What to Do When Things Go Wrong

by Frank Supovitz

  We introduced this feature specifically to facilitate communication of important information in real time for the fans who opted in, such as schedule changes and delays, gate waiting times, traffic tie-ups, and parking space availability. It was also a great backup option for delivering messages in the stadium should there be an emergency, such as a power failure. But we were extremely judicious in using the database for promotional messages because we recognized that fans would quickly opt-out if they were bothered by a lot of extraneous marketing information.

  Preparing the HOW for communicating during a crisis is absolutely essential for situations that are probable, developing, or particularly time-sensitive. “Communications—both media relations and public outreach—take on an entirely different level of urgency when you are dealing with emergency situations,” says Cohen. “In fact, how you relay information to the media and the public may literally be a matter of life and death.”

  Cohen goes on to recall how in 2017, “Florida utilities preparing for Hurricane Irma used multiple channels, from social media to mobile phone alerts, to customer e-mails and radio advertising, to keep the public informed. By using predrafted messages for landfall predictions, they could swiftly relay information on power restoration efforts and safety tips to the public throughout all stages of the storm. The companies offered automated messages for those who had signed up for this service that advised customers to prepare to be without power, and what they needed to do to safeguard their family and property.”

  Knowing in advance how you will deliver communications related to severe weather and other emergencies is essential not only for utilities. Virtually every business and project can be seriously affected by any powerfully adverse condition. You may need to communicate with your team if the workplace sustains damage or if it is inadvisable to make the journey to the office. You will want to advise customers of potential or actual interruptions in service, availability, and operating hours, and inform business partners of changes that can, in turn, affect their businesses.

  Establish the databases of opt-in communities that are most relevant to your business or project, and ensure that the platforms of communication that you intend to use are crisis-proof. “Secure backup generators or an independent power source to ensure your website will be operational during the emergency,” says Cohen, “and take full advantage of social media to communicate with your various audiences.”

  ORGANIZING IN ADVANCE OF THE STORM

  There are, of course, many time-sensitive situations, problems, and crises your business may face that have nothing at all to do with severe weather, but are also predictable or probable, and for which having a crisis communications plan in place is highly advisable. A labor dispute, accident, data breach, or infrastructure failure—any of these and more can have profound consequences on normal business operations. They can also have serious impacts on public perception of the company. Every message or utterance is subject to examination and reexamination by the public and the media and is open to later legal scrutiny and challenge. These are the most pertinent reasons to add communications and legal professionals to the core group tasked with guiding your company or project through stormy waters of threatening issues and emerging controversies.

  The greater the severity of the challenge, the greater the need for a clear strategy that ensures not only a steady flow of information to the media and the marketplace, but also identifies WHO will deliver the messages to which audiences. “When I ask companies for their crisis communications plan, what they often hand me is their organization chart,” says Cohen. Their assumption is that everyone is expected to perform the roles they fulfill every day when something goes wrong. But, as she points out, crisis communications plans deal with needs that are different from “everyday” operations. Consider your organization’s operational needs during a crisis, be ready to reassign staff as required, and ensure you have sufficient trained internal and external resources at the ready to meet the increased levels of activity.

  THE COMMS DURING THE STORM

  “O.K., we’ve got to let people know. Do we have PA [public address system]? Do we have access to PA? Let’s give people the PA” When the lights went out at Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans, on February 3, 2013, we had no idea why, and neither did anyone else at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. We had to ensure that while we sorted out the possible causes and course of action, the fans did not start to panic and flee the building. On one hand, we did not want to tell people to stay if they were in danger, but on the other hand, we did not want them to storm toward the exits if they were not imperiled.

  We had to tell them something to keep them calm, and quickly. Without any information, their imaginations could quickly take them to places—mentally, emotionally, and physically—we did not want them to go. Panic is contagious. And, often, patient zero is us.

  19

  THE CRISIS WITHIN, THE CRISIS WITHOUT

  I know how you feel when something first goes wrong. None of us are Superman nor Wonder Woman. We are not indifferent to surprise nor impervious to stress. We may feel a little weak in the knees, we may start to perspire, and our digestive apparatus may feel like its about to release its contents in one direction or another. We may feel nervous, anxious, and maybe even a little panicky. That’s all natural. What we are experiencing is imprinted in our genetic code. Our body is telling us what to do next, and that’s to get out of the jam we’re in.

  Before I stumbled into a long career in event planning, I was a biology student at Queens College of the City University of New York. What I loved most about the subject, and still do, was exploring how animals behave in their natural environments, a branch of the science called ethology. There are physical, chemical, genetic, and learned reasons why crickets chirp at night, rabbits freeze in fear, and some birds sing with an accent. That’s right, a Brooklyn house finch sings the same song in a dialect that is distinguishable from a Connecticut house finch. I learned that from Dr. Paul Mundinger during the year I worked as his lab assistant. Dr. Mundinger studied the evolution of bird song and brought recordings back to the lab of birds singing in trees and fields all over the northeast. I’m sure that this mild-mannered, middle-aged professor traipsing around forests, parks, and neighborhoods with a long cardioid microphone aimed toward high branches and rooftops inspired some amount of concern, or maybe even panic, in the humans witnessing his own natural behavior. The birds themselves didn’t seem to mind because ethologists know how to move, or more importantly, stand stock still so their presence doesn’t influence the natural behavior of their subjects. Unless what they want to do is to provoke a threat response.

  In many animals, the continuum of possible responses to danger boils down to “fight or flight.” The animal kingdom abounds with behaviors designed to “fight” or vanquish any threat to well-being, a food supply, or a chosen mate. Frilled Agama lizards flash an impressively large ring of throat flaps to make them appear bigger to potential predators. Highly antisocial Betta, also known as Siamese fighting fish, perceive nearly everything as a threat, and flare out their gill flaps when they see another Betta. If neither party backs off, there’s a violent fight for dominance, often resulting in the death of one, the other, and sometimes both. You know other threat displays: gorillas beating their chests, moose locked in antler-to-antler combat, and a snake’s ominous rattling sound. Lots of animals have innate “fight” responses to threats; some humans are among them.

  At the other end of the spectrum is “flight.” Dr. Mundinger’s finches will take to the air if they sense anything out of the ordinary. Crickets hop about in random patterns when they sense the shadow of an enormous sneaker or rolled-up newspaper. A herd of ibex will suddenly stampede across the savannah when they see a leopard licking her chops. I’d like to tell you that our most common human “fight-or-flight” response is closest to the courageous gorilla, but I think most people’s responses are closer to that of sea cucumbers, who literally vomit out their diges
tive tract, distracting the aggressor and treating them to a little snack while what is left of them squirts away. (They obviously don’t eat again for a while, and you may not want to either.)

  WHAT HAPPENS IN US WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG

  When our brain first senses that something has gone wrong, it doesn’t waste time evaluating options. It automatically stimulates an immediate release of epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline, from the glands perched atop our kidneys. This hormone, in turn, triggers a suite of involuntary responses across the body, designed to stimulate acts of self-preservation. Our heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and circulation is diverted from our digestive organs to the muscles in our extremities, anticipating either a running escape or a fight for survival. More blood flows to our heart and the air passages in our lungs expand to accommodate the body’s additional oxygen requirements in preparation for an imminent burst in physical activity. Our increased metabolism generates heat and we start to sweat to regulate our body temperature. Our eyelids retract and pupils dilate to increase the amount of light entering our eyes, supporting greater visual sensitivity so that we can clearly see what is coming our way.

  All of this starts happening before we have a chance to consciously comprehend what is going on, perhaps in as short as a few milliseconds, and once the adrenaline has been released, it is not possible to jam it back into our adrenal glands. It keeps pumping into the bloodstream until our brain perceives that the threat has passed. Until then, if we haven’t engaged in any of the intense physical activity that it was designed to stimulate, the adrenaline already in our system continues stimulating these autonomic responses until it slowly remetabolizes. That is why we may physically shake or fidget for a bit, even after things are back under control. Happily, the release of adrenaline also sharpens mental acuity and problem-solving processes. This helped our prehistoric ancestors evaluate the best options for survival, the best strategy to evade a predator, and the best escape route to safety. In the very short time our primitive forebears had to sort those things out, adrenaline had rapidly prepared their bodies for implementing immediate action.

  There is no way we can avoid the initial jolt of adrenaline. The brain’s instructions to our adrenal glands is hardwired into us through thousands of years of evolution, or by intelligent design, if you’d prefer. Either way, the system is designed to improve our chances of survival in nearly any situation, so accept it. It’s what we decide to do after we process the nature of the challenge that’s important. Today, most of us don’t have to escape from larger, faster predators who wish to devour us outside of the office, but we still experience echoes of our existential instincts when circumstances threaten our health, jobs, finances, families, self-image, or any number of other concerns that are important to us. So, some amount of anxiety, the emotion triggered by these stressful concerns and stimulated by these physical changes, is normal when something goes wrong.

  DON’T PANIC

  Panic, on the other hand, is a more highly disruptive phenomenon; it is a condition that can trigger extreme, irrational behavior, and magnified physical discomforts from heart palpitations and hyperventilation, to light-headedness and nausea, to sensations approximating a heart attack. In an evolutionary sense, panic is a distinct disadvantage. The mentally and physically debilitating effects of panic would not have helped anyone escaping from dangerous circumstances. Neither do the effects of panic help us evaluate, manage, and respond to an incident or crisis.

  In 2013, shortly after Jacoby Jones of the Baltimore Ravens opened the second half of Super Bowl XLVII with a record-breaking 108-yard touchdown, one-half of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, including our command center, was plunged into darkness. My brain immediately ordered a mandatory injection of adrenaline into my bloodstream a second or two before I stated the obvious to my teammates at NFL Control: “Alright, we lost lights.” Then, I turned to the stadium’s senior executive in the room and said “Doug, tell me what we do and when we do it.”

  Though I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I’m grateful that Armen Keteyian, his 60 Minutes Sports producer, and a TV cameraman were actively filming in NFL Control the moment the lights went out, part of a behind-the-scenes feature on the Super Bowl for Showtime. They were able to document much of what transpired during the unscheduled 34-minute timeout that I would never have been able to recall as accurately. Before being asked to turn off their cameras, they captured the shadowy footage that aired on the next day’s edition of CBS This Morning. Vanity Fair, referencing the CBS report, posted that the team at NFL Control handled the power outage “without cursing, sweating, or throwing a single walkie-talkie through the glass window of their Superdome box in frustration.” They weren’t sure whether “the [presence of the] CBS camera crew, preternatural calmness, or anticipatory dosages of Xanax should be credited” with the response at NFL Control. It wasn’t any of those things.

  That’s why I’m so grateful that the footage exists and that most people perceived that we were outwardly calm. I don’t remember feeling calm. I remember feeling nervous. I recollect feeling some of the symptoms of anxiety, the rush of adrenaline, and an empty sensation deep in the pit of my stomach. I’m sure I was not alone in feeling any of those things, but the moment Armen Keteyian alerted me to the fact that half the lights were out was the last time I remember anything about him or the TV camera being there at all.

  We felt the pressure of urgency and appreciated just how screwed we might be. After our adrenal glands did their job, unbidden milliseconds after electrons stopped flowing along the deactivated feeder cable, each of us at NFL Control began prioritizing our individual and collective responses. That is why my first question to Doug Thornton was, “What do we do and when do we do it?” As the stadium’s senior executive, he not only had decades of facility operations experience, but he also had managed the Superdome when the building infamously served as an emergency refuge of last resort during Hurricane Katrina. The Superdome had been heavily damaged during the storm, the roof had been breached, and rising floodwaters had threatened to swamp the stadium’s back-up generators, the only source of power available for the sweltering building and for the 15,000–20,000 people who had taken refuge there. Our problem was not nearly as life-threatening as those dreadful days in September 2005, when 1,833 people lost their lives in New Orleans, or as dangerous as the conditions later experienced inside the Superdome. Had the stadium gone completely dark during the Super Bowl, which turned out to be a real probability had Doug and his team not responded as quickly and decisively as they did, a sense of panic could have descended on the fans and the ramifications of that are, thankfully, unknown.

  PANIC PARALYZES DECISION MAKING

  As for the team at NFL Control, I am often asked how we resisted panic. I truly believe that the annual game day simulations we conducted 10 days before the Super Bowl contributed immeasurably to the entire team’s ability to calmly, quickly, and collaboratively shift to a problem-solving mode. (See Chapter 7.) We had previously managed responses to an ammonia spill, a mysterious fatality, and a spray of a powder of uncertain origin on the field, at least as drills. Notwithstanding that adrenaline was flowing liberally through our arteries, we approached the power failure as though it was another drill, though clearly it was anything but.

  When something goes wrong, it is the most ancient part of our brain, the limbic system, that literally gets things moving. Before we consciously perceive the problem, the amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure that processes emotions, tells our bodies that we are in danger. It signals other primitive parts of our brain to get the adrenaline pumping and as a result, we feel stress and anxiety. Like the rest of our bilaterally symmetrical brain, the amygdala is tucked below each half of our cerebrums, the larger, evolutionarily newer parts of our brain that facilitate problem-solving. Psychologists have proven that we can consciously fight back against the anxiety generated by our limbic systems by engaging the thinking parts of our
brain with tasks involving cognitive and motor activities, that is, by thinking or doing something like solving a problem, incident, or crisis. This conscious refocusing forces our cerebrums to take command over from the unconscious work of the amygdala and other brain structures that give rise to the emotion of anxiety. To put it simply, if we get busy fixing a problem ASAP, we are too busy to panic. That’s how people who routinely launch into action in the face of a crisis, like brave first responders, avoid falling victim to panic.

  Conversely, if we indulge our anxiety to the tipping point of panic, our conscious mind is focusing on what we are feeling rather than what we need to do to stop feeling that way. We are not problem-solving or sorting out the options. We are not acting correctively or managing the outcome. In essence, unless we consciously focus on switching gears and concentrate on addressing the issue, we will be paralyzed from managing the problem before us.

  It is important to note that some people are susceptible to, and suffer from, debilitating anxiety- and panic-inducing disorders that are often initiated and escalated for no direct discernable reason. These are real clinical conditions that require professional and medical guidance, and this chapter is not meant to provide that. What we are talking about, however, are responses to an identifiable stimulus, something that has gone wrong in our professional or personal life. The good news is that many of us can choose to override the preprogrammed anxiety produced by a stressful event. We can even better tolerate these stresses if we have, indeed, taken good physical care of ourselves. (See Chapter 15.) Although the bad news is that we can’t prevent the primitive parts of our brain from doing what they were designed to do, it was once a very good thing. The limbic system is what kept each of our respective ancestors from being eaten or flattened before they produced the next generation of our predecessors, and why we were eventually born. That’s why we get that jolt of adrenaline faster than we can think about it. But remember, it’s what you do after that jolt that counts.