With every company and organization having their reputation at stake, you’d think executives and investors would take a more proactive stance about preventing mishaps, offensive material and bad judgment calls from slipping out.

 

Unfortunately, the standard corporate playbook is strictly reactive: panic, hire an expensive crisis management firm, apologize profusely, issue endless by-the-book statements, take a big financial hit, and mop up the mess for the next six months.

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That is like accepting inevitable defeat as the normal price of doing business. What kind of playbook is that?

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Smart companies don’t wait around for bad news. Knowing that most emergencies originate internally, they act preventatively so they don’t light matches under their own cauldron of hot, boiling water and step into it.

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Think of it in health terms: if you knew there was a bad flu virus coming in winter, would you wait to get very sick and be knocked out of commission for weeks, or take a vaccine to prevent the illness and not miss a beat? 

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Every company needs an impartial internal mechanism that acts as “another set of eyes” before any document or photo is sent out or action taken.

The three keys to an effective checks and balances system are:

A SENSIBLE ORDER OF APPROVAL: 1) managers who understand the brand, its tone and verbiage; 2) the attorneys to make sure the words or actions are legally sound; 3) the colleague who double checks for factual or spelling errors as well as overboard legalese so the messaging will be clearly understood by the intended audience; and finally 4) the sign-off from the top.

SPEED means the clock is always ticking and timing is everything. Lawyers inevitably slow things down, so factor that in.

 

OBJECTIVITY: The approval pipeline must flag anything potentially offensive, controversial, superfluous, or cryptic before it is set loose into the world. For a wide, experienced perspective, I recommend recruiting two or three rotating culturally diverse staff in different departments who can impartially provide feedback.