Pandora’s Jar

Don’t like the media question? Answer the one you want.

After all the evil had escaped, the legend goes, all that remained in the jar was hope — and mankind has never stopped hoping.

Without hope, there is only emptiness and lack of direction. No purpose.

Passed over for a promotion you know you deserved?

Did you simply hope your boss would notice your brilliance and reward you? Or did you seize the opportunity to show your value?

Revenues off because sales are slow? Have a great idea for a new widget or smartphone app? What are you doing to bring in customers or bring your idea to fruition?

If the answer is nothing, the fault is yours. Life isn’t a sequence of serendipity. It’s what you make of it.

Consider Crisis & Reputation Management.

When the worst occurs, you don’t try to wish the bad away by ignoring it. You take control. Analyze your options. What has the other side done — and what’ll they do next? What does the media know — and what might they find out? How can you create an advantage by going on offense, or how can you shift a negative to your benefit?

You stay focused. If possible, keep the issue below the public’s radar. If not, have a back-up plan and have your client prepped. Better to have a strategy in place and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Recently, a client was preparing for an interview about a positive subject but feared a peripheral negative issue may arise that’d be distracting and embarrassing. So a standby Q&A was created, just in case. The questions were damning. The answers weren’t evasive but were broad. The goal was to let the client emerge unscathed.

Why did it succeed? The secret is simple: Answer the question you want, not the one that’s asked.

(Yes, it really is Pandora’s jar. “Box” was a medieval mistranslation of the ancient Greek.)

For a deeper glimpse into our world, see our book on Amazon, A Lawyer’s Guide to Crisis PR: Protecting Your Clients In & From the Media.

If you don’t already subscribe, please sign up for our blog, Insights on High-Stakes PR.

You can reach Roger Gillott and Eden Gillott directly at 310-396-8696.

Gillott Communications is a Los Angeles-based public relations firm that specializes in high-stakes Crisis & Reputation Management with more than 50 years of expertise in strategic communications, corporate public relations, and working with the media.