Crises are everything that disrupts the routine flow of life. These are situations where defined processes are useless. These are environments where powers and responsibilities have to change hands and shape. To make matters worse, these are environments in which other crises arise within the crisis due to the lack of awareness of the fact that what is experienced while these are happening is a “crisis”.
Institutions visit the “crisis bazaar” from time to time! In this bazaar, they may find crises arising from their own “indiscretions”, as well as crises due to situations that develop against their will. For example, economic crises.
“For companies and brands, the economic crisis is “the loss of the compass”! While life was going on normally, competition was driving you somewhere and you could sleep soundly in the evenings with a compass in the palm of your hand to stay safe. But, crises are extraordinary times, and you never know what surprise you’ll wake up tomorrow morning. Because the compass has fallen out somewhere, or it doesn’t belong to you anymore!”
But there are some crises that have come before us as a result of the DNA of corporations being reflected in their work:
“Years later, we saw that the oil companies, which are primarily responsible for the climate crisis, have known about the problem since the 1970s! They did not sweep the scientific reports under the rug, they did not sweep them into the vacuum of space! Moreover, the US government, which is the playmaker of the chief polluters, knew about these reports! Just like the main players in the tobacco industry, they have made a special effort to hide the truth from the public with their “denial” policies for decades. They have poured millions of dollars into lobbying and PR companies to prevent the public from meeting the truth.”
For this reason alone, companies can also drag the reputation of a sector and profession into crisis. The reason for the loss of reputation of the public relations sector in the world today can be seen in the practices of the sector, whose job in the past was to “give mind” to the reputation management of companies , which caused the name of the sector to be polluted for the sake of making money.
“For some reason, we cannot face the fact that at the core of our plastic, carbon, glass, water footprint issue is actually our ‘moral footprint’. For example, the concept of “Polluted PR” has entered the literature because of the PR companies that oil producers “use” to evade the facts from society ! Spending time to ‘save the day’ knowing that the future of humanity is threatened is not something that can be morally explained.”
In fact, the fundamental problem is knotted in how companies determine their “values” and how they implement them. For example, the climate crisis is a man-made outcome. But our consumption habits, and the production that drives them, have ignored this outcome for close to a hundred years. But if the issues of values were to be constitutionalized by companies with this foresight, we might be living in a different world today.
In one of my articles, I touched on this issue as follows:
“Today, companies are struggling with their corporate values. First, they are stuck in a methodological predicament about how to determine these values. Even if they can transcend this, there is a discrepancy in the definition and expression of values. When this is the case, even if the “very accurate, accurate and necessary values” are attributed to the institutional structure, they experience a “cultural adaptation problem” and thus remain where they were written. It is not reflected in processes, decisions and behaviors. As a result, they are struggling with reputation risks in almost every stakeholder, from human resources to consumers, from the media to suppliers!”
The bottom line:
Corporate values are not a decorative object or accessory. It is a compass. It is the “oath certificate” of CEOs! Employees follow out of the corner of their eyes how compatible the decisions and behaviors of company managers are with these values. In other words, the role models are the staff who manage the company. If managers take corporate values into account in the daily flow, if they do not, there are other consequences. The answers to questions such as whether a balance sheet make-up will be made, will an “attempt” to be made to quickly withdraw the raw materials waiting at customs in order to prevent production disruption, will a deterrent penalty be given to an employee who complains of unethical behavior, will a factory be erected on arable land, where will waste be dumped, will it be made on the day of payment of suppliers, will competitors be hit below the waist, will equal representation of women in management always be determined by corporate values. content. So it is “compass”. The prescription is that corporate values are included in the content of corporate policies. Not in the “processes”, as seen in many companies ! Processes are “instructions”. So there is a hierarchy; starting from culture and values, finding itself in policies and being fleshed out by processes.
If the CEOs of companies are followers of corporate culture and values, “values become values”!
The way to sustain life without stopping by in the bazaar of crises passes through here. We can rely on the approach that every crisis can create opportunity in itself, but there is no “crisis that leaves no harm”. We may not know what kind of bill this damage will come up with in the future.
(*) This article “Crisis Bazaar” is written for the 4th issue of Istanbul Aydin University PR Atolye magazine.
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