Although Corporate Communication Crisis Leadership: Advocacy and Ethics certainly brings compelling and constructive insight to the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster, its richest contributions are in the lens the authors construct for viewing the crises and mega-crises of our time. With increasing frequency, profound failures like the BP disaster escalate to seemingly unresolvable levels. Indeed, BP will remain locked in the Deepwater Horizon postcrisis phase for a decade or decades. Volkswagen’s emissions crisis and the National Football League’s plague of concussions pose similar postcrisis challenges. Simply put, much of the work done on crisis communication cannot account for the web of missteps that must align for a crisis to reach this magnitude. Corporate Communication Crisis Leadership: Advocacy and Ethics breaks with tradition and accepts the lofty challenge of examining colossal failures from their inception. Melding risk and crisis, the authors clearly articulate a lens for viewing the procession of failures that transform an issue into a public argument. They further examine how these arguments escalate to conflicts that, if managed poorly, serve as the gateway to crisis and, ultimately, to mega-crisis. The book is artful in its weaving of multiple theories into a coherent explanation of the sequence through which an organization’s communication descends into the darkness of greed, insensitivity to both internal and external stakeholders, and, consequently, to profound failure. These are not isolated problems for BP, Volkswagen, or the NFL. Rather, these are the perils of our time.
In constructing their lens for viewing the transformation of manageable risks into full-blown crises, the authors reestablish ethical rhetoric as the foundation for risk and crisis communication. With ethics and rhetoric at the core, they create an uncommon blending of argumentation and public relations to embody both the communication opportunities and threats of risk and crisis communication. Given access to the information needed for making significant choices, the public can and often do recognize, as the authors describe, a convergence of evidence that guides them to safety and inspires them to demand corporate social responsibility. When information is withheld, distorted, or blatantly falsified, however, the free and open marketplace of ideas cannot serve this essential purpose. The authors merge classic and contemporary rhetorical and argumentation principles together to construct a convincing argument for how risk and crisis narratives can and should function to avoid and resolve risks before they become crises, or, worse yet, mega-crises. Most importantly, the authors eloquently establish an essential truth: Communication failures precede crises.
Similarly, the authors articulate the process whereby ethical failures in leadership are manifested and diffused throughout the narratives that guide sense making and decision making at all levels of the organization—particularly in the interaction with both internal and external stakeholders. These flawed narratives deprive organizational members of the psychological distance needed to maintain a perspective that balances profit and safety. Indeed the narratives through which organizations derive meaning and learn to expect reward and sanction function in the background of all organizational thought and discourse. If these narratives are flawed, they may likely lead to dangerous negligence and abuse for stakeholders. When an organization’s narrative is void of essential ethical standards, failure and crisis are inevitable. Simply put, gaps in communication lead to gaps in mindful decision making. The result is thoughtlessness and ethically flawed decision making.
This book provides a convincing explanation of how organizations advance minor failures into devastating crises. Perhaps more importantly, the authors provide a series of equally credible recommendations for halting the rhetorical and ethical failures that cause an issue to progress to an argument, conflict, and crisis. The antidote to this cascade of failures is strategic communication at its best. At any critical juncture, organizations can alter this descent into crisis by rebalancing the narratives that guide their decision making and influence their communication with stakeholders. Strategic communication at its best is planned through a mindset that balances safety and profit; contributes to the marketplace of ideas that empowers stakeholders to make wise choices about their safety and health; and, ultimately, resolves issues, arguments, and conflicts before they become crises.
The tight coupling of our global world that Perrow warned about more than two decades ago has arrived. Crises occur with an unprecedented frequency and intensity. Corporate greed precedes failures that take a previously unimaginable toll on society—physically, financially, and emotionally. New answers are needed to address questions and concerns that have outgrown our current explanations. The authors of this book boldly address the exigence created by a tightly coupled and increasingly greed-driven world. By returning to the rhetorical roots of our discipline, they reveal a pathway to strategic communication fitting for our times.
—Timothy L. Sellnow, PhD
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida