thorough analysis of vulnerabilities, crisis response strategies, and crisis implementation.
  • Pre-authorize this executive to take initial response steps without going through usual corporate approval processes.
  • Test the system with wargames, tabletop exercises, and other processes that challenge leaders to make tough decisions and act quickly.
  1. Remember that the best plan won’t help if executives don’t know what to do or when do it. Recognize when business as usual needs to be suspended. A quick test:
  • Will those who matter to us expect us to do or say something now?
  • Will silence be seen by our stakeholders as indifference or as an affirmation of guilt?
  • Are others talking about us now, thereby shaping the perception of us among those who matter to us; is there reason to believe they will be soon?
  • If we wait do we lose the ability to determine the outcome?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then it is time to respond. If the answer to all four is no, then you have time to monitor the situation and prepare a response in case any of those answers change to a ‘yes.’

  1. Control the agenda: don’t let the media, adversaries, or the rumor mill define your situation.
  2. Keep in mind the Golden Hour of crisis response: incremental delays cause greater-than-incremental harm to reputation.
  3. Remember your stakeholders. What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible organization to do when faced with this? The answer to this question should guide your response.
  4. Develop messages and tactics with a goal in mind: How do you want your key stakeholders to think and feel, and what do you want them to know and do?
  5. In a crisis, assure both self-awareness and situational awareness:
  • Coordinate all functions of the crisis response with frequent meetings/conference calls.
  • Correct mistakes early.
  • Understand what your stakeholders, adversaries, the media, and others are saying about you.
  • Keep your focus on the goal: influencing stakeholders. Decisions become clear when you keep your stakeholders in mind.

[1] The Impact of Catastrophes on Shareholder Value: A Research Report Sponsored by Sedgwick Group, by Rory F. Knight and Deborah J. Pretty, The Oxford Executive Research Briefings, Templeton College, Oxford, 1997.

[2] Knight, R.F. and Pretty, D.J., ibid., p. 7.

[3]‘‘Time for Exxon to pay,’’ Editorial, The New York Times, January 30, 2004, p. A24.