Tiffany Rolfe (she/her)’s Post

CRISIS PREVENTION V MANAGEMENT - CASE STUDY The most effective form of crisis management is to prevent the stuff hitting the fan in the first place - which I know how to do because like David I too am an insider. Trying to clear up the mess after it has “hit the fan” is an important skill which I do not underestimate. But once the fan has done its work, then however hard you try, stains will remain. Let me illustrate an alternative methodology with work which I have done for a high-profile corporate client since posting my CRISIS PREVENTION V MANAGEMENT piece. The client is a highly successful and growing services provider, the market leader in its field with the high profile and press attention which inevitably comes with it. A few days ago they were contacted by a Times journalist who put to them a series of allegations concerning their senior management, financial structure and tax arrangements which made it clear that the paper was preparing a hefty bucket load to throw at the fan in the form of a very damaging article. This is a regular client of mine which knows the way I work, and so (as I would have requested) an email was sent over to me setting out all the key rebuttal points. I then worked that email up into a draft response, which I sent to the management team. We then had a conference call where all their collective expertise was invested in strengthening the response to The Times, which I topped off with a warning that the publication of the threatened allegations would contravene the paper’s obligations under the IPSO editors code, and that therefore no such article should be published. I also warned that if it were published then a complaint would be promptly made to IPSO. I copied my response to The Times’ legal department, with whom I have been dealing for over 25 years, and for whom I am a well-known quantity, and with whom I have worked hard over those years to develop a good relationship. The result: no article because I had robbed the paper of its ammunition for the fan. How do I know how to do this work? As well as having been a reputation management lawyer for over 25 years, I have also legalled out newsprint, magazines, films, TV programmes, which enables me to know both how editorial decisions are made, and how they can be influenced.

Martin Lewis is right! Consumer issues and consumer journalism doesn’t get the attention it should or it did. We need to educate and advise people on consumer issues. What to do and what not to do. This is why we started Consumer Friend. To help people and provide consumer information in a way that everyone can understand. Consumer education is key to all the consumer choices we make. Have a look at www.consumerfriend.org.uk. Or listen to the mildly entertaining but educational podcast. Please share any consumer stories with us, if we can help we will at info@consumerfriend.org.uk. #consumereducation #yourrightsmadesimple

We make decisions all the time. Those decisions are usually based on some form of insight. And that insight often has data at its heart. Hannah Fry’s 15 mins podcasts (series of 10) explore this theme across a wide range of scenarios. This particular one definitely surprised me. If you choose to listen to it, I’d recommend doing so uninterrupted and in one sitting for the full effect. https://lnkd.in/eF6PvhpG #DataDrivenDecisions

Is it true you see 10,000 adverts every day? I was catching up on my podcasts last week and heard the number challenged on More or Less from BBC Radio 4. There are some interesting points raised around the number of adverts/ brand exposures/ brand encounters we have every day. Link below to listen for yourself - will be 10 minutes well spent. My take is whether it's 100, 1,000 or 10,000 it's safe to say it's NOISY out there, and as soon as you enter the scroll-hole the number only goes up... That's what makes connecting with people on an emotional level AND in the context of a problem they care about solving all the more vital to make your brand one of the few that cuts through. How many ads do you think you see in a day? #marketresearch #consumerinsight #consumeremotion

Short episodes, but a good introduction to the range of issues, with a fascinating selection of interviewees.

Friends in comms, I'm trusting you haven't fallen into any rabbit holes this week... Highly recommend taking 30 minutes to listen to this excellent podcast on the current, entirely avoidable, royal crisis. #crisiscomms #crisismanagement

New Episode! PART TWO featuring Mark McEwen!

Want to improve your or your people's #emotionalintelligence ? Try this... I became acquainted with a podcast called 'Across the Red Line' following a comment on a post by the excellent Dr Suzie Kellett. The podcast invites people from opposite sides of various issues to discuss their points of view and the reasons for them. It aims to try and get each side to actively listen to the other, apply empathy and to try and understand the outcomes each is trying to achieve (just as in real life, there is nearly always more common ground than people think - if they're willing and able to listen out for it). In my view it is great listening for a number of reasons: ⭕ It enables the listener to broaden their own understanding of a wide range of interesting and contemporary issues ⭕ The listener can listen to #conflictresolution techniques in practice and improve their own ability in the skill ⭕ The listener gets to hear what active listening and empathy sounds like from guests who manage to achieve it, and what it sounds like when some guests don't seem to quite grasp it. This is basically 'free' training case studies! ⭕ By listening to others and getting to learn what 'good' sounds like, it can help the listener (including me!) to be more self-aware of their own conversations in real life ⭕ All the above makes for useful skills development which can then be applied in the workplace If more people learned these skills we could make a useful start at de-polarising modern society and increasingly working together to actually fix problems rather than making more. If you haven't discovered it yet, I highly recommend it. Link below: https://lnkd.in/ebZHy2Q9

It was great to be on the Radio 4 Sunday programme at the weekend, talking about humanism and the new 'What I Believe' book, containing interviews with dozens of fascinating humanists about their worldviews, which originally went out as the 'What I Believe' podcast. The contributors who appear in this volume are all humanists and the vast majority are members of Humanists UK and so of course they have many ideas in common. A desire to know the world and seek out truth; a respect for both human creativity and human reason; a humanitarianism that seeks to reach across all boundaries and borders; an appreciation of human diversity, not just as the necessary consequence of human freedom (another common value), but as something beautiful and fascinating in itself. But the routes by which they arrived at their beliefs are diverse, the worlds in which they practise their professions have shaped their values and beliefs in particular ways, and they do have different priorities from each other. They differed on questions like how to understand the balance of freedom and equality, of reason and emotion, of universal ethics and moral relativism, and of personal responsibility and serendipity in the shaping of our destinies. https://lnkd.in/eA_qEM3y

#Media establishment #journalists and commentators are now a class of media professionals less respected than radio disc jockeys. Full episode at kingofpodcasts.com or watch on my YouTube and please like comment share and subscribe!