by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications Headlines tell your story. Well, good headlines do. Sometimes, because of the arcane vagaries of the English language, a headline can convey eye-opening meanings you never intended. There’s a classic example in which this innocent sentiment LET’S EAT, GRANDMA! becomes something quite different, and something quite sinister, when the comma […]
By Bruce Hennes & Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications A CEO, executive director, bar association president or other business executive has to apologize or speak about something very important. The stakes are high – and the apology is going to have to be done using Zoom or another virtual platform. Under any circumstance, delivering an effective […]
By Arthur Solomon for PRNEWS There’s a maxim that says the cover-up is worse than the crime. Another variation is the cover-up makes the crime worse. A prime example is the cover-up of the break-in at Democratic National Committee HQ at the Watergate Hotel, in 1972. In our business, unsuccessful cover-ups have brought many entities massive negative media coverage. Years […]
By Kathryn Janicek for Harvard Business Review Alongside meetings, job interviews, and even social events, layoffs have entered the virtual era. It was, after all, inevitable. In a recent McKinsey study, 35 percent of respondents reported that they were able to work remotely full time. Logic follows that when someone works remotely, they can be laid off remotely, too. […]
By John Guilfoil for PRNEWS [Editor’s Note: One of many things under scrutiny in the killing of Tyre Nichols is how the Memphis Police Department (MPD) communicated in its initial press release and police report. Critics charge there were gross mischaracterizations of what occurred. Moreover, they contrast with bodycam video and other footage of Mr. Nichols’s beating. We asked communicator […]
By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications Why Did the Biden Team Fail to Use the Tenets of Basic Crisis Communications? When the news broke that classified documents were found in President Joe Biden’s Delaware home, the PR pundits immediately criticized his handling of the situation. They pointed out that Biden and his staff waited too long […]
By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications In the aftermath of the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of five police officers, the Memphis Police Chief chose not to stand behind the usual “This is a matter under investigation.” Instead, she made remarks that were honest and, in my opinion, stunningly blunt. Her outrage was evident […]
By Richard Levick Speaking with journalists, shareholders, customers and stakeholders is easy when the going is good. As the old saying goes, “We are all capitalists on the way up but socialists on the way down.” But when things turn bad? Communication suddenly becomes much more challenging. As another old saying goes, “The gods of […]
By Edward Segal for Forbes It’s not often that business leaders have an opportunity to learn from a crisis that plays out in front of their eyes. Company executives had that chance Sunday night if they were watching the NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. Buffalo Bills’s Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest […]
By Mark Athitakis for Associations Now These are high times for high anxiety among leaders. Last week, many of them convened in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the new PwC Global CEO Survey released there revealed a lot of pessimism in the C-suite. For instance, nearly three-fourths of the CEOs surveyed […]