I was contacted by a new colleague recently who was lamenting the lack of interest in crisis planning demonstrated by his C-suite managers. It’s true that of all the operations for which managers are responsible, assigning time, money, resources and “stress equity” to preparing for doomsday scenarios is an easy priority to put in the […]
Author Archives: Paul Rhynard
This spring I filled in as an affiliate professor, teaching Intro to Public Relations, at Loyola University in Baltimore. The department chair seemed sheepish at the prospect of asking someone with my experience to teach the basics to freshmen, “I understand this may be rudimentary and not very interesting for you, but we could use […]
“Do as I say, not as I do.” I jabbed a man in the eye with a flash drive once for saying that. I prefer, “Do as I say, do as I do,” or, “Don’t do what I don’t do, don’t do what I don’t say.” (wait, what?) What was I getting ready to talk about? […]
I’ve been called on to communicate with people affected by oil spills, natural disasters and other critical incidents. What makes communicating to people affected by these sorts of events challenging is that they feel personally threatened by circumstances outside their control and by people they may not trust. This creates mental noise, which means information […]
Communicating is one of the most fundamental of human activities and the simplest of human processes, next to breathing. We begin communicating the second we leave the womb and, in many cases, before that with a kick or a stir. We communicate in much the same way that we breathe, without thinking much about it. […]
The Crisis Communicator 