Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, Joins Text 100 to Discuss Crisis Navigation

In today’s fast moving world, organizations of all sizes are faced with potential crises that have the ability to disrupt business, damage brand reputation or worse – involve a loss of life.

And this topic was definitely top of mind for the greater Seattle business community. On, Wednesday, November 7, the Seattle Text 100 office hosted a dinner and networking event to discuss best practices for helping an organization navigate through a crisis.  We had more than 30 attendees ranging from CSOs to communication executives from the likes of RealNetworks, AT&T Wireless, Amazon.com, Boeing, Boeing Employees Credit Union, Cray Computers, The Gates Foundation, The City of Seattle, Puget Sound Energy, Websense and Xerox.

The Virgin Way

Our special guest, Will Whitehorn, gave a thought provoking discussion about how organizations of all sizes need to consider the “law of unintended consequences” of their business and make sure they have the proper plans and procedures in place to deal with virtually any crisis incident that has an operational and brand impact.  Will explained that the way a company and its executives respond to a crisis often dictates how they’ll be perceived by the public in the long-term. 

In the case of the Virgin brand family, proactive crisis planning and executive participation in a crisis incident response is part of their DNA. Will provided a detailed account of how Richard Branson flew half-way across Europe in the middle of the night to be the first on the scene of a Virgin Rail accident earlier this year. And, when a police officer at the crash asked why the CEO of a major company would travel to middle of a rain swept field in England, Branson replied, “Because if I was the parent of one of the kids involved in this accident, I’d damn well want to the boss of this operation to be here.”  I think that pretty well sums-up what separates Virgin from so many other organizations that want to bury their head in the sand during a time of crisis.

Seattle Weighs in

Following Will’s presentation, each table continued the discussion with a collaborative sharing of crisis communication concerns and security best practices.  Topics of interest included:

• the increase in date breaches
• compliance requirements around data breach notification to internal and external stakeholders
• government's role in protecting consumers from data breaches
• selling the importance of crisis communications to the CEO
• the emotional side of business continuity planning

Feedback from the Event

Here’s a note from one of the attendees…

Mr. Whitehorn, Great meeting you last night, and thank you for an informative and thought-provoking discussion.
Reflecting upon your approach towards unforeseen contingencies and the example you provided about the train accident, I was literally stunned by the lengths you took to ensure customer safety and brand integrity.  I’m a military academy graduate and a former climber, so I’m familiar with the necessities of risk assessment, and detailed logistics and contingency planning when life and limb are at stake.  Before last evening, however, I have not seen anything approaching that level of rigor and discipline in a corporate setting.  With these values central to your brand, it is no wonder to me why you have remained part of Virgin’s leadership for 20 years.

Moving Forward

In reflecting upon the discussion of how to navigate through a crisis a couple of key points come to mind.  As with any effective crisis communications plan, there are several bottom-line benefits associated with the investment in crisis prevention and preparedness. For example, planning, which includes creating specific “what if” scenarios, can help mitigate a crisis from happening or at the very least, reduce anticipated response time to an incident. In addition, employing a crisis communications plan can reduce the cost of a crisis and above all, help protect corporate reputation.

In sum, be proactive, transparent and sincere.  And, as we’ve seen with the Virgin example, providing genuine communications from the top of an organization as well as ongoing communications to stakeholders goes a long way with respect to customer confidence as well as brand reputation preservation.

Christopher Barker and Hally Wax

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