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WAR STORIES AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES:
A CRISIS COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT ANTHOLOGY
(2000 Edition - Volume I)
By James E. Lukaszewski, APR, Fellow PRSA

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A collection of Lukaszewski authored articles, essays, and briefing documents drawn from
more than 300 crisis situations designed to provide insights, theory, and background
information to set the stage for crisis communications planning activities.

Chapter topics include: bad news; corporate strategies and management issues; crisis
management and vulnerabilities; environmental affairs; labor relations; law and legal issues;
and leadership and goals.

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EXCERPTED FROM “LETTER TO READERS,” Executive Action(r): Crisis
Communication Planning Strategies: A Crisis Communication Management Anthology

“Conventional wisdom has it that when crisis communication planning is required, the first
step is to call friends or colleagues and ask for copies of their plans. Usually this is a waste
of time. Another organization's plans will have little relevance to your issues, even if that
organization is in the same industry. Company cultures and approaches vary significantly. It's
the specificity to the problems an organization faces that makes the crisis plan truly valuable
to the organization.

“There is no substitute for delving into the literature of crisis communication management.
The goal is to look for the "best" business practices based on fundamentally sound thinking
and principled behaviors as they relate to your business. The purpose of this Anthology is to
provide many of those critical principles and foundational concepts.

“Crisis communication planning should be based on performance standards. That's the
purpose of the introductory section, Communication Standards: The Principles and
Protocols for Standard-Setting Individual and Corporate Communication, which begins on
page x. In crisis communication, standards generally refer to behaviors, actions, and
strategies the community expects, which can be implemented immediately thereby avoiding
the classic reputationally defining or damaging non-action or the appearance of
unacceptable action. Absorb and apply these standards along with the important steps and
structures they suggest such as openness, responsiveness, and moral questioning,

“The content of this volume is divided along functional lines. Experience from previous
editions has helped us better organize the material into a structure that can be utilized in
virtually any sequence appropriate to the individual practitioner's needs.

“Each chapter contains some must-read material. For example, item C in Chapter 1, "Good
News About Bad News," comprehensively discusses the issues and tactics at the heart of
managing bad news. Item D, "Managing Bad News in America," contains a powerful set of
thoughts about the pervasive and punishing nature of bad news when it occurs along with
sensible response strategies.

“In Chapter 2, item A, "Let's Get Serious About Strategy," is an important document for the
practitioner to absorb and internalize related to how managers receive advice. Item E, "How
Managers Make Strategic Decisions," is also related to helping the staff-level practitioner
better advise senior executives. Item F, "Selective Engagement: A Powerful Strategy for
Managing Your Communications Destiny," introduces an important, novel strategic approach
to media relations.

“Chapter 3, Crisis Management and Strategy, is a collection of important topics across the
spectrum of crisis response. Chapter 4 is devoted to activist counteraction because active
anti-corporate activism is rising both in intensity and sophistication. Item B, "Moving Out of
the Target Zone: What to Do When Activists Attack," contains an important set of
instructions
for dealing with activist action.

“Chapter 6 contains powerful and interesting information on employee relationship building.
Item A, "Rethinking Employee Relations: A Strategic Analysis," is a new but extremely
useful
way to think about who comes to work and why, who is there, and what they do each day.
Item H, "Labor Communication Plan Outline," is based on actual client work and is an
extremely useful model for communicating in the organized environment.

“Chapter 7, Litigation Visibility and Legal Issues, reflects the growing importance of legal
matters in our profession and working with attorneys. This entire chapter is packed with
powerfully purposeful information that will help you deal with situations where litigation is
likely.

“Chapter 8, Leadership and Goals, contains useful information for the practitioner on how to
be a leader, how to work with leaders, how leaders think, how leaders set goals, as well as
on how organizations get into trouble and stay there. Item F, "Profiles in Jell-O®:
Communication Strategies Guaranteed to Perpetuate Trouble," describes both the behavior
to plan against and the Parking Lot Paradox, the disparity in rules and standards between
home and the workplace.

“Once you've completed these key readings, you'll have a theoretical and practical basis for
analyzing crisis plans that may already exist within your organization or for structuring new or
revised plans. You'll find volumes two and four in the Executive Action(r) Crisis
Communication Management System, Executive Action(r) Crisis Communication Planning
Strategies: A Crisis Communication Management Workbook, and Executive Action(r) Media
Relations Strategies During Emergencies, A Crisis Communication Management Guide
essential as you move forward in your crisis communication management planning.”

- James Lukaszewski

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CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE ACTION CRISIS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

CONTENTS

LETTER TO READERS

INTRODUCTION
Communication Standards: The Principles and Protocols for Standard-Setting
Individual
and Corporate Communication (Public Relations Quarterly)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER 1 BAD NEWS
What bad news is, how to recognize it more effectively, how to deal with it, and
even how
to benefit from its occurrence.

A. Bad News: How to Assess the Damage (Executive Action Newsletter)
B. Bad News Eradicator (Executive Action Newsletter)
C. Good News About Bad News (Security Management)
D. Managing Bad News in America (Vital Speeches of the Day)

CHAPTER 2 CORPORATE STRATEGIES AND MANAGEMENT ISSUES
Thinking strategically about the process of planning for the emergency
communications
environment.

A. Let's Get Serious About Strategy (strategy supplement to pr reporter)
B. Managing Corporate Exposure (Executive Action Newsletter)
C. Six Essential Lessons for Crisis Managers (Executive Action Newsletter)
D. Getting Your Boss to Buy Into Crisis Planning (Public Relations Tactics)
E. How Managers Make Strategic Decisions (strategy supplement to pr reporter)
F. Selective Engagement: A Powerful Strategy for Managing Your Communications
Destiny (strategy supplement to pr reporter)
G. When to Send Your Boss Out to Meet the Press (PR Tactics)
H. Telling the Truth Reduces Liability? Who Woulda Thought (PR News)

CHAPTER 3 CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGY
Translating theory into practical steps.

A. Building a Crisis Response Plan That Works (Public Relations
Tactics)
B. Crisis Prevention: Keeping Your Crisis Communication Plans Current,
Part I and II (Executive Action Newsletter)
C. Five Critical Steps in Crisis Management (Executive Action
Newsletter)
D. Anatomy of a Crisis Response (Public Relations Journal)
E. Five Strategies for Managing Unplanned Visibility Caused by
Emergencies (Executive Action Newsletter)
F. The Five Counterintuitive Effects of Explosive Visibility (Executive
Action
Newsletter)
G. A Primer on News Magazine Shows (Executive Action Newsletter)
H. The Media and the Terrorist: A Dance of Death (Executive Speeches)
I. Understanding Public Official Decision Making During Controversial
Issues
(Executive Action Newsletter)
J. The Eighth Dimension of Crisis Communication Management
(Executive Action
Newsletter)
K. Using Fact Power to Organize Senior Management Into a Focused,
Motivated,
Productive, Thinking, Decision-Making Operational Team
When Crisis Occurs (Executive Action Newsletter)
L. Regaining Public Credibility After a Damaging Situation (Executive
Action
Newsletter)
M. Axioms of Influence: The Truth About Your Relationship With
Audiences (Executive Action Newsletter)
N. Some Insights Into the Disaster Recovery/Business Resumption
Process for
Corporate Communicators (Executive Action Newsletter)
O. Nine Steps to Understanding the Product Recall Process (Executive
Action
Newsletter)
P. Regaining Public Credibility After a Damaging Situation: How a
Relatively Simple
Product Problem in Europe Turned Into an Avoidable Career-Defining Moment for the
Chairman of Coca-Cola (PR News)

CHAPTER 4 ACTIVIST COUNTERACTION
Being as committed to victory as opponents are to defeating you.

A. Understanding Grassroots Tactics: Alinsky's Rules for Radicals
(Executive Action
Newsletter)
B. Moving Out of the Target Zone: What to Do When Activists Attack
(Executive Action
Monograph)
C. Dealing With Confrontation: Important Reminders (Executive Action
Newsletter)
D. Contentious Public Meeting Survival Lessons (Executive Action
Newsletter)
E. Seven Behaviors That Cause Community Relations Programs to Fail
(Executive Action Newsletter)
F. Counteracting Anti-Corporate Activism on the Net (Executive Action
Newsletter)
G. Counteracting Activist Attacks: A Reality Check From Seattle (PR
News)

CHAPTER 5 ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Dealing with critical issues, credibility, angry neighbors, and public meetings;
structuring
successful community communication plans.

A. It Ain't Easy Being Green (Vital Speeches of the Day)
B. The Peppermill Public Hearing: A Communication Skill-Building
Simulation
Exercise (Disaster Recovery Testing: Exercising Your Contingency Plan)

CHAPTER 6 EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
Practical techniques and insights, especially during negotiations and difficult
times.

A. Rethinking Employee Relations: A Strategic Analysis (strategy
supplement to pr
reporter)
B. Waging Peace: Strategies to Replace Employee-Management
Conflicts and
Workplace Tension With More Permanent Positive Relationships (strategy supplement to pr
reporter)
C. Transforming Employee Attitudes: Positive Success Principles
(Executive Action
Newsletter)
D. An Executive Feedback Program That Tells You What You Really Want
to Know
(Executive Action Newsletter)
E. Communicating About Labor Problems (Executive Action Newsletter)
F. The Realities and Lessons of Labor Communications (Executive
Action Newsletter)
G. Nine Steps to Successful Contract Negotiations (Wage Peace; Avoid
War)
(Executive Action Newsletter)
H. Labor Communication Plan Outline (From Actual Client Case)
I. When Employees Come Home (Security Management)

CHAPTER 7 LITIGATION VISIBILITY AND LEGAL ISSUES
The new frontier for public relations: how to understand and work with lawyers and
legal
situations.

A. Principles of Communication During Litigation (Executive Action
Newsletter)
B. Managing the Lawyers (Public Relations Tactics)
C. The Public Relations Practitioner and Privileged Communication: The
Work Product
Doctrine (Executive Action Newsletter)
D. You're Courting Disaster Without a Litigation Communications
Strategy (Executive
Action Newsletter)
E. Managing Litigation Visibility: How to Avoid Lousy Trial Publicity (Vital
Speeches of
the Day)
F. We Don't Need This Kind of Publicity: The Other Prosecutors (Across
the Board)
G. Eleven Ways Companies Get Into Big Trouble, Even Go to Jail
(Executive Action
Newsletter)
H. Institutionalizing Corporate Compliance Practices: Seven Critical
Steps (Executive
Action Newsletter)
I. How to Avoid/Manage Crummy Trial Visibility (Executive Action
Newsletter)
J. Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Motivator for Better Business
Behaviors
(Executive Action Newsletter)
K. The Lawyer and the Reporter (New York State Bar Journal)

CHAPTER 8 LEADERSHIP AND GOALS
For the executive or the individual who coaches executives: insight into personal
and
professional development, managerial thinking and decision making, the responsibilities of
spokespersons when crises occur, career-defining moments, and the importance of rules
and standards.

A. Choose the Truth (Executive Speeches)
B. Becoming a Verbal Visionary: How to Have a Happy, Important, and
Successful Life
(Vital Speeches of the Day)
C. Focus on Success: Choose Corporate Goals You Can Actually
Achieve (Executive
Action Newsletter)
D. How to Coach Executives (IABC Communication World)
E. Speaking For Others: Current Practices and Issues (Discussion
Paper, Public
Relations Society of America)
F. Profiles in Jell-O®: Communication Strategies Guaranteed to
Perpetuate Trouble
(strategy supplement to pr reporter)

INDEX

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JAMES E. LUKASZEWSKI, APR, FELLOW PRSA

“James E. Lukaszewski (loo-ka-SHEV-skee) advises, coaches, and counsels the men and
women who run very large corporations and organizations. The bulk of his practice is in the
Western Hemisphere, although he has clients from most parts of the world. He believes that
the communications problems they face can be solved through superior personal leadership
skills combined with positive, strategic communication.

“He is a specialist in trouble-shooting tough, touchy, sensitive corporate communications
issues. He provides counsel to companies facing serious internal and external problems
involving: activist counteraction; community relations and grassroots campaigns; corporate
relations failures; reputational threats; crisis communication management; employee
relationship building; ethics/integrity/compliance; litigation visibility management;
management communication strategies; media relations strategy and analysis; public
affairs/exposure management; strategic Web site construction; Web-based attacks; and
strategy. His broad-based experience ranges from media-initiated investigations to product
recalls and plant closings, from criminal litigation to takeovers. He is frequently retained by
senior management to directly intervene and manage the resolution of corporate problems
and bad news. The situations he helps resolve often involve conflict, controversy, community
action or activist opposition. The fastest growing portion of his practice involves civil and
criminal litigation.

“He helps prepare spokespersons for crucial public appearances, local and network news
interviews including 20-20, 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC, and Nightline, financial analyst
meetings, legislative and congressional testimony; and personal coaching for executives in
trouble or facing career-defining problems.

“He is a prolific author (several books, more than 130 articles), lecturer (corporate, college
and university), trainer, counselor, and public speaker. He is quoted in publications such as
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Miami Herald, the Harvard Business
Review, and industry trade journals. He authors the quarterly column strategy for pr reporter,
is a member of the editorial board for Ragan's Public Relations Journal, a contributing editor
to Public Relations Quarterly, a contributing columnist to PR News, and was the first crisis
columnist for the PRSA's member publication, PR Tactics. His book Influencing Public
Attitudes: Strategies that Reduce the Media's Power was published in December 1992 by
the Issue Action Press. The Public Relations Society of America released fully revised
editions his Executive Action(r) Crisis Communication Management System in September
2000: War Stories and Crisis Communication Strategies, An Anthology; Crisis
Communication Planning Strategies, A Workbook; and Media Relations During
Emergencies, A Guide. He published 19 unabridged monographs on critical communication
subjects since 1994, three based on chapters he authored in books published by Gale
Research, Exxon Valdez: The Great Crisis Management Paradox; McGraw-Hill, Building
Quality Community Relationships: A Planning Model to Gain and Maintain Public Consent;
and the Public Relations Society of America, The Newest Discipline: Managing Legally
Driven Issues.

“His clients will tell you that he is a pragmatist and straight shooter. He has won a reputation
for doing as well as thinking. He is a teacher, thinker, coach, and friend with the unique ability
to help executives look at problems from a variety of principled perspectives, to think through
and strategize in new ways and to take appropriate, highly focused, ethically appropriate
action. He has personally counseled, coached, and guided thousands of executives in
organizations large and small across the U.S. and from many cultures representing
government; the military and defense industry; the agriculture, banking, computer, financial,
food processing, health care, insurance, paper, real estate development and
telecommunications industries; cooperatives; trade and professional associations; and
non-profit agencies. He is one of the few who can and truly does coach CEOs.

“An accredited member (APR) of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and a
member of its College of Fellows (Fellow PRSA), Mr. Lukaszewski is a member of the
PRSA's Board of Ethics & Professional Standards and is active in the Counselors
Academy, the Corporate, Employee Relations, and Public Affairs/Government Sections and
the New York City Chapter. He is also a member of the Center for the Study of the
Presidency, the International Churchill Society, and The Issue Management Council. He is an
Adjunct Associate Professor of Communications at New York University's School of
Continuing and Professional Studies and has served as a civilian advisor to the United
States Marine Corps and several federal agencies. He lectures annually at the U.S. Marine
Corp's East Coast Commander's Media Training Symposium and is an internationally
recognized speaker on crisis management, ethics, media relations, public affairs, and
reputation preservation and restoration.

“Lukaszewski received his B.A. degree in 1974 from Metropolitan State University in
Minnesota. He is a former deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Economic
Development and assistant press secretary to former Minnesota Governor Wendell
Anderson. He founded Minnesota-based Media Information Systems Corporation in 1978.
Prior to founding The Lukaszewski Group Inc. in 1989 he was senior vice president and
director of Executive Communication Programs for Georgeson & Company and a partner
with Chester Burger Company, both in New York City.”

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See Order #DR753 for a special price on the complete, 4-volume set.
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See DR502 for Volume II, DR752 for Volume III, and DR504 for Volume IV.
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2000, 198 pages. Order #DR501.
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