Dispatches from the Fahm 2-17-10
The advantages to knowing how to read
An article in the travel section of the Boston Sunday Globe caught my eye and stuck. It combines pure adventure of two things I still love to do - sledding for the chance to leave the normal speed of life- and flying an airplane for the ability to shake off gravity for at least awhile. And both require using the feet to steer!
For anyone who has taken a sled to the Great Blue Hills or Waltham’s Prospect Hill, and screamed with terrified delight on the descent, this article will cause you to check that your passport is current and start shopping for boots. Sledding for grownups! is an institution in Europe. This tour is set in Germany and Austria, but the opportunities exist in the alpine countries nearby. A quick look on the web turned up very little adult sledding activity in the Rockies and Sierras in the west and the various mountain areas of the northeastern states. What a loss.
Definitely worthy of further exploration. Take a look at the article text and the pictures at http://bit.ly/cazV66 and fire up that sense of adventure. Ready to go? My passport is current.
Toyota. Again.
Had an interesting conversation with another communications professional - a PR person - regarding the Toyota debacle. It’s not often that we have a chance to dig into an unfolding disaster from the cat bird seat.
This is a company whose earlier history was a story about learning from America’s car makers’ manufacturing best practices, putting that knowledge to work, creating a quality standard, building a company brand that held sway for 20+ years, and then blowing it to smithereens. What happened? How widespread? Hubris? Decentralization? Dis-communication? We will be paying particular attention to the cultural fallout and the examination of business practices that should certainly follow.
Some of the commentary
Toyota USA President and COO, Jim Lentz did a credible job of taking the message to the American people. In a three-pronged attack he played off the learning from the experience thang. His points were: We’re fixing the vehicles, we’ve thoroughly tested our solutions, and we’re taking steps to learn from the experience and make our processes more transparent. But the delay strained the positive image, leaving a “show me” attitude, with customers’ arms crossed.
From the Financial Times of February 3, 2010
The stakes are high for the top-selling carmaker in the recall, which Eric Dezenhall, chief executive of Dezenhall Resources and author of Damage Control, this week called “the largest consumer crisis management story of our time.”
Mr. Dezenhall says: “There is this tendency for Japanese and German auto companies to view the US marketplace’s need for emotional bedside manner as stupid, as unimportant. [See section below. Ed.)
“They end up coming to that party very late.”
Crisis communications - a gender take
Women of my acquaintance are talking about the huge, yawning hole in Toyota’s relationship with its customers. Essentially, it’s Toyota’s “tin ear.” Our combined notes tell us that these people have no “soft side” to their sounding boards. It’s all guys. And that’s a chronic problem in the upper ranks of large corporations everywhere.
Women listen for different things from men - especially as regards the customer experience. Customers are people, not statistics and dollars. TALK to ME. Tell me how it would be if it was a safety risk to YOUR family. Get out from behind the lectern. Let me see you have a whole body and I can watch that language, too. Here are some of the responses:
- Too long before the face(s) of the company spoke
- Every silent day after the stories began to break was a loss of credibility
- The head guy was hidden for much too long
- The spaces where the speeches were given were too stark - no texture, not softening of lines. Sterile
- No women?
- Somebody needs to wake those guys up
- This is a people issue, not an engineering issue
- If they have known about the multiple problems for so long, why did they wait?
- I’m not sure I’ll buy another Toyota - at least for a long time. Can’t risk my kids
We also believe that tin ear will change with the turnover of a generation. More women are getting access to the places in corporations where they are key to revamping and/or establishing appropriate crisis communications practices. The trick is, I tell my clients, to think out every possible nightmare scenario and formulate your specific response.
This article on crisis communications was written in 2002; what’s old is new again. The updated version of the article contains the advent of a pilot’s checklist for the physician and medical processes.
Lancer is…?
- The name of wine
- The name of a car
- The name of a car
- A knight
The answer is all of the above.
Drove home from the gym yesterday morning behind a Mitsubishi Lancer. I thought as I watched its homely tush, wait a second, that’s not a new name. I wonder if Mitsubishi knew they were choosing an old Chrysler Corporation’s name, and one that goes back 25 to 50 years, depending on iteration.
Being eternally curious, I sat down to play with Google, for a trip down memory lane. Wow, a three-fer. Three different time periods with three very distinctive styles. For you detail and/or car crazy people, here’s the quick story:
| Production | 1955-59 1961-62 1985-89 |
| Successor | Dodge Dart (for 1963) Dodge Spirit (for 1989) |
| Platform | FR layout A-body (for 1961-62) FF layout H-body (for 1985-89) |
Hey you romantics out there: For the first time, in the 1962 Sports Coupe, instead of the front bench seat, there were two bucket seats. Damn - THAT wasn’t a good idea. Much too hard to practice, ummm, romance. I’d prefer a Comet complete with a TDH hunk!
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| 1962 Dodge Lancer (for sale) |
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| 1956 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer |
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| 1988 Dodge Lancer LE |
Upcoming:
More items from the archeological dig at 25 Monroe
Tags: Add new tag, crisis communications