It’s been a busy week for Elizabeth Holmes, the wunderkind CEO of Theranos, a blood-testing company under fire after a news article questioned the effectiveness of its products. She’s done an admirable job of defending the company since, but that task would have been easier if she’d avoided four risk communication mistakes.
Like a modern-day Molotov cocktail, the lawsuit filed by Bill Gross against his former employer and colleagues at Pimco burst into flame on the internet, just as intended. It’s an example of how lawyers are starting to realize that telling a sizzling story is at least as important as making a strong legal argument.
When Apple shares were plunging amid a broad market rout yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook penned a short email to Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” to provide reassurance about Apple’s business in China. The shares promptly rallied. It’s not always that easy to quell a panic, but there are a few important lessons […]
Lumber Liquidators is getting nailed. An investigative report on 60 Minutes accused the company of selling unsafe laminated flooring. A predictable fall in the company’s share price ensued. But rather than mount a defense, Lumber Liquidators has been mostly silent. That’s making a bad situation worse.
Reeling from press reports about his personal financial maneuvers, HSBC chief Stuart Gulliver offered a few plain words of explanation. He may have revealed more than he intended. His remarks show the bank is even more deeply flawed than the headlines suggest.
In 2003 Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser to President Bush, met with editors of The New York Times in an effort to dissuade them from printing an article she feared would damage US interests. Strong-arming the press was one of two tactics favored by the White House for squelching unwanted news; the other was […]
A good leader learns from mistakes, especially those of his rivals. Jeb Bush is said to be preparing to release a decade of tax returns, intent on avoiding the mistake that helped sink Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.
What’s a company to do when one of its top employees is accused of wild partying, excessive drug use and having sex with a client’s girlfriend? If you’re Jefferies, the investment bank, you fire back with a bold memo from the CEO. It was a good memo but a bad strategy.
Reading a Monday newspaper is so entertaining. You can catch up on the sports results, and you can see which companies spent the weekend trying to shape news coverage for the week ahead. It looks like officials at Apple and Pimco had a very busy weekend.
Why is speaking to employees during a crisis so difficult? When a company is mired in controversy, it needs every friend it can get. Employees are likely to be supportive in these situations, but companies seldom do much to engage them. Chief executives offer up a variety of objections. Here are the five most common […]