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What I Saw at the Crisis (Communications Workshop)
Last Thursday, I once again joined crisis communications guru Steve Linders for his presentation on the topic. It’s really more of a workshop. The morning features Steve’s insights from a career dealing with all manner of crises in business, public schools, hospitals, higher ed, and law enforcement. You learn his proactive and reactive crisis communications methods. That’s entertaining, enlightening, and engaging, but after lunch you get hands dirty joining an ad hoc crisis communications team forced to deal with a compelling crisis scenario. That’s when the room comes alive.
We’ve had police chiefs, commanders, sergeants, and public information officers; hospital and higher-ed administrators; city administrators and communications teams, even public safety commissioners; and county agency heads in the room. But looking around the room last week, it was clear who should be filling the remaining seats.
In just the five days since our training last Thursday, Miss USA has had to take back Miss North Carolina’s crown; BMW pushed Spider-Man ads onto the dashboard screens of their persnickety owners; Meta was ordered by a New Mexico court pay $567 million for contributing to a youth mental-health crisis; House Republicans have had a member drop his reelection bid over misconduct findings and a candidate facing domestic-abuse allegations; and the FAA had a major Midwest air-traffic-control outage screw up. Plus, the Taylor Farms, Taco Bell, and Chipotle cyclospora/salmonella outbreaks have yet to work their way out of our systems.
Administrators, chiefs of staff, operations managers, and communications professionals from all of these sectors need this training.
- Government
- School districts
- Higher education
- Healthcare and hospitals
- Nonprofits
- Sports teams
- Financial services
- Politics
- Technology, IT, cybersecurity, managed service providers
- Manufacturing and industrial
- Retail, hospitality, tourism
“My organization will never have that kind of crisis.”
Oh, really? If you can answer yes to any of these five questions, your organization could have that kind of crisis.
- Do you have employees?
- Do you have customers, and are any of them not 100% competent in all things?
- Are there lawyers in your country?
- Does your product, service, or function happen outside of the realm of pure, fairy-godmother magic?
- Does social media exist?
Toyota probably thought they were on cruise control after decades selling the world’s most reliable, trouble-free cars. Their dependability was legendary. Then around 2009–10, their cars would sometimes have unexplained acceleration, and people were killed by them.
Tylenol was widely used and trusted as safe throughout the 60’s, 70’s, and the dawn of the 80’s. Then in 1982 some psychopath found how easy it was to open their bottles and capsules, drop in some cyanide, and put the bottle back on the shelf.
Penn State’s football program was the envy of most in the NCAA, and America loved O.J. Simpson, Ellen DeGeneres, and Pee-Wee Hermann.
People still drive Toyotas and take Tylenol. Come learn how the right response can save your organization.
We had a county emergency manager work on a data breach scenario and hold a mock press conference with us in January—then come April, hold a real-world press conference addressing that exact situation. Prepared. Practiced. Professional.
Here’s your next chance
Oct. 7, 2026 | 8 am–5 pm
Duluth Police Department, 2030 North Arlington Ave, Duluth, MN 55811
Register (you/your boss/your team) to attend
You will walk away prepared, practiced, and professional knowing who needs to be on your crisis communications team; how they activate in a crisis; and how to approach your range of responses from social media statements to holding and managing a press conference. You’ll experience those pressures in a low-risk environment before a high-risk one emerges.
