The first 60 minutes of a crisis will define everything that comes after. And most leaders spend them doing exactly the wrong things.<\/p>\n
I’ve taken that call hundreds of times. A leader on the other end \u2014 scared, nervous, trying to figure out what to do next. Different industries, different countries, different crises. And the mistakes are almost always the same four.<\/p>\n
The first mistake: they call the lawyer before anyone else. Legal’s first instinct is to protect you in court. Say nothing. Admit nothing. That is solid advice for a deposition. You’re not in a deposition. You’re in the court of public opinion, and that court is already in session. Every minute you spend on a conference call with legal is a minute someone else is writing your story.<\/p>\n
The second mistake: they wait for all the facts. This one sounds responsible. It feels like the smart move. The problem? The world doesn’t wait for your fact-finding mission. While you’re gathering information, your customers and the media are filling the vacuum with speculation. You don’t need all the facts to say something. You need three sentences: here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t, and here’s what we’re doing right now.<\/p>\n
The third mistake: they talk about what happened instead of what they’re doing about it. The public doesn’t need a play-by-play of how you got here. They need to know you’re in control. Shift forward.<\/p>\n
The fourth mistake: they underestimate how fast the story is moving. Leaders think in hours. The internet thinks in minutes. By the time you’ve scheduled a meeting to ‘align on messaging,’ the screenshots are already circulating.<\/p>\n
The first 60 minutes are about one thing: showing up. With honesty. With urgency. With a plan that proves someone is in charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first 60 minutes of a crisis will define everything that comes after. And most leaders spend them doing exactly the wrong things. I’ve taken that call hundreds of times. A leader on the other end \u2014 scared, nervous, trying to figure out what to do next. Different industries, different countries, different crises. And the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}