How much for your privacy? Would a billion dollars do it?

Posted: December 3rd, 2009 | Author: aly | Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off

There’s been a lot of gab this week about Tiger Woods and his…er… indiscretions. But even more hot of a topic is how he (mis)handled the situation. Coming on the heels of David Letterman’s own illicit affair, Tiger is being blasted not only for his cheating ways but for his poor handling of how he’s communicating with his fans.

Tiger makes the claim that he has a fundamental right to some privacy, and turns the blame on the media for making speculative assumptions about what occurred leading up the night he crashed into a tree and his wife “saved” him with a golf club. But communication experts are overwhelming saying that Tiger is missing the boat on how to handle this situation.

Here are some takeaways that any CEO can pocket for the rare crisis communication situation:

1) Take control of the story — If you don’t, the public will and that’s when misinformation becomes damaging.

2) Be honest — The truth almost always comes out no matter how hard you try to keep it under wraps. Admit what you did wrong, apologize, and explain what you’re doing to make it right. Your customers will usually forgive you and the faster you come clean and make corrections, the faster everyone will move on.

3) Don’t deflect blame — It just makes you look weak. People in leadership positions need to appear strong, always, and that means accepting blame for the spiral of mishaps that stem from your mistake.

4) Be accountable — When you put yourself in a high-level position you are accountable to the people that helped you get there. In this case, Tiger is accountable to his fans and his sponsors who have helped make him a billion dollar athlete, and therefore has given up his right to a certain amount of privacy. Harsh, but that’s the reality. In the case of a CEO or other c-level executive, you are accountable to your shareholders, your board, your employees and your customers. Transparency is a must.

Going back to David Letterman now. He is a great example of how to handle a crisis situation. He came clean on his show before anyone else could out him. He owned up to what he did and took full blame. Then he joked at his own expense. His fans and the media moved on very quickly. His wife…maybe not so much. But that’s none of our business.

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