Eddie McGuire’s racism report response: How not to act in a crisis
In the wake of a damning report exposing systemic racism in the Collingwood Football Club, president Eddie McGuire is showing leaders exactly what not to do in times of reputational crisis.
In an article published on SmartCompany, our PR agency Founder and CEO, Jo Scard, weighs in on McGuire’s response and offers up some effective tips on how to handle crisis communications.
‘Speaking to SmartCompany, Jo Scard, founder of communications agency Fifty Acres and advisor on crisis communications, notes it’s always impossible to predict exactly what form a crisis will take.
In this particular situation, however, the leaders of Collingwood Football Club could have taken a pretty good guess.
This was a report commissioned by the club, that they had access to before it was leaked.
Even so, McGuire missed “key crisis response 101”, Scard says — that is, acknowledging the problem and explaining how you’re going to remedy it.
“If you don’t acknowledge the elephant in the room, how do you ever fit in around the elephant?
“It gets bigger and bigger,” she notes.’
Read the full article on Smart Company.
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