In this episode of frankly…
Rachel and Dan welcome back Franco CEO and seasoned crisis communications expert Tina Kozak to explore what it really takes to lead through a crisis.
With decades of experience guiding organizations through everything from school emergencies to major corporate crises, Tina explains why having a plan is only part of the equation. She highlights the critical role of clear internal communication, human instinct, empowering frontline messengers and ensuring employees hear tough news directly from leadership – not the media.
Let us know what you took away from this week’s conversation, and, as always, be sure to rate, review, and subscribe!
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The transcript below is AI-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies. Tune in to the episode audio to hear the full conversation!
Transcript
Rachel
Hello, welcome back to frankly.
Dan
Welcome.
Rachel
We have Tina Kozak back on the podcast today. So, if you don’t know, CEO of Franco and our resident crisis comes expert. So that is the topic of today’s discussion.
Dan
Yeah, we we get into a lot of different topics around crisis comes with Tina, but she’s done a ton of this over the years and I think some of the main points that we touch on are kind of the importance of having a crisis plan in place and having that protocol so that, you know, if and when things do happen, you know where to go, you know what to do and you know kind of who the important people are that you need to bring in.
Rachel
Yeah. Yeah. Not even just you, but every person that’s involved in that, the importance of preparedness and then really the like, what to consider when you have to hit go on a plan like that. So we dive into that as well as two current topics that are hot, crazy is kind of in the media for companies and people, so she gives some thoughts on those and then we’ll give you a little advice if you’re working through some crisis comms right now or you’re you’re new to that. So a lot of good information.
Dan
Yeah. So with that, we’ll we’ll turn it over to Tina, but hope you enjoy. Hi Tina, welcome back to frankly, thanks for coming back on.
Tina
Hi, it’s good to be back.
Dan
Yeah. So we are, we are going to be talking crisis communications today. And Tina, you’ve kind of become known as one of Detroit’s better known or leading crisis communications counselors so we thought what better better time to bring you in the now.
Rachel
When it feels like all of 2025 has been a crisis
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
It like really feels like one thing after another in the media.
Dan
Yes.
Tina
It’s one complete crisis and then every day it’s like a multiple crisis within a crisis within a crisis. Yes, it does. It does feel that way.
Rachel
Yeah.
Dan
Yeah it does. So a lot of people or a lot of communicators, like crisis communications is probably like their worst nightmare. The last thing that they ever wanna do. But I feel like you love it. So what is? What was it that sparked your interest in, in crisis comms or what? drew you into this? What makes you so passionate about it.
Tina
Yeah, I love the right, the right ones, the right kinds of ones. And. And I’ve got to be, you know, personally aligned. I learned that very early on. But I think in as cliche as it sounds, I I really like helping people. I’ve always liked helping people. I I like problem solving. I like being able to listen to a situation and kind of roll it around in my head and based on you know, experience and also some gut instinct and being able to, you know, help unravel or help create a solution. So I really always like to to do that. I also like to know when my efforts are making a difference and aside from just you know, bills being paid by clients, which is a good indicator, you know that clients appreciate what we do but I really like the gratification that comes from helping a good company or a good person unravel something complicated or maybe face something really difficult, but with grace and honesty, or to help get critical information to people who need it, and especially people who are often that the first priority in a crisis, I like to help make sure that they are a priority in a crisis and, you know, get that information out.
Rachel
I think it’s interesting because a lot of the times crisis communications from an outsiders perspective has a bad connotation. But what you just explained is kind of flipping that on its head and saying like the company isn’t inherently bad, right? Like most times, not all the time they’re they’re right. They’re bad. Yeah, right. And it, you just need to communicate in the right way to show that promise that and then follow through on it. Right. Like, you know, there’s a lot of out there and companies make statements or people say this is all PR, their spokesperson said. This they made this statement. It’s crap, whatever. And so breaking this down, I think to understand that, like, crisis comms and PR inherently isn’t bad if it’s done the right way and for the right person, I think.
Tina
Exactly. And that’s why I I learned early and probably the hard way, but probably the only way that you can learn this lesson is you have to be in some ways, you know, personally aligned or aligned enough with the side that you’re working on and the message that you’re helping to craft, if you don’t believe it. And you could be really good at creating a message and, you know, crafting a message and really good at getting it out to the right people. But if you don’t believe it, then that gratification that I talked about that fuels me, it’s the opposite. You feel heavy, you feel icky. You know you want to get like live out or you don’t want to hide information or withhold information from people who really need it. So you know, for me, like the right crisis means maybe a company made a mistake and they’re going to say yeah, we made a mistake. And here’s what we’re doing to fix it. And you know, here’s what we’ve learned. And you know, kind of owning it. Or, you know, a company that’s come to the difficult decision that maybe they need to close their facility or, you know, cease operations. And there are going to be layoffs. And this is awful. But here’s what you need to know, and so it’s not always good news but if it’s like honest news and the right, you know, getting it out to the right people, then it feels good to me to be able to help in those ways.
Dan
Yeah, so, so talk about some of the some of the types of crises. So I can’t always talk about specific examples here, but what were some of the types of crises that helped shape how you think about that strategy or how you think about the importance of being prepared from a communication standpoint?
Tina
Yeah, one in area and have a lot of experience in this area and and probably one of my first experiences, but schools. So there’s a lot that goes on in the school day-to-day, you know, week to week, year to year that needs to be communicated. Just on the simplest terms like parent communications. I mean every time there’s an ambulance. In front of a school, you need to know how to communicate to parents, because if you think about a school, it’s usually in the middle of a community and people send their kids there and they might pass by the school once or twice or 10 times in a day kind of going about their life and. community.
Dan
Yeah.
Tina
So just that like preparedness that like routine, right, you know, maybe the person who works in the office, like had some, you know, chest pain and needed to come, you know, needed to be seen or someone had an accident on the playground and they brought, you know, EMS in to support or, you know, whatever it is. But especially today, you know now, like those kinds of things, like, Oh my God, there’s an ambulance in front of my kids school. So I’m thinking about, I’m thinking about the parent. Right. I’m thinking about the community about, like, kind of having the plan to communicate. Why.
Dan
Right.
Tina
But also one of my very first crisis experiences was with the school not based around here but, and this is an it’s just an awful story, so I think it’s stuck with me for a lot of reasons, but it’s a good it’s a really good example of, like, things aren’t always as they seem. And the nuance in communication and sometimes the limitations in communication. So long story short, there was a a charter school, again not based in Michigan, that it was in August so school was out and a story broke that 6th grader at this middle school had been impregnated by an adult male who happened to also be a janitor at the school. So this story broke over the summer, but about two weeks before school was going to begin again. And so they called me when there was like, a helicopter over the school because the story had broke. There was like, no advance warning to me or to the school communications team. Obviously, it’s a terrible, awful situation. That there is no bright side right to a 12 year old girl being like assaulted by an adult man and being impregnated. But what we learned quickly was that, yes, the person who was responsible was a janitor at the school, but he was also her mom’s live in boyfriend or might have actually been her stepdad. So the relationship that she had with this person had nothing to do with him also working at the school, but because of FERPA, which is like the child’s like identity protects kids identities within schools, we couldn’t identify that fact because it would have identified her. And that would have compromised FERPA. So like again, my mind went to who are the people that I want to help in this situation? The parents of students who are about to start back at the school in 10 days who are like, oh my god, the schools in the news. I’ve got to find a new school for my kid now. I’m not sending my kid to school, you know what is going on? And so.
Rachel
Yeah they’re immediately seeing a safety issue.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
And they’re saying like I can’t send my kid back to this school when there’s a safety issue, when in reality this probably happened because of their living situation.
Tina
Right.
Rachel
But you can’t say that. So. So what do you do other than? I’m guessing this goes to. He’s been removed. He’s no longer working here.
Tina
Yeah, there were, like a lot of a lot of working with the County Sheriff eventually to help stop naming the school, naming his employer because. You know, had it not been for the press release that originally went out from the county when they arrested this person, they included the employer, but it really had nothing to do with the story.
Dan
Right.
Tina
So they at, you know, at some point, understood and they were kind of like oh yeah, we didn’t realize what, what a crisis this may cause.
Dan
Ohh gosh.
Tina
And so you know first step was working with them to kind of explain the situation on our end and to say, you know, we’ve got all these really concerned parents. We can’t of course explain to them because it would be identifying her right now, but at some point maybe the the law enforcement side of things would be able to provide some details that would help separate out. And so eventually that’s what they did. We also talked about things like background checks and you know, yes, this person was background checked like yes. So we were able to answer some of the. The first questions from parents who would call and be like, you know? Ohh my gosh, what? How did this happen? You know, aren’t people background check when they’re coming into the school? How did this happen? And in that in between time we also were saying to parents like there’s more than it seems here and it will become clear but we can assure you that bringing your children, you know, back this September, you know, your kids are safe. They’re as safe as they’ve ever been. They’ve always been safe here like we, you know, we’re able to kind of do some things until eventually law enforcement, you know, came out. So the reason that sticks with me. It’s just again, it kind of reinforces the, like, things aren’t always as they seem. And sometimes there are like limitations that throw a real wrench into your communications plan. Even so, you could have a plan, but even the best plan you might not be able to execute every part of it or in the best way because of crazy legal, you know, limitations or things like that. So there was also just a a tough one. Umm. Another example though of like a type of crisis that sort of helps shape thinking and preparedness, is just during COVID. It’s simply customer service in a new way. So like we have clients who were, you know, food and beverage clients and think about like curbside delivery, so they could pivot their delivery model, their customer service model and they could. Stay, you know. In business or at some point come back and. Open back up. But the way that they interacted with the customer had to be different. So how that was communicated became really important, like people still wanted to go and get their carry outs, but they had to do it differently. So just even those kinds of communications during COVID, it was really interesting to think about how your communications and your operations teams have to work so closely together.
Rachel
You lose key touch points, right? Like to communicate anything.
Tina
Right
Rachel
In the restaurants, from the server, whoever to then, if they come in the door, signage on the door like you’ve lost a lot of communications touch points along the way.
Tina
Yes.
Rachel
So how do you then shift and think of it differently.
Tina
Yeah.
Rachel
So it’s interesting. So COVID was one where you couldn’t be fully prepared, I mean, maybe a couple weeks, but nobody really knew what it was gonna be. And you’ve talked about kind of, if you have a plan, every good plan always has a lot could have a lot of holes in it, depending on what it is. But talk about like how can these organizations and knowing that it’s not always going to be perfect. It’s important they have a plan you can work with someone to put that plan together, but then how do they prepare to actually carry them out? Right. So like, they almost internally need to tell their staff. We have this plan. Here’s how it’s gonna carry out. Like, who holds the plan, who starts the Daisy chain? Like, what does that look like? How do you prepare organizations to then implement this plan, once they’re prepared.
Tina
Yeah, I think you know different businesses obviously and and again the the alignment between you know like operations and facilities and your communications team. So thinking about, you know if it’s a place or a space that all of a sudden people came to and now the way they’re coming is different or oh there was an accident in the plant this morning, you know you can no longer come to work. Or, you know, we have to get you home with your, you know, students, and we have to remove you from the school. So that working group of leaders or you know, key key employees at an organization need to be really tightly aligned. At least you know those keys of communications maybe it’s human resources or facilities. You know, operations, you know, we’ve worked with utility companies before. So we know like the field operations and like field workers would be a really important part of that. But so that team that, like who’s the crisis team needs to always be at the top of that plan. Like, who is the crisis team? And I mean, we can talk about, you know, astronomer, maybe in a minute. But if the if the CEO is the crisis team, you need to have a backstop for that. What if the CEO is the crisis, right? So another couple things about plan, so one, one thing I always say a plan is a plan you can like ChatGPT, a plan template and it will give you, you know message and audience and and all of the things but frontline communicators that’s just what I have like come to refer to. The people who answer the phones security who are seated, maybe out in the parking lot, or who are who are monitoring the parking lots, like who are the people that if a disgruntled customer or if a curious neighbor or if a reporter with a camera crew comes, who are they going to see first, or who’s going to pick up the phone when you know an investigative journalist calls and says, hey, we just got word that, you know, your facility is being raided by the FBI. So I think those frontline communicators are so often overlooked in crisis plans. Even we’ll get phone calls and make no one has made any attempt to talk to or engage like those frontline communicators like they’ll call the crisis PR firm before they talk to the person who answers the phone. And one of the first things that we say is like have those people been brought in? Are they prepped? Do they know what to do? Give them our phone number. Give them your phone number. So like that frontline communicator role is so important in a crisis plan and in a crisis. And then you know, just audiences and. And you can outline your audiences and think about who they are, but also like making sure that you’re answering everything from what is most important to them, not just who they are, what do they care about? Sometimes the message you’re trying to convey is not the thing that they care the most about. OK, we’re closing a plant. So what? That’s I don’t care. I want to know how long my healthcare goes. Or, you know, I want to know how many more days, you know, I’m supposed to report. You know, so I I think with respect to audience, it’s not just who are they, but it’s like, what do they care most about what’s the most important thing they need to know and and kind of thinking about all of your messaging through those lenses.
Rachel
Yeah and carrying that out first, right. Like don’t pad that message. Just give them the information you know they’re looking for.
Tina
Yes, yes. And anytime someone calls like one of the first things I always say is like. If you’re only focused on the media, I’m probably not your girl. I’m like an inside out Communicator and in crisis especially, I might, you know, very much of sort of of the school of thought that like your employees need to hear about it from you, not from the news, whenever possible and certainly there are times when you don’t even know something happens. It happens to you, so they do hear about it from the news, but most often, you know, you’ll get a call like or we’ll get a call and the maybe the person on the other end of the line is really focused on the media. 9 times out of ten, they’re like, we need a media statement. We need a media statement. And they’ll say like, well, what did you tell your employees? Well, we haven’t told our employees yet.
Rachel
They’re focused on the external image versus actually trying to talk internally to their team first, who I mean we say this for so many things in internal communications, but, it starts at the top and trickles down. So if you’re only focused on media and they’re not getting it, why should they, if media goes to them, why should they say anything nice about you? Because you if you can give them what they needed, right?
Tina
Yeah.
Rachel
Like you really gotta, there’s more stake in your internal people in that moment right away to get them their information, and then you can go to the media because even then going to the media, what do you say to them at that point? Like we told our employees, this or this is what’s happening with our employees, if you haven’t even done that yet, what are you even going to tell media?
Tina
Right, right.
Rachel
Yeah, there it’s kind of. It’s like an interesting cycle.
Tina
And what you can say is usually so limited.
Rachel
Yeah.
Dan
Yeah.
Tina
At least say it to your employees first
Rachel
Right, yeah, that’s fair.
Tina
And then promise to follow up with more, when you have it, I mean that’s a, you know, pretty, pretty conventional, pretty…
Dan
Staple.
Tina
Pretty yeah pretty easy. You know when we have more information we will you know we will follow up with more information. A lot of times at the beginning of a crisis. You don’t have you know you don’t have all the information. There was something that happened, maybe within the last year. It was a local healthcare facility and there had been someone who had gone in for an early morning appointment. I want to say and somehow very early in the morning there was gunfire in a parking structure outside of this healthcare facility and I remember it breaking early in the morning. And seeing it and hearing it and thinking to myself because we know the communicators in this case and thinking. Ohh gosh you know, shoot. They’re having their, you know, a terrible morning. This has just happened so early. And what an awful thing and. They were great. They, you know, got on and they said here’s what we know but we’re just getting information. So here’s what we can confirm. This is what we know has happened. You know, this is what we’re working with law enforcement. This is what law enforcement has told us. And when we have more information, we’ll follow up. And then throughout the day, they did a really good job, you know. Continuing to trickle out information as they had it so just saying you’re going to do it and then doing it.
Rachel
Yeah. And those stories will always say like, update it at this time, update it at this time as you see them because they’re developing. So you know those things will get updated externally. So make sure you’re giving that to them internally too.
Tina
Yes, yes.
Dan
So some of these things that you’ve talked about, some of these situations you’ve talked about already are like clear crises. Like this Is there is no question that the things that you, the examples that you’ve shared are a reputation impacting crisis in one way or another. But as you know, once you have this protocol or this plan kind of built, when do you know like when it’s time to push the button of like ok implement now because you don’t want to jump the gun if you just maybe see one negative comment or if you see something you know starting to bubble that’s not confirmed, like where do you counsel people to really like start to put that information out or to start to have a reaction to it.
Tina
Yeah, you can have the best crisis plan and I don’t think anyone ever just says like, OK, it’s time hit the button, let’s do it. But having the plan has made you think through all the different things, and then when something happens, I feel like it’s a little bit more of like an iterative. You’ve got it and you go, OK what in here could we use at this moment. A lot of times the, you know, catch 22 is we kind of know something maybe is going to break but we don’t want to put it out and make a bigger deal. Maybe it won’t actually break at all. So that that’s the biggest deal. We don’t we you know do we put a statement out and ruffle feathers? Or do we just kind of hold and be reactive?
Dan
Yeah.
Tina
And that’s that’s tricky. And I don’t think that there’s any plan that can answer that question before the actual moment in time. And then I think it is, you know, part technical, sort of what your plan has set you up to do. And then so much instinct, you know so much relies on just instinctive how and and I think that’s why you need to go through these things a couple of times before you know you feel like experienced or before you feel capable maybe
Rachel
You can justify either way, normally right? It’s like you couldn’t find reasons to do to put it out or to not put it out, but how you and the problem with crisis you don’t have time. So like you said, you really do have to work a little bit more on instinct and experience, which is why I think people hire crisis communicators because that’s what they have.
Tina
Right!
Rachel
Because you could find a reason to do anything in that moment and justify it later or go, oh crap, that wasn’t the right decision. But I think you’re right. I really think it’s just living and breathing it and experiencing it and and saying like this is how it works last time. This is kind of a similar situation where it’s not. I’m gonna try this like.
Tina
But that’s not a that’s not a, you know, a case for not having a plan either.
Rachel
Right.
Tina
Having the plan is is critical. You know, the process of going through the plan is the the only way you can train for a crisis without going through a crisis. So I remember, Dan, you might have been involved in this a long time ago, and I won’t talk about client specifically, but I remember training clients on crisis, working with them to develop a plan and then training on the plan and you know, they’re like, well, how do you know, like, how do you know? And it’s like, you know, you you don’t know until you’ve done it.
Dan
Right.
Tina
And then you don’t know, maybe until after and you go like, did it work? What if I had done it the other way? Would it have worked out differently? So but going through the process of putting the plan together makes you really inquisitive I think it helps you. You’re kind of to the like 50 yard line already when the **** hits the fan. So then now you can rely on some of it instinct. You can ask the questions. Excuse me. So all of that, like instinct, is not a reason not to. Have the plan.
Dan
Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree. And I think, you know, one thing that it it doesn’t necessarily mimic the tension of a real crisis, but being able to do some of the do some like crisis drills or some like training exercises with everyone who’s involved in that in the plan or in the protocol. Everyone who has a role, like bringing everybody together and kind of mimicking what things could look like is a good way to get that experience without, you know without actually having been through it real life.
Tina
Yeah.
Rachel
I feel like putting this plan together reminds me of when you were in school and they would tell you you can have a nine by or, you know, like a three by 5 index card cheat sheet that you can use on your test and you would spend hours keeping it in small rating and transferring everything. And then you go to do the test, I didn’t even need it.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
And it’s like, but that was the point because what you did was it forced you to sit down and run through everything you needed to know. So that by the time you got there, you didn’t feel like you needed it cause it was just it was like you said, it was there to check the box if you needed it, but so it’s kind of that same idea of like. If you have a good…
Tina
A open note or a note card for your task. That’s brilliant, Rachel. Brilliant.
Rachel
Yes. That’s what I keep thinking about in my brain is like we were prepared to do that and now as an adult, you’re like, I get why they did that to us. Same thing.
Tina
Yeah, yes, absolutely.
Rachel
So I think there is a few crises that have happened recently in the news. You had a good LinkedIn post about the astronomer CEO situation, which has just I feel like it’s never gonna end. It keeps going.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
How, and then Dan made a good point of the American Eagle jean Sydney Sweeney kind of campaign that everybody’s freaking out about.
Tina
Right.
Rache
So one is like, yes, it’s a company, but it’s a person within that company. Two people really, in this case.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
So the companies to do something that people need to do something versus like the company made a choice from a marketing standpoint. And now they have to defend it. So how do you treat these differently, or is it a similar protocol? Or what do you? How do you feel like you would handle either of these situations it might be similar or different?
Tina
Yeah, well, you know, I always empathize first with the employee. I think in any situation and in the astronomer case, I really felt for those employees. My goodness like this just sort of made a mockery of a brand that had had much brand awareness. Or, you know, positive PR. I mean, they didn’t have negative, but they were sort of relatively unknown. And then just overnight kind of became this joke. And so I felt for the employees and I felt that it took the company a little bit too long to respond when everybody was talking about it. And we, you know, any crisis communicator will say that in the absence of your own message, someone’s going to tell the story. If there’s a story to tell. So I think they just waited so long and, like kind of left me employees out there to dry a little bit. And I think I guess in the other situation, I I, again, I’m still kind of empathizing with the employees in the sense that like if you’re especially, if you’re you’re working retail and you’re so disconnected, you know physically and probably from like a brand information standpoint, but you’re so accessible like you’re working retail so.
Rachel
You’re the one that has the interface with the customer base.
Dan
Yeah
Tina
Yes.
Dan
Yeah, you’re the face of the company, yeah.
Rachel
You made none of those choices. You had no part of it.
Tina
Right. And I don’t know what I mean. I only we kind of only know what American Eagle has sided publicly so, and I know it took them several days to come out with anything. And I thought what they came out with was a good response, you know kind of given everything, but I just really where I’m interested is how soon did you get to those employees who are working you know on the floor? Going back to school season and people are going to be like coming into the store or going like maybe talking to you about it, maybe engaging you and you know. So I sure hope that we learn in like when the dust settles that they did a stellar job like supporting their retail employees, I really hope that that they did right by those retail employees because the company made money and they’ll make money. I think they’ll like usually when this kind of stuff happens, maybe the stock price fluctuates a little bit, but in the end like it’s driving engagement, it’s driving interactions. It’s going to drive, you know, business to American Eagle, they’re going to make money. I just hope it wasn’t too painful for those employees.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
I mean, they said they, they noted they were aware of the potential controversy and they were pushing boundaries, right? I mean, like they said that they admitted that and that’s fair. I just always think about in these situations how many people sat around a table and like? Rubber stamped it, rubber stamped it. This is good. Keep it going. Move it down. Like repeatedly for something to come to fruition. And you’re like, wow, so people either said something and we ignored them or we didn’t care. And they, I guess they kind of.
Dan
Here we are.
Rachel
Like you didn’t care.
Tina
Right, right, right. And then, you know, did they not care because they wanted to be edgy or did they not care because that was the agenda. And then I guess that the customer. There might not ever be like a factual answer to that question so then the consumer just has to decide, like, you know, what do I want to believe? Do I want to believe that they didn’t care because they’re edgy and bold, or do I want to believe that they didn’t care because they’re, you know, kind of trying to associate with these values and as a consumer, does it bother me? You know, I think maybe 25 years ago people would be like I just want to buy my jeans because I like the way they look and they whatever.
Rachel
Yeah.
Tina
But today, like as a consumer, we want to be in alignment with the brands that we put on our bodies that we, you know that that we use. So it’s just there’s there’s a lot more at stake.
Dan
Yep, and infinite options too.
Tina
Yes.
Rachel
Yes, I’m also curious what you think about. Because I know we see this happening, we will give like a statement. We’ll draft a statement quickly, give it to the client. They it has to go through legal. It has to go to the CEO. It has to go through all these people for review. That takes time. It’s got it. Right. So like, it took them a while to respond. I think there is also a level in the, you know, among consumers where a quicker response is better versus sitting on something. How do you balance this idea of like crafting the perfect statement and it going through all these levels of review because there’s red tape everywhere and just getting the statement out and we have to agree on it but like we can’t over analyze it. Like what is that balance? How do you how do you do that with clients?
Tina
I’m a communicator and I care about words so much. But this is where, like my kids would say, like, it’s not that deep, like just it’s good enough just get it out.
Dan
Yes.
Tina
Because again, most of the time it’s so limited what, you know, what a lawyer is gonna allow you to say, you know, just it’s it’s gonna be so limited. Don’t labor on the words. Of course you need to have.
Dan
Yeah.
Tina
In most cases, you know, illegal review and maybe in some cases you know an HR review if it’s related to an employee matter or you know you know other departments that you know. If it’s a data breach, of course you need to have you know your IT team. But get it out like, that’s why in a crisis plan, those the team, the crisis team is so important and kind of that chain of command and going back and not to, you know, I I know I was already kind of tough on Astronomer, but I really feel like I kind of wonder where the CEO was in the crisis plan. Because certainly you got to kind of count this poor guy was out for a day. I’m sure. Right like he. He you know, I’m sure he’s a professional and I’m sure he’s worked really hard to get where he was but give the guy a day like his whole life just imploded. So let’s not count on him. Maybe. And wait for him to review a statement, right? Maybe we like give that to the CMO. So again, without knowing how that worked but did they have a crisis plan? Did the crisis plan say, like if the CEO is, you know, incapacitated or in conflict you know where.
Rachel
Yeah
Tina
Where there’s a little bit of conflict of interest here. You need to have like a check and balance that somebody else can say, you know, we got to get this in like in the interest of the brand and the interest of the employees, we got to get something out versus like giving him self a day to pull himself together.
Rachel
Yeah, I actually don’t feel in that situation he had any right to be looking at a statement made about him by that company.
Dan
Right, yeah.
Rachel
That is actually like you said in conflict completely.
Dan
Yeah, directly.
Tina
Right, right. But it’s it’s, you know, it’s not inconceivable. But if they started small and you know if he was a founder and I I wanna say he was a founder I can’t I mean I might be mixing that up with someone but you know that maybe he’s also the chair of the board. And so there’s never been there’s no precedent for him not being involved.
Rachel
Yeah.
Tina
Well, the president might just be, oh, do we need to wait for Andy to review this? Do we need? I don’t know, should we? I don’t know. Well, again, like, it’s not that deep. Get it out.
Rachel
Yeah.
Tina
Right.
Dan
Yeah so one last question for you you’ve been on before, so we’ve already asked you or a piece of advice that you would give your 21 year old self, but we’re going to mix it up a little bit for you for this time around. So what is one piece of advice that you would give to a communications professional who is kind of facing a crisis situation for the first time, whether they have a kind of plan in place or not like what is one something that you would that you would share with somebody going through this?
Tina
Yeah, and this is going to sound weird and maybe counterintuitive, so I’ll have to explain it, but it is like put yourself first. Don’t forget that you’re in charge of yourself, right? So I talked a little bit about alignment at the beginning and about how important it is to believe what you’re putting out to feel, you know, aligned with that. So that’s one aspect of it is kind of like putting your professional you know your integrity lens on in all of those things to make sure that this is something that you can do and feel good tomorrow. The other thing, and I say this a lot when I talk about crisis is like take care of yourself like self-care. I’ve also learn this like the hard way where the crisis would happen and I would almost push pause on everything else in my life, and I would work because you can, it can completely consume you. And so I would like not drink enough water. I would eat like crap. I would sleep like crap. I wouldn’t exercise like I would do all the wrong things, not to mention like I would turn my, you know, like social, completely like my, you know, my social life off and like, barely even interact. And I would be stressed out at home, but so I think that like making sure that you can be a really good advisor, you can be in the bunker, you can be a valuable asset, but you’re not going to be a valuable asset to anyone if you’re not taking care of yourself. So that kind of like monitoring yourself is really important. And so. I think that is, especially if you’re someone who is going to do, is going to get into crisis and is going to do crisis work. I don’t think I could do exclusively crisis work, and I know there are some people who have crisis agencies and that’s all they do and I don’t know how they do it. I can do a couple in a row and I then I’m just depleted and I need like a break. And and the harder they are, the longer the break needs to be truly cause it just can take every single part of you. So, but if you’re someone who’s going to do crisis, who’s going to kind of dabble in crisis, or who wants to work in crisis comms like paying attention to yourself and your needs first is going to be really important to, you know, your success.
Dan
Love it.
Rachel
It’s also the only I always like to say like no one is dying. But in crisis comms it might be the only time someone is dying, So also remember that that like give yourself grace cause this is probably one of the hardest things you’ll do in your career, because as a communicator it’s the highest stakes, like we’re not in a life or death situation every day but you might be dealing with communicating a life or death situation that’s close as you’re going to get.
Tina
Yeah.
Rachel
So like, give yourself grace with. Yeah, that’s as close as you’re going to come to a job like that.
Tina
High stakes and it’s emotional. And you know, if it’s a community you know is going to suffer the loss of a business, people are losing their jobs, that doesn’t feel good. I mean, you know, it just someone’s lost something typically or, you know, stands to lose something and it can be hard emotionally. So you need a little extra care. You need to like pay attention to yourself a little bit more than kind of going through our normal day to day.
Rachel
Yeah agreed. Well, thanks for chatting with us about it. Crisis is something that I don’t do much of, thank goodness. I don’t know that I have the capacity to deal with it, but it’s always interesting to hear about and you are great at it so a good person to have.
Tina
Anyone can do it. You just have to do it once.
Rachel
That’s fair. That’s fair.
Dan
All right. Well, thanks, Tina.
Tina
Yeah. Thanks, guys. It’s always fun. I appreciate it. Bye.
Rachel
Bye.
Dan
All right. Well, thank you again to Tina for coming on once again. It is always interesting to pick her brain on on crisis comms. Like we said at the beginning, she’s she’s had a lot of experience with this. She is she’s built a lot of crisis comms protocols, strategies, help with a lot of clients through.
Rachel
Plans, all of it, you name it. Executed and done the the planning.
Dan
Yeah like you said the expertises and the experience there. So it’s it’s always good to hear from her on on some of these ideas.
Rachel
Absolutely. So thanks for tuning in. We appreciate it. If you need crisis comms help, keep us in mind.
Dan
Yeah. And we will see you next time.
Rachel
Bye.
