Business has become one of the favorite whipping boys in the media to provide temporary diversion from the usual stream of personal scandals, talk show confessions, and entertainment releases. Do a good job, and you will seldom appear. Be remotely connected to something harmful, controversial, or threatening, and the world is at your door. Ms. Cohn does a very effective job of explaining why this is, and how you can influence it.
The book is organized around 7 deadly sins in a public relations crisis. These sins are really mindsets that are mistaken and will usually prove harmful:
It will never happen here (chances are it will)
I don't care how it looks (the more you ignore it, the worse you make things, up until the day that everyone involved is fired)
Let them eat cake (describing things inaccurately just draws more wrath and personal jeopardy)
It's not our fault (customers and the public aren't looking to find out who's at fault, they want to know who's going to take responsibility for solving the problem so they can feel confident again)
Just say "No comment!" (people will assume you are hiding something and more negative attention will come your way)
Just numbers on a balance sheet (the source of all the damaging material will probably come from current and former employees -- good internal communication and behavior are most critical)
React first, think later (you can step into a mess from which you cannot extract yourself, like quicksand)
These sins and the stallbusting solutions for them are detailed in each fascinating chapter. These sections are enlivened by a wide variety of former crises handled unsuccessfully (such as the Exxon Valdez) and successfully (such as J&J's Tylenol recall). Almost all of them will be familiar in general, but you will get added detail to help you understand why a company did or did not do well.
Ms. Cohn herself is very experienced in this area and draws on personal examples in many cases, especially the crash of an Air Florida jet in Washington, D.C.
The basic lessons revolve around the concept of establishing crisis scenarios and practicing how to handle those scenarios before they occur. You also get directions for how to do the practice so it will be relevant and realistic. This benefits of this type of simulation training are also spelled out well in The Art of the Long View, which you may wish to read as well.
The book is filled with an enormous quantity of do's and don't's. I found it hard to keep track of them all as I went along. I was pleased to see many of the concepts behind them summarized on pages 329 and 330. You might find it easier to absorb the material in the book if you began by reading the introduction, then went to these two pages, and returned to the beginning of the book.
The management process described here would work well in any problem-solving environment. Although the author does not make that point, you should be sensitive to it. You have a lot more to gain by studying this book closely than you realize, and broadening its application. Stalled thinking is also a problem in other critical areas of a company.
Remember that an ounce of prevention can often be worth much more than a pound of cure!