A Hard Pill To Swallow

Honesty can be a tough pill to swallow. Whether it is children or adults it can be hard to tell the whole truth upfront, especially if you know the truth will be damaging. As a kid I spilled grape juice on the couch and I spent the whole afternoon trying to cover it up. My dad came home and asked what happened and guess what? I lied. My dad of course saw right through it and punished me more than he would of if I had told the truth. It is better to tell the truth than try to cover it up.

Katie Payne in "Measure What Matters" echoes this sentiment in chapter 12. When crisis eventually breaks companies need to be ready with a reliable communication plan and the first step of this is upfront honesty. Do not let the masses hear intricate details of your screw-ups from someone else.

 In the case studies given on page 167, Payne shows this is true across the board. Those companies who gave all the details immediately, no matter how gruesome, had shorter crises. The interest peaks and then immediately declines once everyone knows what happened and there is sincere information on how it will be fixed. The crises that seem to go on forever are those that give an inclination they messed up and then try to cover up, or give "no comment", which is the number 1 thing not to do in today's communication. An example given was Kodak's Layoffs in 1997, Kodak laid off some workers, but first there were hints about layoffs but no answers were given, layoffs were then announced, and then they did not layoff enough people and had to continue with the process later. This series of announcements were awful news, and must have seemed insensitive to the workers actually laid off.

Like ripping off a Band-Aid, honesty may hurt initially but it is better to get it done and over with than to slowly peel it off and cause prolonged pain.