Now Is Not the Time to Abandon Your Values

By Chris Ortman

When your stated values are under attack, how you respond says a lot. Too many companies and organizations are running scared in the face of political pressure, hoping to protect their brand by avoiding controversy. This sends the wrong signal – to employees, customers, funders, and others – that those stated values were never deeply held.?

Donald Trump has spent the first few weeks of his second term attacking DEI, a blanket term he and his supporters use to refer to pretty much anything they don’t like – or as a scapegoat for their own failures. In a press conference following the deadly crash of a helicopter and commercial airliner in Washington, D.C., Trump blamed DEI for the tragedy – a blatant dog whistle assertion with no basis in fact.?

As recently as last month, there was broad consensus in America that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs play a critical role in addressing historic inequality for underrepresented and marginalized groups. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is the occupant of the Oval Office and his viscous and incoherent obsession with attacking DEI. And how he has directed elements of the federal bureaucracy he controls to do the same.??

Crisis communications professionals know that no two crises are alike. Most crisis events are limited in scope to a company or organization’s business or mission. If handled properly, the damage to public reputation can be mitigated or avoided altogether. But in other cases, a company or organization can get drawn into what I call a zeitgeist crisis – a political or cultural moment that is much bigger.

I cut my teeth in crisis communications while a political appointee and national spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Obama Administration. Hardly a week went by when some crisis – an aviation security incident, terrorist attack, cyber breach, severe storm, or chemical spill – requiring a departmental response was not front page news. From that experience, I learned the value of determining the facts of a given situation, clearly speaking the truth, and shifting the message to what the department was doing to address the problem.??

Later, I spent nearly a decade working for film and television industry coalitions, including as chief spokesperson for the trade association representing the six major Hollywood studios. In 2015, I led the media relations response to #OscarsSoWhite and legitimate criticisms about the lack of diverse representation among Academy Awards nominees that year. This was a zeitgeist moment. It hit many cultural nerves and led to months of widespread coverage of industry failures to address systemic challenges.?

Previously, the studios had been reluctant to talk about their many diversity and inclusion initiatives, perhaps for fear of admitting how much they had fallen short. Then MPA Chairman and CEO Chris Dodd, himself a longtime champion of civil rights and racial equality, responded to #OscarsSoWhite by doubling down on those values and speaking out about what was being done to live up to them. More than good politics, embracing diversity made good business sense. Research shows that diverse audiences consistently over index their share of the population as consumers of entertainment products.?

Instead of abandoning values, these moments are opportunities to clearly assert what you stand for and represent. Your employees are watching most closely. What you say or what you don’t say could make them question their loyalty, cause them to not put in full effort, or even look for the exit. In any crisis communications response, when and how you reach your employees should be top of mind. When done right, employees can be great brand ambassadors.?

It may be appropriate to restate your commitment to values for other audiences, either in the press or when communicating to customers and other stakeholders through separate channels. That depends on a variety of factors – the current media narrative, how much you're being asked to weigh in, or the media outlet asking and your relationship with them.?

The good news is your values are already written down. They’re most likely on your website or in your company handbook. Don’t scrub your website or rewrite the handbook, by the way. That’s embarrassing and a bad look.?

Instead, read them again. Maybe read them at a company town hall or with your senior leadership. Discuss internally why values are important and why you may be feeling pressure to back away from them. Remember why you wrote them down in the first place. They were written for times like these.?

In difficult political or cultural debates, most CEOs and senior leaders are reluctant to be at the tip of the spear. Better to keep their head down, they assume, and hope that members of the press put others in the crosshairs. But doing nothing or failing to do the right thing can be a much bigger mistake with dire consequences, whether blowback from key stakeholders or by making it harder to assert your values in the next crisis, politically manufactured or otherwise.?

Restating and reaffirming your values right now is a great place to start.

Chris Ortman is founder and CEO of Ortman Strategies, a public affairs consulting firm specializing in crisis and strategic communications.