Logos team blog posts

A Tale of Two Leaders: Cuomo v Trump

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Leaders are judged based on how they deal with their biggest challenges.

In the COVID-19 crisis we see a contrast of leaders so stark that it can serve as a leadership laboratory for future generations to study.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo shows a steady, compassionate, and urgent tone as he informs New Yorkers and the broader world about the reality of COVID-19 in his state. His briefings are direct, honest, consistent, and clear. He sprinkles his commentary with expressions of concern for health workers and hospital patients, he invokes his parents, his brother, and his daughters. And he tells the truth.

President Donald Trump, on the other hand, shows none of these qualities. He bungled the first two months of the pandemic in the U.S. He denied the severity of the virus and downplayed the risk of contagion. He alternates between the rosy – churches full at Easter – and the gloomy – social distancing for much longer. There is still not a whole-of-government response. Rather, there are fragments of a government response. He leaves it to governors to figure out supply chains, even as governors confess that they’re bidding against each other – and the federal government – to secure desperately-needed medical equipment.

President Trump heaps praise on himself and expects others to do as well. He recently bragged during a COVID-19 press briefing that he was the most popular person on Facebook.

Governor Cuomo, who, according to Politico, has a “long-standing revulsion to social media,” has nevertheless “rapidly emerged as an internet star.” (Earlier this week, #Cuomosexual was trending on Twitter.)

President Trump contradicts his own public health experts, who then have to clean up the mess in his absence. He improvises on the existence of testing equipment, medical equipment, and miracle drugs that don’t exist. He violates every principle of effective leadership in a crisis.

Winston Churchill admonished, “You must look at the facts because the facts look at you.” President Trump ignores the facts in front of him and invents new ones.

Trump insists on calling COVID-19 the “China Virus” or “Chinese Virus” even though the World Health Organization advises against naming diseases for a particular location because of the stigma involved. And last week the FBI warned about a wave of hate crimes against Asians and Asian-Americans in this country.

Since the pandemic started my team and I have been studying the best and worst practices in communicating in a COVID-19 world. The best include:

  1. Begin all communication, whether written or verbal, with a statement of values: Don’t dive directly into the facts. Create an emotional connection.
  2. Show you care. Calibrate communication with empathy.
  3. Be direct, no euphemism: It’s confusing and causes unnecessary stress.
  4. Tell the truth, the whole truth: Your stakeholders are in this for the long term.
  5. Address all relevant dimensions of the crisis: A narrow lens is inadequate.
  6. Remember that expectations are dynamic. Calibrate current expectations.
  7. Communicate through multiple levels and channels. Be consistent.
  8. Align on values: Provide detail appropriate to each level and circumstance.
  9. Convey a positive attitude: Convey urgency short of provoking panic.
  10. Express emotion, vulnerability, and humility. Effective leaders do.

Governor Cuomo scores on all elements of this scorecard. The President, sadly, misses the mark. Other leaders can learn from both.

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Court-Martialed by Public Opinion: When the Navy Steered Wrong

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Written by: Maida K. Zheng and Raleigh Mayer

When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

– Winston Churchill

I salute the United States Navy.

The Navy – and the other branches of the U.S. military – serve the nation every day, protecting every American’s right to freedom, a privilege we often take for granted.

But right now, the Navy is undergoing a reputational nightmare, and it’s one that could have been avoided.

Capt. Brett Crozier, the commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was fired after an email he authored regarding COVID-19 expressing his concerns about the potential – and very likely – harm it posed to his ship and its sailors.

The Acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, spoke to reporters about his decision to fire Crozier at the Pentagon in a press conference April 2, 2020. Modly stated the reason Capt. Crozier was fired was the Navy’s loss of confidence in Crozier’s ability to lead as well as the disclosure of an internal memo to the media. Modley suggested that the leak occurred because of Crozier’s carelessness in copying too many people on an email that should have been classified, demonstrating poor risk management and poor judgement.

Navy Brass Felt Blindsided by Fired Carrier Captain's Emailed Appeal

Modly would not tell reporters who was copied on the correspondence, stating “I will not comment on that,” during his Pentagon press conference. That may have been one of his first mistakes. When communicating an issue, a “no comment” response will always be met with suspicion and conveys defensiveness, and the refusal may be interpreted as guilt.

To be clear, the reputational damage to the Navy was not necessarily because of the firing itself, which may or may not have been warranted.  The outrage is due to the manner in which Modly communicated that decision.

Effective communicators know that the framework for guiding the choice, style, and timing of a message should always start with the following question: “What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible organization to do in this situation?”

By focusing on damaging hypotheticals such as “[the leak] unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our Sailors and Marines with no plan to address those concerns” Modly accidentally communicated a lack of empathy toward the seriousness of the situation and what the families were likely already feeling (anxiety).

Modly questioned the professionalism of Crozier, who at that point was literally seen as a hero by service members for risking his career for their safety.  “I could reach no other conclusion than that Captain Crozier had allowed the complexity of his challenge with COVID breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally,” Modly said.

Had Modly employed the best-practiced principle of crisis communication and asked himself “what would reasonable people expect a responsible organization to do in this situation” he likely would have realized how critical (for the sake of the Navy’s reputation) it was for him to publicly state that this was an unprecedented situation, and support Crozier because reasonable people expect the Navy to care. Showing you care does not mean you have to give up on good order and discipline. Reasonable people understand that if a policy or order was broken, there will be consequences.

In every crisis there is opportunity, and when this story broke, the Navy had an opportunity to back Capt. Crozier and explain the actions that had been taken and planned to be taken to ensure the service members would be safe and that the mission would not be abandoned. After all – those plans were already in motion according to Modly. Instead, they punished the person the public had already fallen in love with and thus appeared callous in doing so.

With all that said, below are some tips for success in a situation such as this.

  1. Reasonable people expect an organization to care, first and foremost.  The single biggest predictor of loss of trust in a crisis is the perception that you don’t care.
  2. First mover advantage matters. Whoever is first to define the crisis, motives, and actions is the one who controls the interpretation of the event.
  3. A well-structured stand-by statement, prepared ahead of time for adaptation, is key in ensuring you are communicating effectively during a crisis.

Logos Consulting Group provides the following template for the best possible outcome in tough, touchy, sensitive situations:

  1. Acknowledgement. Open by stating awareness of the event or issue. Do not use euphemisms, which are confusing to audiences, especially those under stress.
  2. Empathy. If there are victims or potential victims, express empathy.
  3. Values. Describe the organization’s values that will give context to the response to the crisis.
  4. Approach. Describe ways the organization is handling the response to the crisis, including what has been done or what is under way.
  5. Commitment. Outline the substantive or procedural commitments you can make now.

On Sunday, April 5, several media outlets confirmed that Capt. Crozier tested positive for COVID-19; the Navy declined to comment.

On Monday, April 6, reports of a leaked speech of Modly speaking to Sailors in Guam was released via several media outlets.

“If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn’t going to get out into the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either a) too naive, or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this,” Modly said to the USS Theodore Roosevelt crew.

The speech continues in this manner with Sailors audibly yelling “what the F***” in the background.

Additionally on April 6, Modly wrote a response to a New York Times op-ed where Theodore Roosevelt’s great-grandson (Tweed Roosevelt) called Capt. Crozier a hero. In his response, Modly said he has the utmost respect for the Roosevelt family, but that Tweed is wrong — “he simply doe not have access to the relevant facts that led to the captains dismissal.” The letter was deleted shortly after it went live.

The Golden Hour of Crisis Response for communicators and medical professionals describes the urgency to “stop the bleeding.” Each day the Navy delays in effectively communicating and showing true empathy causes more and more reputational harm…and bleeding.

We truly hope Capt. Crozier and his crew recover. Fair winds and following seas.

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Maida Kalic Zheng is a fellow at the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership, where she helps corporate leaders maximize their presence, enhance communication, and become more sophisticated at managing their relationships and reputations.

 

Raleigh Mayer, the Gravitas Guru and principal of Raleigh Mayer of Consulting and Senior Fellow at the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership, helps leaders elevate presence, enhance communication, and become more sophisticated at managing their relationships and reputations. She is an advisor, coach, educator, and speaker, serving large corporations, private firms, and individual executives.

 

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Leadership, Communication, and COVID-19

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Leadership, Communication, and COVID-19

By Helio Fred Garcia

As the COVID-19 Pandemic continues to  grow, Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership has been advising clients and carefully studying communication by leaders across a range of sectors and forms of organization.

We have reviewed thousands of communications by CEOs, university presidents, NGO executive directors and secretaries general, and public officials. And we have identified patterns that help leaders and their organizations make smart choices and avoid inadvertent self-inflicted harm.

Seven Crises in  One

One of the foundational principles of effective crisis management is to name the problem accurately and to understand the true scope and likely risk of the crisis.

I believe that the COVID-19 crisis is actually seven crises in one. Think of these as seven different dimensions of the crisis. There’s a danger that a leader might be so focused on any one of the dimensions that he or she will miss the need to address the others. The seven dimensions of COVID-19 are these:

  1. Public Health Crisis: At its core COVID-19 is a public health crisis. Half a million people worldwide have gotten sick; tens of thousands have died. More will get sick and die before things get better. But  now in the United States the public health crisis includes a healthcare delivery system that is being strained to the breaking point. As hospitals in epicenters begin to fill up, there’s also a shortage of medical equipment and personal protective gear. Health workers are at risk, as are other patients.
  2. Business Crisis: COVID-19 presents a business problem for all forms of organizations. There is a cost impact, for most organizations a negative one. There  is a revenue impact, mostly negative; for some potentially catastrophic. There is disruption of operations. There is an HR impact.
  3. Economic Crisis: At the same time there is a significant economic crisis underway. The risk of falling into a major recession, very low two months ago, now is quite high. The markets have exhibited unprecedented volatility. Economic uncertainty is wearing on people and institutions.
  4. Information Crisis: From the beginning of the pandemic there has been significant incorrect information, incomplete information, and in some cases intentionally misleading information in the information ecosystem. This information crisis leads to significant misunderstanding about who is at risk of contracting the illness, who can transmit it, and what precautions are appropriate.
  5. Competence of Government Crisis: Not just in the U.S., but initially in China, Iran, and other nations the initial responses were bungled and the virus  spread. In the U.S. we have yet to see a whole of government response. Rather, we’ve seen a fragments of government response. Only in the third week of March, and the third month of COVID-19 in the U.S., are there sufficient tests and testing sites. But there is insufficient personal protective equipment for health workers, and a shortage of hand sanitizers, rubber gloves, and masks in retail stores.
  6. Social Crisis: People’s lives have been upended; many people are losing or at risk of losing their jobs. Supermarket shelves are bare. Many companies have ordered employees to work from home; schools are closed or have gone to virtual learning. But there has also been a rise of incivility, insult, and violence against people who have been stigmatized. President Trump’s insistence on calling COVID-19 “China Virus” or “Chinese Virus” has led to a wave of hate crimes against people perceived to be Asian or Asian-American.
  7. Mental Health Crisis: Human beings are social animals, and social distancing is having an effect. Compound this with the fear of the illness, the rising rate of infections and fatalities, and the other dimensions of the crisis, people are fraught. They are fragile. And they need extra care. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has asked for mental health professionals to volunteer to work with people not presently under their care to begin to meet this mental health need. I expect other governors will do the same.

 

Everything is Different

The unprecedented scope of the crisis makes it difficult to predict what will happen next. This crisis is unlike others. Among the differences:

  • This is unlike prior pandemics. This is the first global pandemic in a social media world. Recent pandemics were geographically contained. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome was mostly confined to the Republic of Korea. Ebola was contained in the United States, and our military and public health experts were able to contain it in West Africa. And this is the first truly global pandemic in the lifetimes of most people in leadership positions.
  • This is unlike natural disasters. Most organizations are ready or can adapt to natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and floods. But those are generally geographically confined and are sudden but short in duration. COVID-19 is widespread and will continue for a very long time.
  • This is not like ordinary corporate crises. Most corporate crises are limited to a particular company, sector, or geography. But this one affects every organization. And unlike most corporate crises, this one has the additional dimensions of public health, economic risk, information challenges, competence of government, and social dislocation.
  • The situation is constantly changing. The scope of contagion, the government and society’s response to it, and our understanding of risk to ourselves are in constant flux. In a matter of days we saw an escalation from no large crowds to no crowds at all to stay-at-home orders to full lock-down orders.
  • This is fundamentally reshaping our understanding of work. As millions of American workers learn how to work from home, and as companies experiment with different modes of delivering products and services, the likelihood of a return to pre-COVID-19 conditions is not clear.

Crisis Response Best Practices

Most ineffective crisis responses begin with leaders asking some version of What should we do? Or What should we say? The challenge with this kind of question is that it focuses on the we – on the entity or leader in crisis. This results in the consideration of options that may make the leader in midst of crisis feel less vulnerable. But it is unlikely to lead to what is necessary to maintain trust, confidence, and support of those people whose trust, confidence, and support are critical to the organization.

What is needed is a different kind of thinking that begins not with the I/me/we/us but rather with the they/them – with the stakeholders who matter to the organization. The leadership discipline of mental readiness – the readiness to shift frames of reference from the first person — I/me/we/us — to the third person — they/them — makes all the difference.

And that’s because of the way trust works.

A common goal for most organizations and leaders in crises is to maintain the trust and confidence of those who matter – shareholders, employees, customers, regulators, residents, citizens, voters, etc. Trust is what makes other elements of competitive advantage possible, from stock price to employee morale and productivity to support of  regulators.

Trust, in turn, is the consequence of three related but slightly different things:

  1. Promises fulfilled. These can be explicit promises, or implicit promises such as in a brand identity. If we are seen to break a promise, trust falls.
  2. Expectations met. These can be expectations we set ourselves, such as by making promises. Or they can be expectations set by law or by government order. Or they can be expectations set by society. If we fail to meet expectations, trust falls.
  3. Values lived.  When those who matter to us experience us as living our stated values, the result is trust. If those who matter to us experience us as not living our stated values, trust falls.

And one of the patterns we notice is that it is much harder to restore trust once it has been lost than to maintain trust before it has been lost.

Asking What should we do? runs the serious risk of failing even to consider stakeholders’ expectations. Worse, it further risks the leader becoming stuck in his or her own perspective, in I/me/we/us. Hence, such crisis whoppers as BP CEO Tony Hayward’s “I’d like my life back,” or even President Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”

Most crisis response failures can be traced back to the ultimate decision-makers focusing on their own frame of reference rather than on their stakeholders.

The right question to ask when determining the appropriate course of action in a crisis is not What should we do.

Rather, it is this: What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible organization or leader to do when facing this kind of situation?

For any stakeholder group we can answer the question, What would reasonable members of this stakeholder group appropriately expect a responsible organization or leader to do? to a very granular level. To the level of all employees, or only those employees in this one facility, or only those employees who were present when something happened. We can inventory those granular expectations  for each stakeholder group, and we can then work to fulfill those particular expectations.

But regardless the particular expectations of any given stakeholder group, there is a common expectation that applies to all stakeholder groups all the time:  In a crisis, all stakeholders expect a responsible organization or leader to care.  To care that something has happened; to care that people need help; to care that something needs to be done.

What it means to care may be different from crisis to crisis, or from industry to industry. What it means to care in the early phases of the crisis may be different from what it means to care in the later phases of the crisis. But that we need to care doesn’t change.

The single largest predictor that trust will fall is the perception of indifference. And silence, when there is an expectation of caring, is interpreted by stakeholders as indifference. And it gives our adversaries, critics, media and social media, and trolls the ability to define us as uncaring, or incompetent, or as lacking integrity.

Applying Best Practices to COVID-19 Communication

As the Logos Institute team has studied institutional response to COVIID-19, we have derived these  lessons applying the principle of caring to the pandemic.

  1. Begin all communication, whether written or verbal, with a statement of values, or belief, or intent, or motivation. Don’t dive directly into the facts. Audiences are far more likely to read or listen, understand, and remember when the leader creates an emotional connection first, and that begins with the statement of values.
  2. Show you care. Calibrate communication with empathy.
  3. Be direct: No euphemism. Euphemism is confusing to audiences, especially when under stress. If an employee has died because of COVID-19, say so.
  4. Tell the truth: Avoid misleading half-truths. Remember that you’re in this for the long term. And eventually you’ll need employees to continue to want to work for you, and customers to want to do business with you. If you know that layoffs are likely, and you’re asked whether there will be layoffs, it may be tempting to say something literally true — “At this point there is no plan to lay people off.” This may be true, but the question was not about whether there is a plan but rather about whether there would be layoffs. A better response would be “We haven’t made a final decision, and we will do whatever we can to protect employees, but layoffs are a possibility.”
  5. Address all relevant dimensions of the crisis: public health, business crisis, economic crisis, information crisis, competence of government crisis, social crisis, and mental health crisis. It may be tempting to stay in a single frame, say, business crisis. But your stakeholders are experiencing all seven dimensions of the crisis.
  6. Remember that expectations are dynamic. Yesterday’s expectations may not be helpful today. Calibrate against current expectations.
  7. Communicate at multiple levels. Employees and other stakeholders need to hear from more than the CEO. At this point it is better to over-communicate than to under-communicate.
  8. Align on values; allow granular detail appropriate to each level. Whether the CEO or an EVP or VP or department head or project team leader, there should be alignment on the level of values, belief, intent, or motive. But at each level the granularity should be appropriate to the level of the leader doing the communication.
  9. Convey a positive attitude that balances urgency against the provoking of panic. Effective leaders keep the focus on the future even while demonstrating urgency. But emotions themselves are contagious. Leaders need to stop short of provoking panic.
  10. Express emotion, vulnerability, and humility. Arrogance makes empathy impossible, and it is empathy that gets leaders and organizations through a crisis. Leaders are often reluctant to express emotion or vulnerability. But the most effective ones do.
  11. Get good at being on TV. Whether recording a video for public consumption or conducting a meeting via Zoom or Skype  or GoToMeeting, leaders need to get good at communicating through a video camera.
  12. Remember, people are feeling very fragile. People are scared; they’re worried about their jobs and their friends and their families. People’s work lives and personal lives have been upended. And some people are being stigmatized. Now is a time that calls for kindness. Effective leaders care.

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Two Important Lessons on How to Manage Uncertainty

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To be a CEO in this day and age means to be expert – or adept, at minimum – in managing uncertainty. Considering that as of today the average tenure for a CEO is a mere five years alludes to the uncertainty inherent to the role, now more than ever.

Uncertainty is arguably our greatest challenge in light of COVID-19, which is why there is no better time than now to share two important lessons from an expert on how to effectively manage uncertainty and why it’s important: former CEO and current chairman of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger. Bob announced he was stepping down from the CEO position in February after a remarkable 15 years in the top position. Two highlights from Bob’s illustrious and enduring career:

Eisner succession Bob persevered through a grueling, seemingly-never-ending vetting process before assuming the top leadership position after his cantankerous but respected predecessor, Michael Eisner (it was under Eisner’s stewardship that the Company released such box office hits as Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid). Adding to the stress of the process, two board members, one being Roy E. Disney the nephew of founder Walt, announced a lawsuit against the Company for appointing Bob as CEO in what they claimed was a “fraudulent succession process”. The lawsuit was eventually dropped, due in large part to Bob’s ability to exercise emotional discipline and recognize that “if you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real”.

Opening Shanghai Disneyland Four days prior to the opening of Shanghai Disneyland, an 18-years-in-the-making endeavor, a domestic terrorist attacked Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL. The nightclub was located near another Disney property, the Walt Disney World Resort which has 70,000 employees and tens of thousands of daily visitors. Just 48 hours after the terrorist attack, one of the deadliest in U.S. history, a two-year-old child was killed by an alligator on the same Walt Disney World Resort property. In an awe-inspiring display of leadership (keep reading to find out in part how he did it) Bob managed to respond effectively to both crises, while successfully launching one of Disney’s most significant business ventures.

Disneyland Shanghai opened on June 16, 2016 after an 18-year-long development process of which Bob Iger was a central part.

Bob was successful in managing the doubt and anxiety inherent to both situations in a way that allowed his and his company’s continued success. Below are two important lessons taken from his memoir The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons learned from 15 years as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company, on how to manage uncertainty (whether business, personal, or global-health-crisis related) like a pro:

#1 Focus on what can be achieved; optimism is a stronger motivator than pessimism. In his memoir’s prologue, Bob lists the ten leadership principles that he identifies as having served him best over his 45-year career. The first trait he lists is optimism or as he describes it, “a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved.” The use of ‘pragmatic’ is key in this definition; optimism as Bob understands and practices it does not mean willfully ignoring the reality of one’s circumstances or ‘living in the now’ and only in the now without a prudent eye looking ahead. After all, foreseeing the foreseeable is one of the essential disciplines of effective crisis response and leadership. However, foreseeing the foreseeable and metaphorically lighting one’s hair on fire over it in the present are not mutually exclusive.

Bob’s brand of optimism means regardless of or despite the circumstances, knowing that there is in fact a solution, a path forward, a way out of / around / through / or over an obstacle. The key is to remain mentally and emotionally flexible in accepting what the ‘solution’ or solutions available are. Put another way, simply because a solution does not align with one’s initial expectations or preferences does not make it any less of a solution.

#2 To recognize and accept what is beyond one’s control is an effective way to restore control. It might surprise you (as it did me) to know that Bob’s answer to the question of ‘what is it about “The Job” that kept him up at night?’ is, “I don’t agonize over the work very much … I tend to approach bad news as a problem that can be worked through and solved, something I have control over rather than something happening to me.”

His quote belies the underlying effective mental approach to managing uncertainty, which is to focus on and prioritize what one does have control over, as opposed to flailing helplessly (and needlessly) in the dark wasteland-of-hypotheticals. Part of what makes uncertainty so challenging is the inherent fear it carries; “what will happen to [ insert person / place / thing of value ] if…” To allow oneself to spend too much time in the dark wasteland-of-hypotheticals is a form of self-inflicted harm because it makes the current problem unnecessarily more difficult. Valuable mental and emotional energy are wasted fixating on problems that might never arrive or if they do, are often not as severe as initially feared.

Acknowledging and accepting what cannot be controlled (like the announcement of a damaging lawsuit, a sudden animal attack, or the emergence of a bewildering disease) is a form of control in and of itself. It brings into relief what can be controlled and what can be done about it. This is not purely an exercise in self-soothing although it can help restore some inner peace; it has the pragmatic effect of revealing and prioritizing what can be done to mitigate the problem. And once it is known what options are available, steps can start to be taken in pursuit of those options in the greater service of reaching a solution. And this kind of progress has the twofold effect of dissipating fear and enhancing morale.

Uncertainty is unavoidable. Panic and despair in reaction to it, are not. Thank you, Bob, for setting an uplifting and admirable example.

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Yinnan Shen Launches Multicultural Competence Elective at Columbia Engineering

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On March 4, 2020, Logos Institute fellow Yinnan Shen launched a new elective, Elevate Multicultural Competence, for graduate students at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, also known as Columbia Engineering.

The course is designed primarily for international students, who are susceptible to a common challenge of living abroad – culture shock – defined by Michael Winkelman as, “a multifaceted experience resulting from numerous stressors occurring in contact with a different culture.” 

(Yinnan sharing her story when she first moved to New York)

Yinnan moved to the United States in 2015. She has dealt with culture shock herself since then and has concluded patterns of what works and what doesn’t when living in a culture outside of one’s own. Equipped with both academic research and lived-through experience, Yinnan shared ways to effectively manage culture shock and adapt to the new culture, with an emphasis on striking a balance between the host culture’s expectations and the values and identities associated one’s home culture.

When what is expected from the host culture and what is acceptable to oneself are in conflict, Yinnan shared, it’s important to consciously make the decision of whether to adapt to the host culture’s expectations in specific situations. She created a two-question decision-making criterion to guide students when deciding whether to or not to adapt.

Yinnan also explained how the process of deliberate adaptation and striking the balance between one’s home and host culture can help build an individual’s multicultural competence, which in turn transforms one’s seeming disadvantaged background into a competitive advantage. 

The graduate students Yinnan spoke to were enrolled in Columbia Engineering’s Professional Development & Leadership (PDL) program. Roughly 80% students in the program are international students. The PDL program’s objective is to build the engineering leaders of today and tomorrow, by equipping its students with the skills and tools necessary to maximize performance. The program’s curriculum was developed in part by Logos Consulting Group president Helio Fred Garcia, who teaches ethics, crisis, and leadership as an adjunct associate professor of the PDL program. 

All of the 25 students who attended Yinnan’s class were international students, who at the end of the session expressed how much the content resonated with them, and how liberating it is to know they are not struggling alone and that there are ways to effectively deal with the challenges they are facing. 

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New Book by Logos President: Words on Fire

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Logos Consulting Group is pleased to announce that the next book by Logos President Helio Fred Garcia is now available for pre-order.

Words on Fire: The Power of Incendiary Language and How to Confront It is about the power of communication to do great harm, and how civic leaders and engaged citizens can hold leaders accountable to prevent such harm. Garcia focuses on the forms of communication that condition an audience to accept, condone, and commit violence against a targeted group, rival, or critic.

 

Sending Up a Flare

In the book’s preface Garcia writes,

“In my teaching and research, I study patterns: patterns that help leaders enhance competitive advantage, build trust and loyalty, and change the world for the better. I study the patterns of audience engagement and audience reaction. I study persuasion and influence, and the power of language to change people, mostly for the better.”

But he also provides a caution:

“I’ve also been acutely aware of the use of communication to hurt, to harm, and to humiliate, and of how dehumanizing and demonizing language can lead some people to commit acts of violence. I typically don’t teach those things in a classroom, but I often send up a flare, warning students, former students, and others of the predictable, if unintended, consequences of speech that, under the right conditions, can influence people to accept, condone and commit violence against members of a group.”

Garcia notes that he found himself sending up many flares in recent years, but that something changed in 2018. In the Fall of that year he posted on social media persistent warnings about stochastic terrorism, the technical term for language that provokes some people to commit violence. He says,

“My concern grew into alarm as the 2018 mid-term elections approached and as President Trump’s language crossed a line. I worried that someone would be killed by Trump followers who embraced his increasingly incendiary rhetoric about immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, and critics.”

Garcia’s fears were soon realized.

“In a single week, about ten days before the mid-terms, two separate terror attacks took place: one killed eleven people at worship in a synagogue; one failed but had targeted a dozen Trump critics with mail bombs. In both cases the perpetrators justified their actions by quoting Trump language. One of them, the mail bomber, described his conversion from being apolitical to being ‘a soldier in the war between right and left’ that resulted from his several years in Trump’s orbit.”

The following day Garcia posted a blog on Daily Kos describing the relationship between language and violence. That post was republished by CommPro.biz. Words on Fire is the continuation of that original blog post.

In reflecting on the President’s language, Garcia noticed another pattern: the forms of his language were familiar. He realized that the president was using the very same rhetorical techniques that had preceded previous mass murders, including genocides. He worried that, left unchecked, the president would continue, with increasingly dire consequences.

Garcia explored the kinds of language that historically had preceded acts of mass violence. And he studied contemporary sources including the U.S. Holocaust Museum Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. The center defines “dangerous speech” as:

“speech that increases the risk for violence targeting certain people because of their membership in a group, such as an ethnic, religious, or racial group. It includes both speech that qualifies as incitement and speech that makes incitement possible by conditioning its audience to accept, condone, and commit violence against people who belong to a targeted group.”

One of the key elements of creating such conditions is to dehumanize others. The Center’s handbook Defusing Hate notes that:

 “Dangerous speech often dehumanizes the group it targets (e.g., by calling its members rats, dogs, or lice), accuses the target group of planning to harm the audience, and presents the target group’s existence as a dire threat to the audience.”

Garcia also studied the work of Yale University philosopher Jason Stanley, who says that when leaders persistently dehumanize others they lessen the capacity of citizens to empathize.

The Playbook

Dangerous speech begins with dehumanization but doesn’t end there. Garcia has identified twelve communication techniques that individually and collectively create a social context that conditions an audience to accept, condone, and commit violence against people who belong to a targeted group. Each technique is a bit different from the other, although the individual techniques have elements in common. They serve as a kind of Playbook that malicious leaders have used to divide communities and to accumulate power. The twelve forms are:

  1. Dehumanize: Calling groups of people animals or vermin who are infesting the nation.
  2. Demonize/Delegitimize: Attributing to a group or rival a menacing, evil identity or calling into question the legitimacy or qualification of a group or rival.
  3. Scapegoat: Blaming a group for all or many of the nation’s problems.
  4. Public Health Threat: Claiming that members of a group are carrying or transmitting dangerous diseases.
  5. Safety Threat: Claiming that a group, rival, or critic is a threat to public safety – likely to cause death or injury to the nation or to the dominant group – or is a threat to civic order.
  6. Violent Motive: Claiming that a group has violent or hostile intentions toward a dominant group.
  7. Severely Exaggerating Risk: Labelling a minor issue or routine event a major threat.
  8. Sinister Identities: Attributing vague or sinister identities to a group or its members.
  9. Conspiracy: Saying that something is part of a sinister conspiracy.
  10. Discredit Information: Discrediting the source of objective information or of information critical of the leader.
  11. Conflation: Conflating the leader and the state, so that any criticism of the leader is seen as an attack on the nation.
  12. Menacing Image: Juxtaposing a menacing image (noose, swastika, flaming cross) with a person or person’s image, a location, or a facility associated with the target.

Words on Fire documents these forms of communication, and the consequences of that language, both before Trump and by Trump.

But it does more. It assesses how American political life came to this dangerous and demoralizing place.

And it offers hope, a path forward: a framework, a mindset, and a set of techniques to help civic leaders and informed citizens recognize the patterns of dangerous speech early, intervene early, hold those who use such language accountable for the consequences, and ideally prevent such violence in the first place.

Garcia and a team of researchers spent 14 months working on the book. In addition to studying historic mass killings that followed the persistent use of dangerous speech, Garcia and his researchers watched hundreds of rallies, interviews, and public appearances by Donald Trump as candidate and president, and read thousands of his tweets. Garcia also examined hate crime violence statistics and trends. And he examined national security and law enforcement scholarship on lone wolf violence up to and including lone wolf terrorism. Garcia synthesizes the fruits of this research and describes how lone wolves develop a terrorist mindset and how they are activated to commit violence.

 

From Stochastic Terrorism to Lone-Wolf Whistle Terrorism

Since 9/11 the use of communication in ways that trigger lone wolves to commit acts of violence, up to and including terrorism, has been known as stochastic terrorism. The name comes from a principle in statistics and describes something that may be statistically predictable but not individually predictable.

But Garcia has concluded that the phrase stochastic terrorism is difficult to grasp, and even to say, and tends to limit discussion. He proposes a different way to describe the phenomenon, based on who is motivated to act on the communication – lone wolves – and what triggers them to so act – a kind of dog whistle that he calls a lone-wolf whistle.

He says:

“Acts of violence triggered by such language I call lone-wolf whistle violence. When such language triggers mass violence with a political, ideological, or similar motive I call it lone-wolf whistle terrorism.”

A Call to Action

Words on Fire also profiles leaders who stepped over the line and were called on it. All, in their own ways and in varying time frames, stopped what they were doing. As responsible leaders do.

Garcia also explores humility as an essential leadership attribute that makes empathy possible. It is empathy that allows leaders to see the damage their rhetoric may cause, and humility and empathy that lead them to stop.

The book closes by providing a framework for civic leaders, engaged citizens, journalists, and public officials to recognize when a leader may have crossed the line, and a way to understand the likely consequences of dangerous speech. Garcia takes the Lone-Wolf Whistle Terrorism Playbook and recasts it as a toolkit or checklist in the form of questions to ask that can help determine whether a leader’s rhetoric is likely to inspire lone wolves to take matters into their own hands.

Early Endorsers

Early reaction to Words on Fire by those who have read the manuscript has been quite positive, and the book has several early endorsers.

David Lapan, Colonel, USMC (ret), former Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security spokesman, says:

“Language is power, and powerful. It can uplift, or harm. Helio Fred Garcia is an astute student of language and communication. This book offers historic examples, keen insights and valuable advice on recognizing patterns of language that can harm or lead to violence.”

Evan Wolfson, Founder, Freedom to Marry, says:

“Drawing on history and his deep expertise in communications, Helio Fred Garcia documents how Trump’s barrage of hate, divisiveness, falsehoods, and triggering are even uglier and more dangerous than we thought, right out of the autocrat’s playbook. During the Nixon administration, John Dean blew the whistle on the ‘cancer growing on the presidency.’ Words on Fire provides a clear and alarming CAT-scan of the cancer growing from this presidency, and a highly readable guide to how we can call out and combat Trump’s toxic language and malignant agenda, pushing back against the corrosive forces that enable Trumpism and put our country in such peril.”

James E. Lukaszewski, America’s Crisis Guru®, says:

“Many of us were taught a lie as youngsters that sticks and stones can break our bones, but words will never hurt us. Fred courageously, graphically and powerfully illustrates that it is words on fire that bloodlessly, without scars or visible traces cause deep internal permanent damage while often triggering accompanying physical damage. And that if we remain silent one victim incinerated by words on fire damages the rest of us.”

Lukaszewski adds,

“Words On Fire should be mandatory reading and a guide book for every reporter and editor anywhere. Journalists have significant responsibility for spreading the flames of intentionally incendiary, punitive, abusive language. There should be ethical and cultural sanctions for mindlessly but intentionally originating or transmitting dangerous language. Every business school needs to develop courses for managers and leaders in detoxifying and extinguishing fiery, intentionally emotional and harmful language, whatever the source, followed by every religious leader and elected official. Important institutions in our society and culture have the affirmative responsibility to stand up and speak out against the users and use of words on fire.“

Public reaction has also been positive. In the week after Words on Fire became available for Amazon pre-order, it became the Amazon #1 New Release in Rhetoric and #2 in New Releases in Public Administration the #3 best seller in Public Administration.

Words on Fire is scheduled for publication in mid-June. It is available for pre-order in both paperback and kindle edition.

Prior Books by Logos President

Words on Fire is Garcia’s fifth book. His first, published in 1998, was the two-volume Crisis Communications, now out of print.

In 2006 Garcia co-authored with his NYU colleague John Doorley Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication. That book’s fourth edition is scheduled for publication in late Spring. Reputation Management has been adopted in undergraduate and graduate public relations and communication programs around the world, and was published in Korean in Seoul in 2016,

In 2012 Garcia published The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively. The Power of Communication has been adopted by dozens of graduate and professional schools, and was named one of eight leadership books on the U.S. Marine Corps Commandant’s Professional Reading List. It was published in Chinese in Beijing in 2014.

In 2017 Garcia published The Agony of Decision: Mental Readiness and Leadership in a Crisis. The Agony of Decision was named one of the best crisis management books of all time (#2 of 51) by BookAuthority, the leading non-fiction review site. It will be published in Chinese in Beijing later this year.

Garcia has been on the New York University faculty since 1988. He is an adjunct professor of management in NYU’s Stern School of Business Executive MBA program, where he teaches crisis management, and where he was named Executive MBA Great Professor. He is an adjunct associate professor of management and communication in NYU’s School of Professional Studies, MS in Public Relations and Corporate Communication program, where he twice received the Dean’s award for teaching excellence, in 1990 and in 2017.  In that program he teaches courses in communication strategy; in communication ethics, law, and regulation; and in crisis communication.

Garcia is an adjunct associate professor of professional development and leadership at Columbia University, where he teaches ethics, crisis, and leadership in the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. Garcia is also a Senior Fellow in the Institute of Corporate Communication at Communication University of China in Beijing.

 

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Yinnan Shen Leads Workshop on Elevating Multicultural Competence for NYU PR League

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On Thursday November 14, Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership hosted roughly 20 graduate students from New York University’s Public Relations League for a session on the work of the Institute and a featured workshop led by Logos Institute fellow Yinnan Shen, on how international students can turn their backgrounds into a competitive edge.

The students are part of NYU’s School of Professional Studies master’s level public relations and corporate communications program, which Institute executive director Helio Fred Garcia co-founded and of which Institute senior fellow Kristin Johnson is an inaugural graduate. Both Fred and Kristin currently teach courses in the program on crisis communication and public relations consulting respectively. Yinnan also graduated from the NYU program in 2017 and has guest lectured in the program since joining Logos.

The session kicked off with a formal welcome from Fred and Kristin. Kristin shared her professional journey in public relations industry with students, as well as details about the recently published book she co-authored with Shalon Roth How to Succeed in a PR Agency.

Fred introduced the work of Logos Institute and of Logos Consulting Group, the parent company of Logos Institute, followed by a description of the methodology of creating changes in people that Logos implements, which was originally developed by PR pioneer and first PR professor (at NYU) Edward L. Bernays. Fred also noted that much of the public relations industry has wandered far from the way the field was originally defined by Bernays: “a vocation applied by a social scientist who advises a client or employer on social attitudes and the actions to take to win the support of the public on whom the viability of the client depends.”

Yinnan then took over and delivered her newly-developed content on culture shock and elevating multicultural competence. She began by conceptualizing a common challenge international students face when living abroad – culture shock, defined by Michael Winkelman as “a multifaceted experience resulting from numerous stressors occurring in contact with a different culture.” She then shared strategies to effectively adapt to a new culture and to manage culture shock.

In the final part of the workshop Yinnan shared how to strike a balance between one’s home culture and host culture. She closed the workshop by offering a path forward to build multicultural competence through the process of dealing with culture shock and ultimately transform one’s international background into a competitive advantage in the workplace.

Many students stayed back after the presentation and had small-group and private discussions with Yinnan, in which students affirmed that they are going through culture shock and what was shared can help them build self-esteem and navigate life and study in the U.S..

Yinnan Shen developed the content based on both existing research and her own experience of being an international student from China at NYU four years ago. Yinnan is now a fellow at Logos Institute and an associate at Logos Consulting Group. She joined Logos in 2017, and has since researched and developed intellectual capital including how leaders can do diversity and inclusion right, and how neuroscience and psychology can be applied to the art of leading and communicating. Yinnan has taught at corporate clients and academic institutions, including the master’s program Public Relations and Corporate Communication at New York University and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

You can watch the full workshop here:

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Crisis Management Lessons from the NBA / China Dispute

A core principle of effective crisis response is the ability to learn from others’ mistakes without having to experience the pain of those mistakes directly to learn the lesson. The National Basketball Association (NBA)’s (mis)handling of a recent dispute with the Chinese government is a reminder of two valuable evergreen lessons in effective crisis management.

What happened

The dispute began over a tweet posted on October 4 by NBA employee Daryl Morey, general manager for the Houston Rockets, on his personal account. The tweet was in support of protesters in Hong Kong who have been demonstrating for months, at times violently, against the Chinese government’s attempt to assert greater authority in the region in the form of an unprecedented extradition law. Morey deleted the tweet shortly after it was posted and after the Chinese consulate in Houston released a statement condemning the tweet, urging the Rockets to ‘take immediate concrete measures to eliminate the adverse impact’ of the tweet, including the Chinese government cancelling broadcasts of NBA preseason games in the weeks ahead.

China is a major revenue source for the NBA with an audience of about 800 million tuning in to watch NBA games every season. Complicating matters, the tweet in question was posted days before NBA teams the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets were to arrive in China for a preseason game. Complicating matters further, the U.S. and China are in the throes of an acrimonious trade war.

The NBA’s conflicted response included an initial statement from the league calling Morey’s tweet ‘regrettable’ and expressing respect for China’s culture,  followed by another statement from NBA commissioner Adam Silver that struck a similar down-the-middle tone. Ultimately, the Lakers and Nets played the preseason game in China, although postgame media interviews with players and coaches were restricted. In the days since, the NBA has been the subject of criticism from politicians and fans alike.

A worker removes a poster in China promoting the NBA, following a tweet by Houston Rockets manager Daryl Morey supporting protesters in Hong Kong. The protests are against the Chinese government’s attempt to assert greater authority in the region.

What can be learned

The below lessons can be taken from what the NBA and its leaders have learned the hard way so the rest of us don’t have to:

  1. Foresee the foreseeable and plan accordingly. It is impossible to predict the specifics of how a crisis will unfold. It is possible however to anticipate, in general terms, existential threats and prepare for them while time allows. In the case of the NBA, and all organizations that do business with China, this means 1) recognizing China’s demonstrated history of using its market power (typically by threatening to or actually withholding market access) to get business partners to acquiesce to its demands and 2) preparing for if and when that happens. Mercedes Benz, Delta Airlines, the Gap, and Zara are just a few companies that already know firsthand how China reacts when offended. Any organization in business with China can anticipate (and therefore should plan accordingly) how the Chinese government will likely react if and when it disagrees, which happens with some regularity. Given the magnitude of its business relationship with China and China’s track record of attacking businesses with which it takes offense, the consequences of NBA’s lack of preparation for a foreseeable threat is a warning to all organizations.

 

  1. Be prepared to act on stated values. One of the biggest criticisms of the NBA over its handling of the Morey tweet has been the perceived inconsistency between the organization’s stated and lived values. Commissioner Silver noted in his second statement that, ‘Values of equality, respect and freedom of expression have long defined the NBA — and will continue to do so’. Yet the league’s initial and following tepid responses suggest otherwise. Leaders would be wise to revisit their organizations’ values or mission statements, and seriously consider if those are values the organization is prepared to enforce. If not, time for a revision. After all, it is less bad to reset an expectation (i.e. revise a stated value if unable or unwilling to act on it) than to fail to meet it altogether (i.e. proclaim to support a value then not act in accordance when challenged or expected to).
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Anthony Ewing Leads Teaching Workshop in the UK

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Logos Senior Fellow Anthony Ewing convened the eighth Teaching Business and Human Rights Workshop earlier this month at the University of Essex in Colchester, England. The seventy Workshop participants included individuals teaching “business and human rights” at universities in Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the USA. The Workshop was co-hosted by the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association.

In 2011, Ewing co-founded the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum, a unique platform for collaboration among individuals teaching business and human rights worldwide. The Forum has grown to include more than 300 members teaching business and human rights at some 150 institutions in 40 countries.

The Forum’s in-person Teaching Workshops provide an opportunity for teachers to learn from one another and share their experiences in the classroom. This year’s Workshop featured thematic sessions on “Teaching BHR and Environmental Rights,” “Emerging BHR Topics,” and “Current Developments in Tools for Accountability,” and discussions on “Launching a BHR Curriculum” and “Classroom Strategies for Teaching BHR.”

Ewing has taught the course Transnational Business and Human Rights at Columbia University since 2001. In 2019, he launched an advanced seminar – Managing Human Rights –  at Columbia Law School. In the Classroom Strategies session, led by Ewing, he noted that

“We are at the point in the evolution of the discipline in which a comprehensive BHR curriculum would include an introductory course covering core topics, more advanced electives on specific topics, as well as clinical offerings that emphasize experiential learning.”

The Teaching Forum has proven to be a valuable resource promoting BHR education worldwide. More than 140 universities have added BHR courses or content to their curricula in the past decade. The multi-disciplinary subject is now being taught at schools of business, law and policy worldwide. Teaching Forum resources have been especially helpful for professors trying to make the case to their universities for creating new BHR courses, as well as for individuals already teaching the subject seeking to add new topics or teaching materials to their courses.

Ewing also edits the Teaching BHR Handbook (BHRHandbook.org), an online resource for teachers. For more information about the Teaching BHR Forum, visit TeachBHR.org.

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Logos Institute Delivers Crisis Communication Master Class in Partnership with Public Relations Society of America

Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership director Helio Fred Garcia and senior fellows Holly Helstrom and Adam Tiouririne taught a two-day master class on crisis communication best practices in partnership with Public Relations Society of America. This year’s master class took place in Seattle and drew nearly 50 participants from a diverse array of industries, including national forest and parks services, transportation authorities, academia, tourism, politics, and consumer goods.

The first day of the two-day master class began with Fred establishing the core principles of effective crisis communication and response, including the etymology of the word ‘crisis’ from the ancient Greek word ‘krisis’, connoting ‘choice’ and the importance of making wise choices based on the proper criteria. Key criteria Fred shared with the class included the Defining Question of crisis response, which guides all decision-making from the perspective of reasonable stakeholders, as well as the Golden Hour Principle, which illustrates how incremental delays in response time carry a greater-than-incremental impact on an organization’s ability to recover from a crisis.

The first day concluded with Holly guiding a discussion on the significant role social media plays in this day and age in crisis response efforts. She enumerated the defining elements of social media that can pose a significant threat to organizations and their reputations during times of crisis but can also be utilized by organizations to help with their crisis response efforts, even helping to enhance their reputations in some cases. A number of case studies were presented to bring these principles to life, including a case study on the #DeleteUber crisis illustrating stakeholders’ high expectations for a timely response in the social media age, and the #CrockpotIsInnocent case to demonstrate how a clever, timely, and personable response to crises (where actual loss and suffering are not present) can enhance corporate reputation.

The second day was devoted to the significance of language in effective crisis communication, led by Adam, who served as the political language analyst for Bloomberg during the 2016 presidential election cycle. He led the room through a fascinating lesson exploring the mechanisms of human understanding and how these mechanisms can be harnessed to move stakeholder audiences in the desired direction. He gave a compelling analysis of the 2016 presidential candidates’ word choices and what these word choices reveal about the speaker. His analysis found that simple, emotive, and personal words, as opposed to complex, neutral, and abstract words, are more persuasive and memorable.  Students also learned about the significance of operational readiness in effective crisis response, specifically the importance of role and process clarity in response efforts and how to build an optimal crisis response team.

Logos Institute will partner with PRSA again beginning in the Fall to deliver a seven-week online master class on crisis communication, taking a deeper dive on some of the topics described above in addition to covering others like storytelling and how to get buy-in from lawyers.

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