A crisis playbook for reputational and social issues.
Companies used to be able to sidestep social and political controversies with a carefully worded statement or no statement at all. But there’s more pressure now to speak.
Today’s communicators are navigating “a historically polarized time,” said Greg Feistman, professor of practice in public relations at Temple University and co-author of “Raising Social Capital.”
CEOs, brands and nonprofits are pressed to respond to issues ranging from international conflicts to U.S. domestic policy, he said.
“What’s ever-present right now is finessing political stance-taking,” said Feistman’s co-author Heather LaMarre, faculty in media and communication at Temple University. “There’s this constant push for public-facing leaders, especially senior comms leaders and CEOs, to give an opinion on everything.”
To gauge whether or not a response is necessary when facing a question over social and political issues, LaMarre and Feistman developed the Shared Values Model to help leaders and comms pros understand when it’s appropriate to speak up.
The model works almost exactly like a crisis-response playbook, LaMarre said, but it’s focused on social and reputational issues instead of incidents.
Here’s how the model works.
- Map out stakeholder values: This means before speaking on an issue, comms pros need to identify each key audience group, whether it’s employees, customers, investors, policymakers or community partners, and document what they consistently think is important. For example, employees may prioritize workplace equity and psychological safety, customers may care most about sustainability, investors may emphasize governance and long-term risk, and community groups may focus on environmental impact or local hiring, she said. “It’s about being value‑aligned in your stances with your major shared stakeholder groups,” LaMarre said. “And so you have to know…what they care about on maybe the top ten issues of the time.”
- Identify the overlap: Once an organization identifies key stakeholders and their concerns, then teams should identify where those values overlap with the organization’s long-term priorities. LaMarre said this step is crucial because it becomes the “permission structure” for when a brand can credibly speak.
For instance, if a company’s sustainability commitments line up with customer expectations and investor pressure, that issue becomes one where the organization likely has both standing and stakeholder support, Feistman said. But if employees care deeply about mental health benefits and the company has no initiatives in place, leaders know that speaking publicly could backfire, LaMarre said. “We walk teams through mapping values and priorities before a crisis, so they know in advance where they have standing and where they don’t,” she said. - Deciding when and how to make a statement: The final step is deciding ahead of time which issues merit a public response and which require only internal communication or no response at all, Feistman said. LaMarre agreed that this prevents the reactive responses that often occur when a cultural moment keeps popping up in headlines. As an example, LaMarre said a consumer brand might classify “product safety, data privacy and sustainability milestones” as issues where the company will always respond publicly. Meanwhile, topics like geopolitical conflicts or celebrity-driven social debates may fall into a “monitor but avoid public commentary” category unless a direct operational connection exists, she said. LaMarre pointed to a real question she received from a nonprofit executive whose organization held a government contract. Staff, donors and reporters were all pressing the nonprofit to comment on the government shutdown. “The very first thing we said is make sure you’re not taking a political stance on the thing you’re government contracting for,” LaMarre said. “If you’re a defense contractor, you shouldn’t be out there taking a political stance on international relations.” But that doesn’t mean staying silent on everything, she said. Organizations can express support for broadly shared concerns, such as holiday food insecurity, without wading into partisan critiques of federal policy, she said. “You can have a soft-hearted stance,” she said. “Lean into what we all agree on. Having these guidelines in place keeps the discussion from spiraling into a frantic, reactive debate.”
While organizations may prefer to avoid political conflict, LaMarre said avoidance is now a strategy itself, and one stakeholders will judge. So it’s best to proactively weigh the options before the moment hits.
“You can’t wait until you get asked,” she said. “Do the work ahead of time.”
Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at courtneyb@ragan.com.
For more resources, visit Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council, a community for senior communicators and their teams.
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