Brexit: Five lessons to be learned from this textbook case of terrible crisis communications

The aftermath of the recent vote in the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union (popularly known as Brexit – or British exit) has all the hallmarks of a classic crisis communication disaster – and there’s a great deal that governments and communications professionals can learn from it.

I am also sure – as we get further away from the vote – that there will be much more to be learn from the on-going handling of Brexit. But here (in no particular order) are five that I’ve seen so far:

• Planning matters – If you are facing the possibility of announcing disappointing news (whether it’s poor quarterly results, the resignation of a founder, the recall of a popular product, widespread layoffs or the results of a close vote by shareholders), plan how you are going to reassure your shareholders, key customers and the general public no matter what the outcome. In the case of Brexit, there was always the possibility that the country would vote to leave the European Union, yet very little messaging seems to have been prepared (by either the British government or its official opposition) that would reassure the British general public, the markets and key British trading partners. Yes, there was a plan to mitigate the financial impact by the Bank of England (and bank chair Mark Carney did his best to deliver that part of the message). The message from the Bank of England, however, was only one tiny part of the needed communication – and many of the other needed responses could have been anticipated.
• Be clear about who speaks for you – One of the biggest challenges in the last few days is knowing who actually has anything authority to speak for the British government. Prime Minister David Cameron has had quite a bit to say, but the FIRST thing he said after Brexit is that he was resigning. That meant anything he said subsequently didn’t carry the weight or authority of a leader who could act on whatever he promised. Since then, it’s been unclear who really speaks for the government. For non-government organizations, this should be a little easier – although not always. It’s not unheard-of for companies to have messy shareholder fights where there’s one group who wants radical changes within the company. But, even in that circumstance, there would likely to be agreement on who would speak for the company after a tough vote – and how that communication would happen. The chair of the company – or an acting CEO – would typically provide a clear, single voice. If the UK government had planned properly, the plan for whom would speak for the government following the vote would have been clearer – and at least some of the post-vote confusion might have been reduced.
• Fear is dangerous and hard to control: use it sparingly, if at all – In the run-up to the vote, all kinds of ominous consequences were outlined (including warnings of a dire and difficult “emergency budget” by chancellor George Osborne). Some of those consequences could justifiably to considered unhelpful fear-mongering – others amounted to the pointing out of unwelcome facts (that post-vote uncertainty was likely to tank the currency and the stock market – at least temporarily). For companies faced with similar situations (such as a difficult shareholder vote, the outcome of a much-needed FDA approval, the conclusion of a boardroom battle over the future of a company), a much more measured approach in the run-up to the change usually produces a much better result for everyone.
• Address the toughest questions first, even if you don’t have all the answers to them – On this score, it’s hard to say which were the toughest post-Brexit questions (will Scotland leave the UK, could the UK parliament opt to avoid implementing the decision, when would the UK government invoke Article 50, what happens to all the EU money funneled into specific UK communities facing economic hardship) but it is easy to say that there should have been better answers than “who the heck knows?”. Fortunately, in most business settings, there aren’t anywhere near as many vexing questions to which there are no easy answers. But whether you’re dealing with an oil spill, a major auto recall, an expensive case of fraud or simply poor financial results, you need to answer the toughest questions as fully and frankly as you can – and to be clear about where you don’t have answers and why. The longer you avoid answering, the more it looks like you’re avoiding revealing even more damning news.
• Don’t over-simplify difficult issues – And in trying to address these tough questions, it’s easy to over-simplify. Resist the temptation to do so. You need to be prepared to clearly outline the complexities – and make clear the dependencies and relationships between different parts of a decision chain. Brexit is a classic case of a very complex scenario involving a massive number of stakeholders from around the region and around the world. All played into the creation of the political and economic environment that gave rise to the support for Brexit – and therefore simplistic analysis is not helpful. The closest parallel in the world of business might be when a confluence of factors causes a public company to suddenly find itself in hot water (perhaps its aging flagship product is not selling well, government anti-trust regulation is stalling a move into new markets and top-level management of the company recently changed). In the latter example, a public company would need to honestly walk analysts through the impact of each of those contributing factors in order to gain understanding of whatever plans they might have put forward in order to put the company right again.

Those are a few of the thoughts that struck me in the aftermath of Brexit. I’m sure there will be many, many more lessons to be draw from this experience – and I will likely update and add to this list again soon.

• Geof Wheelwright, [email protected]