YouSaid · the spoken record

Katie Delahaye Paine

lines on the record
73
first
2017-04-13
most recent
2017-04-13
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “And then other facts come out, and you have to sort what's actually true versus not. And it's sort of this long, drawn out process where if you are on the other side handing out information, just hand over the entire sweater, like share everything that could possibly be relevant if you have all of the facts, then you have all of the good, all of the bad, all of the potential problems, and then you can really do a comprehensive job of improving what is wrong either culturally or legally or product-wise or whatever else. So just put it all out there and then the business can do what the business needs to do, the people can move forward the way they need to do, and then the PR person can represent the right level of information correctly.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Sometimes people are not, you know, you don't get the full version the first time around. Some people don't know because they've been told something by someone else. And then it can take a long time to actually gather all the facts because in some cases there are lots of different parties involved. Sometimes the parties aren't speaking to each other. Everybody has sort of their agenda or hurt feelings. So it's just hard to figure out, okay, what's the actual truth? Sometimes when you're in our position, it feels a little bit like you're being handled a ball of yarn and then you start pulling.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Right, and like you have to be able to move very, very fast. So even things like what is the first response that we put out? Let's say we put out a quick thing on Twitter acknowledging that we're working on it. Like that needs to be done pretty quickly. There's a whole other audience there that you have to be considering, which is policymakers. You know, are we in a highly regulated industry so that puts a whole other spotlight on you? And you have to be incredibly buttoned up. You know, people are watching you. Maybe we need to communicate to them before we communicate to the public.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Look, if it's a crisis, it's something that fundamentally impacts their business. So you need to have the most senior decision makers involved. Of course, this is going to change if you're talking about a Google-sized company versus a 200 person company. Right.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Sometimes you need a particular legal expertise, let's say in a patent case or whatnot, right? So it's legal, there's the key stakeholders. And who do they typically consist of? It depends on what it is. If it's a personnel matter for sure HR is involved, right? If it's a customer matter, the person in charge of customer success for sure is involved. But that kind of depends on what the flavor of it is. And then it's very important that the people in the room can actually make decisions.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “That also means any email conversations that happen. There has to be a legal person on those emails. I mean, first, it should be a phone call to legal to help them understand, brief them on what's going on, bring them into the loop, and also get their advice on how we should be handling this. Some of these companies are still fairly young, and maybe they don't have a general counsel yet. So you're also bringing in external counsel. And sometimes it's a combination of both.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So let's talk about the very first moment. Like there's a crisis, like it'd be a really bad media article that's slamming your marquee product line. It could be whatever you define as a crisis. What's the very first step? Kim, you mentioned a room. Like, do you actually book a room and talk about it?”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Mantra never waste a crisis often is the impetus for people to actually build the crisis plan and the process and whatnot. Ideally, you do that before. And you have the right culture in place. So if a crisis happens, what will we do? They're sort of like modeling out what are the different scenarios? What is the process? We want all that predefined so you're not Coming up with like who needs to be included and this, that, and the other”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “These founders are getting an immense amount of responsibility very quickly and very early. A lot of times before they have a chance to build their leadership skills and handle a lot of these situations.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and a lot of these, you know, you look at Facebook, for example, Google. I mean, these are communities that are much bigger than countries. I was saying they're less than bigger than governments.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Know a lot of companies may discount how high profile something could get like, hey, nobody cares about us. We're really small. This is something every company goes through. This reporter who's asking these questions will go away if we don't respond. Look, we live in a fairly heightened environment now, especially in tech.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Hopefully, the comms person is a first class citizen and is part of the management team and you bring awareness. You overhear things just like this could actually be a really bad thing. Let's dig into that. And you just constantly make a part of the conversation”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So you're right. People might silently be observing things for ages, but they don't speak up. They don't think it's big enough. There's not enough coordination. Like what's the right place for that conversation to happen”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “A large oil spill is fairly obvious, but there's a large gray area of what constitutes a crisis. And that's why I think it's important to have all the key player, your executive team have an antenna for, oh, this could be bad and call it so that the process can kick in.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Actually, I think there's a tricky bit beforehand. Sometimes people don't actually know when they have a crisis on their hands. So how do you actually know this is a crisis? Oftentimes when the communications folks get involved, like, you know, there are 13 people who have been watching something.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, and I think urgency is another really important one, having that baked in before you go into a process like this or have to face a tough situation. It's like, how quickly are we all going to get a room to figure this out, move forward, respond to emails, get together and do meetings who needs to be in the room? That needs to be sorted up beforehand. And then what level of urgency are we all holding ourselves to to quickly come together and take this seriously and make those decisions? Because that right there could.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “What you're saying here is that you have to have this baked in before there's an actual crisis. And that's also baked into your culture. Like you can't just suddenly manufacture out of the blue these values of transparency and openness.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Well, it's anything and everything that negatively impacts your business and how people perceive your business. So it can be getting negative press because of something, but it can also go all the way down like an oil spill, right? All of those are crises. It's not like your CEO or somebody having a bad day or somebody being annoying on Twitter. I think the thing that's often overlooked in a crisis that's very important is like, what's the culture around crisis? Because what happens is the proverbial S hits the fan. Then there's fight or flight. And people often want to hide stuff. So you want to create a culture around when you're in a crisis moment, honesty and being transparent is prized and highly valued because you're not going to get to the truth otherwise.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Well, this is great context because I would actually like to break down what is a crisis. I know that sounds like a very existential question. Like, what's a crisis? But how do you define a crisis? I mean, is a crisis that just because your CEO is freaking out about something and you're in charge of comms and you got to worry about it and that's good enough of a reason or?”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Yeah, I wasn't trying to be opportunistic. It's like, what is happening at the company that got us into this situation? And what can the company do to become a better company the way you handle yourselves is very much determines how people feel about. The company overall, and also this situation”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “There is media Yeah, I mean, I would be cautious about saying what opportunity can we make out of this because in some cases there's maybe not an opportunity. So I know Margaret, you talk a lot about what's the brand opportunity here. I think it's more like your brand is defined by how you handle these situations versus you taking a moment to say, how do we turn this into a brand opportunity? Yeah, I was.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Oftentimes, when companies think they may have a quote unquote crisis, it is more of an internal situation that needs to be handled. Of course, you always have to think about how you'd handle the situation should it become public. But it's many times all the things that you have to do before it becomes public.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “The golden principle is to never waste a crisis. Something is happening to the company for customers, employees, or whatever the case may be. And then it's an opportunity to make the company better as a result. There is the layer of what are the articles and what do they say today, but there's the deeper layer. It's like, okay, so what can we do to improve the company so that, A, it doesn't happen again and so that we come out better on the other side? And I think people think of a crisis often as a press thing versus a business thing. And they're both.”

    2017-04-13 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Crisis Communications · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source