What to do when someone else’s mistake creates your crisis

Most business executives and communications leads know the crisis comms drill: the company or someone in it is accused of doing something bad, you either go silent or you get out in front of it. Then you work like *heck* to reframe the narrative.

But what about when someone else makes you look bad…completely by accident?

That’s what happened when 10 billion passwords were recently leaked, the largest such leak in history. Cyber News reports that over 4,000 sources were used to provide the passwords, and that the online account that released the passwords previously uncovered passwords from sources as diverse as a college, a gambling website, and a law firm.

Suddenly, every company that uses passwords is at risk of losing consumer trust. How concerned will consumers be about putting their information behind supposedly secure systems at government agencies, educational institutions, and healthcare facilities?

Not every crisis of trust is your fault – but it sometimes becomes your problem. Here’s how communications teams and executives can work together to turn the problem into a consumer trust and education opportunity.

Be proactively transparent with key stakeholders

Without key stakeholders, your company is on shaky ground. You can keep their trust by being transparent about your process – especially if it’s a good one – and identifying and fixing weaknesses.

There are three steps to this process:

• Let stakeholders know that the mistakes which led to other people’s leaks will not happen to your system.
• If you need to fix weaknesses that were exposed by other people’s failures, do so. That way, you can…
• Show why your system is secure, based upon well-established best practices.

Being proactively transparent is a four-way win because you:

• Get in front of stakeholders before their trust diminishes.
• Show off your system and processes without looking like you’re bragging.
• Don’t have to put a lot of communications resources behind the effort – probably a couple of newsletters and perhaps a little social media.
• Prove that you prioritize stakeholders by fixing processes at your cost, to their benefit.

Promote your great process to new prospects

Getting core stakeholders on board is great – you’ve steadied the company’s foundation. You now have a chance to show prospective customers, investors, and other partners why your company is better than the competition in a key area that is now being called into question.

Don’t stint in this area. Use press, social, speaking engagements, CEO letters, and every other tool at your disposal to reach and influence people to start moving down the sales funnel. While the competition is hiding or flailing, your company is becoming an industry leader in the press, on social, and on conference stages and webinars.

Don’t let someone else’s problem become your crisis

It’s easy to think that other people’s problems will never become your own. But tell that to politicians, whose reputations are automatically suspect because other politicians have convinced people that they all lie. Or accounting firms, which saw the Big Four firms get embroiled in cheating scandal after cheating scandal. Or cryptocurrency companies that scrambled after Sam Bankman-Fried went to prison.

At the end of the day, all you can control is what and how you tell your story. Don’t wait to build a trust reservoir, or you may find it empty far faster than you thought possible.

This piece was originally published by Dustin Siggins at American Business Magazine.