November 9, 2025 • 29 mins
Crises don’t wait for perfect plans, which is why Michelle Ehrhart’s mantra—practice makes permanent—hits so hard. Michelle, former VP of global communications at FedEx and now CMO at the University of Memphis, joins us to share the field‑tested playbook behind her new book, Crisis Compass. Tom and Michele share stories from their experiences and dig into the habits that turn panic into poise: understanding operations, running rigorous tabletop drills, and being ready to respond when crisis strikes.
Michelle considers crisis comms a “muscle memory” skill that needs to be practiced over time. That means regular - and impactful - tabletop exercises that help your team maintain an edge and a readiness to engage when the phone rings at 2 a.m.
We also tackle the messenger problem. Not every executive belongs at the podium, and it is your job to protect credibility, not egos. Michelle and Tom discuss how to match the spokesperson to the moment—technical depth for complex updates, empathy for community harm, operational authority for corrective action—and why media training must happen before the cameras arrive. Then they parse “strategic silence”: when speaking fuels someone else’s story, and when going dark—like Volkswagen’s five‑day gap—looks like guilt. The rule of thumb: own your issue quickly with verified facts, next steps, and a specific time for updates.
If you lead communications, manage risk, or simply want a sharper crisis response, you’ll leave with concrete tactics you can put into practice this week. Subscribe, share with a colleague who handles tough calls, and leave a review to tell us which tactic you’ll drill first.
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tom Mueller (00:07):
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis Podcast.
On this podcast, we talk allthings crisis management with an
emphasis on leadership.
I'm Tom Mueller.
Thanks for joining us again foranother episode.
On this week's episode, we'regoing to talk to a new author
who has a new book out on in thecrisis communications realm.
(00:30):
And she is Michele Ehrhart.
Now, Michele is a former vicepresident of global
communications at FedEx, and uhwhere she led uh crisis response
efforts across cyber breaches.
Cyber breaches.
Did you write this, Michelle?
This is across cyber breaches,workplace tragedies, and brand
(00:56):
impacting events.
A lot of experience on theother end of the line here.
Now Michelle serves as C as achief marketing and
communications officer at theUniversity of Memphis.
So she has moved into theeducation realm just to try that
on for size.
And I'll bet there's someinteresting stories coming out
(01:17):
of that so far.
And she also serves as CEO ofHeart Communications, which is a
reputation management firm.
Now, her book is called CrisisCompass and is really intended
to be a guide for any companytrying to prepare for crisis or
(01:38):
being ready to respond to acrisis.
Michele, thanks for joining us.
Michele Ehrhart (01:43):
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm glad to be here.
Tom Mueller (01:46):
So, first of all, you've got a lot of experience
there, but why write a book?
Michele Ehrhart (01:52):
I think I used to joke early in my career with
anyone who would listen, I had abook in me.
I thought maybe it'd befiction, but as I decided to
pivot in my career, I started tothink about what I wanted to do
after I left FedEx.
And I left FedEx in 22.
And I was thinking about heartcommunications and what did I
(02:14):
have to offer that someone mightbe interested in?
And I kept circling back tocrisis communications.
And I kept thinking, whenyou're in a crisis, what you
need is someone who's beenthrough many.
And I had been, and that wasthe area that I could lend a lot
of expertise.
But then I started to thinkabout what if you can't find
(02:35):
that person or you can't, you'rea small business or you're a
startup and you can't afford it.
What do you do?
And that's really where thebook came about.
I started thinking about how Ibecame a crisis communicator
because I did not seek it out.
I bumped into it, I fell inlove with it, and it became
really the pinnacle of myexpertise.
(02:56):
So what book would I wouldhave, what did I need when I
started out in crisis comms?
What did I wish I had?
And that's the book I wrote.
So that anyone, whether you'rea small business or the CEO of a
Fortune 50 company, could pickup this book and get something
out of it.
Tom Mueller (03:13):
Now, I read in your bio that uh, and you just
mentioned you kind of bumpedinto crisis communications along
the way, right?
It was part of your careerprogression, and you were kind
of in the marketing space, butthinking about communications.
And um, but you had to kind ofmake a decision at one point to
take a role that would give youthat type of experience, right?
Michele Ehrhart (03:36):
Right.
I had a leader tell me early inmy career, and he he was
talking in a town hall, but itfelt like he was talking
directly to me.
And he talked about sometimesthe best path up in a company is
sideways.
So think about looking forareas where you can grow and
learn that allows you to haveenough skill set and leadership
(03:59):
to be prepared for the nextlevel.
And that I took that to heart.
And I actually made severallateral moves early in my career
at FedEx to gain moreexperience.
And I was up for a directorrole, and it came down to me and
one other person, and the otherperson got the job.
So I went back to the vicepresident who was hiring, and I
(04:19):
said, Tell me what I could dobetter.
What do I need to do in orderto be considered?
And he said, Well, let me tellyou why the other person got the
job.
It had everything to do withthe experience in media, and I
had some PR and media experiencebefore I came to the company,
but I didn't have any within thecompany.
(04:40):
And after he shared that withme, I thought, well, I have two
choices.
I can figure out how to getmedia experience, or I go back
to marketing, where I have a lotof experience and years of
background in it.
And as I was contemplating thatand talking with him about it,
a few days later I got a phonecall from my senior vice
(05:03):
president who said, What do youthink about moving into a media
relations role?
And I thought, well, that'sgreat, because what company at
this level and magnitude wouldbe willing to invest in me like
that?
And then he said, It's in mediarelations focused on crisis
communication.
And I thought, oh wow, I'mgoing from the frying pan to the
(05:27):
fire because I had spent a lotof my time storytelling
beautiful stories about a greatbrand that everybody loved the
shiny, happy side of.
I took the role and four monthslater had an opportunity to get
promoted and would not havebeen qualified had I not taken
that lateral role.
And I joke in the book aboutthat four months being the
(05:49):
longest five years of my life,because in four months I list
out in the book all of thethings that I encountered and
worked on and became aspokesperson for.
And it is years of experiencethat most people would get.
But because it's a globalcompany, there's so many
potential reputation-crumblingsituations that you encounter.
(06:13):
And I had spent my entirecareer up to that point on the
brand side, making things lookgood, sound good.
But learning about thevulnerabilities of the company
made me a better marketer, abetter communicator, and
certainly a better crisiscommunicator.
So it was a pivotal moment inmy career and it changed
(06:34):
everything.
And so that's one of the thingsI talk about in the book about
making sure as you are you arethe CEO of your own career.
Think about lateral moves andopportunities to go and learn
and do new things.
It doesn't have to be apromotion for it to be
beneficial.
Tom Mueller (06:51):
Yeah, some really great career advice there.
And you know, you're you'retaking me back to um early in my
career where I started kind ofin operations roles.
And I worked in the oil and gasindustry my entire career,
other than the four years as ajournalist.
Um, but I've counseled youngerpeople over time to go look for
(07:14):
some of those operational rolesthat take you out to the
facility level.
Learn the business from theground up.
And you will meet people therewho are, you know, engineers,
managers, who are also early intheir careers.
And you're going to followthose people through the company
your entire career.
And so it's huge.
And I was just amazed at howmany contacts I had across the
(07:39):
executive levels of the companybecause of that time I spent
early in my career out in thefield.
Michele Ehrhart (07:45):
So that's such great advice.
Tom Mueller (07:48):
Yeah, unfortunately, most young people
I spoke to were like, no, wewant to be here close to
headquarters where things arehappening, right?
And it was, um, I stand by theadvice, but it was hard to get
people to listen to it.
You offer a lot of good advicein the book, Michelle.
Um, you know, and preparing fora crisis, developing a crisis
(08:09):
plan is a key part of that, aswell as executing when things go
wrong.
In your view, you know, whichis the most important?
Preparing for the crisis orexecuting during a crisis?
Michele Ehrhart (08:23):
Yes.
You have to do both.
Tom Mueller (08:28):
Good answer.
Michele Ehrhart (08:30):
The reality is this if you find yourself in a
crisis, that should not be thefirst time you have thought
about what you're going to do ifsomething happens.
Because if you do, then you'reon your heels.
So when I talk about planningfor a crisis, it goes back to
what you said and the advice yougive these young people.
(08:51):
Know the business.
In order for you to really be agood communicator for any
organization that you'recommunicating for, you gotta
know what they do.
You gotta understand thebusiness.
And if you know the business,then you can easily spot where
there could be issues.
You're in the oil industry.
(09:11):
I mean, think about refineriesand issues with operations or
supply chain, you know, anymalfunction that might go wrong.
You knew where the problemscould be.
So that's what I mean bypreparing for it.
Understanding where thevulnerabilities are for your
company.
And then to your point, havespent time building your network
(09:34):
so that you know who to call ifone of those things did comes
to life.
And when I talk about best inclass, I mean FedEx really is
best in class.
I would imagine any globaltransportation company that's
flying airplanes 365 days a yearand has large vehicles on the
road, I mean, they're they'revulnerable to issues.
(09:56):
If they aren't prepared forthat, then shame on them.
And they are prepared for thatbecause they know that that is
actually part of their standardoperating procedures is to think
through those contingencies forbusiness continuity purposes,
but then also from a crisisperspective.
So a large amount of the time Ispent in leading crisis
(10:19):
communications was in tabletopdrills or scenario planning, or
we would get into a room and go,all right, give me some
terrible situation you thinkcould happen.
And then we would take it fivesteps further.
All right, what if thishappens?
What if that happens?
What if this happens?
And it's not that we werewriting a plan for each of those
(10:43):
specific instances.
We were thinking.
And we were learning to thinkon our feet.
We were learning to go, okay,if something else comes our way,
what's the next step?
Because you don't want thatcrisis to be the first day
you've ever thought, oh my gosh,what would we do?
Because you're not going tomake the best decisions, you're
not going to have the rightpeople to contact.
(11:04):
You're going to be paralyzedwhen you really could just be in
the action.
Because that's what matters ina crisis.
You don't have a you don't havetime to plan.
It's too late.
You have to go.
Tom Mueller (11:19):
Well, one of the tenets of your book is that
crisis communications is amuscle memory skill, right?
To your point now about umpracticing.
And it doesn't take a lot tobrainstorm with your team,
right?
You could do that in weeklyteam meetings or once-a-month
team meetings and just take 30minutes uh and set it aside and
(11:41):
say, let's talk crisis for aminute.
What what about this scenario?
How would we manage that andtalk through those kinds of
things?
Um the you and I have beentalking uh offline about the
recent crash of UPS aircraft inLouisville, Kentucky, which as
(12:02):
we go to air on this podcast isis only 18 hours old or so.
Um but uh you know that's kindof a horrific scenario that that
company's dealing with now withan aircraft that you know
crashes or people injured on theground.
In your time at FedEx, did yousort of contemplate those types
(12:23):
of scenarios?
Michele Ehrhart (12:24):
Oh, did we?
Yes, and I can guarantee UPShas done the same because you
can you are not a responsiblebusiness of that global
magnitude if you haven't donethat, if you haven't thought
through what's going to happenif we have an issue with our
equipment.
Uh, we went through things atFedEx, nothing to the magnitude
(12:46):
of what we saw today while Iworked there, uh, but very many
scenarios.
And we would test the scenario.
Okay, what happens if a planecrashes?
What happens if it crashes intoa school?
What happens if it crashes intoa hospital?
I mean, you don't want to haveto think like that because
that's the most terrible thingyou could think of, but that's
(13:08):
what you do when you prepare fora crisis.
You think of the absolute worstthing that could happen and you
work backwards from that.
That's that muscle memory I'mtalking about.
And and I had a great, I have astory in the book, but I'll
tell you a little bit about it.
My son had a teacher in thefourth grade that taught math.
(13:28):
Her name was Mrs.
Love, and it was an all-boysschool.
And for the first time ever, myson came home and talked about
how much he loved math.
And I thought, what ishappening?
What I need to meet this womanbecause she has changed the
trajectory of my household.
Tom Mueller (13:44):
Yeah.
Michele Ehrhart (13:44):
So parent teacher conference comes, she
brings us all in and talks aboutwhat she does and how she
teaches the boys.
And she kept saying somethingover and over.
Practice makes permanent.
I'm not trying to teach theseboys how to do perfect math.
That's not the goal here.
We're not striving for perfect.
We are striving for permanencebecause the foundational skills
(14:08):
they learn in about math in thefourth grade is what they will
use to take the ACT when theyare 17 and 18.
I tutor people all the time,and it's the same skill.
So if all their life they arepracticing for permanence, it's
going to be easier when theyhave to do those things that are
hard when they get intocalculus.
(14:28):
Or and that resonated with mebecause she was talking about
math, but it's true for life.
Football players don't show upand play a game, they practice
before they go.
Ballet dancers don't just showup and do a show.
They had to condition andpractice and rehearse.
And the same holds true forgood crisis communications.
I would imagine the UPS crisiscommunications team is uh
(14:53):
hitting on all cylinders rightnow because this is not the
first day they thought aboutthis happening.
It's a tragic day and it didhappen, but they know what to
do.
Tom Mueller (15:04):
Hey, in your planning, did you uh have
resources lined up for uh toscale up your communications
capability so you could pull inadditional resources?
Talk to us a little bit abouthow you sort of see that for a
company.
Michele Ehrhart (15:21):
It's it's interesting because what when
you have the resources to do itright, you certainly can spend
those resources and do it.
And we would have large-scalescenario planning drills where
we would have mapped out, okay,now this has happened.
And we would bring in somebodyfrom that department to come in
and go, okay, now we've had tocall you in because this has
(15:44):
happened.
Um, even to the point we didone scenario planning drill
where we had used an outsidecompany to come in and kind of
keep us on our toes and surpriseus.
And they had created videos of,oh, this has happened.
And by the way, now the mediahas showed up, and here's your
employee talking to the mediaunscripted and saying things you
(16:06):
didn't want them to say.
Now, what do you do?
And they had actually gone outand staged our own employees
doing these things, and it washelpful because it puts you in
the moment and you go, Oh mygoodness, oh, I did not want you
to say that.
Now what do I do?
So you can go as elaborate asthat, or to your point, it can
(16:30):
be your leadership team sittingaround at the end of one of your
weekly staff meetings and goingthrough it.
But the key is to have createdthat kind of path in your brain
that you've thought about thisbefore the day it happens.
Tom Mueller (16:46):
And there's so much value in doing that uh and just
getting your team coached up onit and just ready.
If something happens and youget that call, you know, at 1:30
in the morning, hey, we've hadan incident, we need you to
mobilize.
People are already thinkingabout okay, what's the scenario?
What should our messaging be?
What's our staffing levelsgoing to be?
(17:09):
All of those things.
Michele Ehrhart (17:11):
Who do we call in?
Who's next?
Who's got to be in the room?
Uh you make a good point.
And one of the original storiesI tell in the book is probably
the worst crisis I've everworked on.
And it was when I was the vicepresident, and it was in the
midst of COVID, and we had anactive workplace shooting in
(17:32):
Indianapolis that happened whilewe were all working from our
homes, right?
So we'd kind of already been inthat crisis mode of knowing
COVID taught us every day, everyminute is often different.
And you had to kind of be onalert.
But in the midst of even COVIDand the longevity of it, we were
doing scenario planning.
(17:52):
And we had done a tabletopexercise two weeks prior to that
awful incident that was aworkplace shooting drill.
And of course, it wascompletely different because you
don't have any way ofpredicting what could happen in
reality.
But when I got the phone callat 11:30 at night saying it was
happening right now, and by theway, it's playing out on social
(18:14):
media, our security team hasn'teven had a chance to call us
yet.
We knew what to do.
We knew exactly what to do.
And I talk about in the book,as terrible as it sounds, I mean
it as a great compliment.
It was the best crisis we'veever done because we were
prepared and ready.
And we knew what to do next.
(18:35):
And it was still horrific andsad and and all of the things
that you feel.
But when you're in it, we knewwhat to do.
And it allowed me as a leaderto be the leader.
It allowed me to lead thepeople, find a way to make sure
they had space to rest, to eat,to see their kids, and to come
(18:57):
back because it wasn't a 24-hourcycle crisis.
It was a five-week crisis.
Tom Mueller (19:05):
Fascinating story.
Again, the value of preparingand being ready and having to do
it, you know, remotely justbrings a whole nother layer of
logistics.
But I want to shift gears nowand and talk to you a little bit
uh about the messenger, becauseanother tenet of your book is
sort of control the messenger.
As we know, not all of us, uh,not all executives are created
(19:30):
equal in terms of their skillset for standing in front of
cameras or fronting a pressconference or being empathetic
in front of a room of familymembers.
So have you ever had to tell asenior executive, no, this role
isn't for you?
Michele Ehrhart (19:48):
Yes, more than once.
But I think the good news for acompany like FedEx, it's a big
company, and you have optionsand you have people who have
been through training.
And the person closest to theissue may not be the right
person to be the spokespersonfor it.
And that goes back to the wholeidea of being prepared for a
(20:09):
crisis.
You know, media coachingsomeone to walk into a press
conference is too late.
Right.
That media training should havehappened long before.
And most executives have anopportunity to stand in front of
large groups and practice thisjust naturally in the course of
how they run theirorganizations.
I think when you put a camerain someone's face, it brings a
(20:33):
different level of anxiety andnervousness.
Tom Mueller (20:35):
It does.
Michele Ehrhart (20:46):
Of giving them the opportunity to sit in front
of a camera and pretend it'sreal and then play it back for
them.
Right.
And that's the hard part.
Tom Mueller (20:55):
It is.
And there's so much value indoing that.
But I want to share one quickstory with you.
Uh, this is uh back from theDeepwater Horizon oil spill
response.
This is back in 2010 now.
Uh, but one of the sort of mostimpactful things we did
communicating around that wascreated a series of technical
(21:17):
videos, right?
Because remember, things thatwere happening were happening
5,000 feet below the surface ofthe ocean on the seafloor.
There's equipment movingaround, submarines manipulating
things, equipment's beinglowered.
And it was hard to tell thatstory to people and to
reporters.
So we started producing aseries of technical videos to
(21:41):
update people and show them whatwas happening.
And we had chosen one of thesenior executives in the firm to
present those videos.
But interestingly, and this isa very competent executive who,
as you said, had done town hallsand other things.
But when we put him in thisposition, it just didn't work.
Michele Ehrhart (22:04):
And quite a similar situation.
Tom Mueller (22:12):
And we had to sort of stand him aside, found
another manager uh who was uhvery, you know, again, equally
competent, more a little moretechnical focused, and he was
fabulous.
And so he became our technicalvideo spokesperson for the
duration of the incident.
And they produced, I don'tknow, maybe 15 different
(22:35):
technical videos over the courseof that, which were highly
sought after by journalists andpretty much everybody watching.
Brilliant, brilliant approach.
Good job.
But the point is, sometimes theperson you think's gonna be the
right spokesperson isn't, andyou have to be able to shift
gears.
You know, and when egos getinvolved, sometimes that's not
(22:57):
an easy thing to do.
Michele Ehrhart (23:00):
But if you think about what your job is, my
job was to be honest and totell them if you want to repair
the brand and ensure thereputation doesn't seek out more
damage, we have to change whothe spokesperson is for this.
And most people will notquestion that.
(23:22):
Maybe I got taken off aChristmas card list or two, but
I did my job.
And we're not doing these jobsbecause they're easy.
We do these jobs because we'redoing what's right for the the
organization, which everyexecutive is there because I
mean you would think they'rethere because they want that
(23:43):
too.
So they can be reasoned with.
Uncomfortable conversations,yes, but they're still
important.
Tom Mueller (23:53):
Hey, there's one other chapter in your book that
really caught my attention, andit's chapter five on strategic
silence, choosing not tocommunicate.
That just sounds like troublein the making, there, Michelle.
What on earth are you talkingabout?
Michele Ehrhart (24:10):
I got your attention.
Uh so what I mean by strategicsilence, 90% of the time, I
would never recommend you besilent.
If it's a crisis that you own,you have to get out and talk
about it.
And you better do it as quicklyas possible because it's your
brand.
What I'm talking about is whenit is not your story and you are
(24:34):
asked to weigh in on it, or youare asked to pontificate on
something you don't even haveall the facts for, you could
cause more damage to your brandin doing so.
There's a an example in thebook that I used where there was
a former employee of anorganization who had been a very
high-profile former employee.
(24:54):
They went to a new organizationand ended up getting into a lot
of trouble.
So then reporters startedcalling the previous employer
saying, Hey, did this personwork for you?
What do you know about them?
What can you tell us?
You don't talk.
It's not about you.
You don't want it to be aboutyou.
(25:15):
If you say anything, then youbecome part of somebody else's
bad story.
So that's what I mean bystrategic silence.
And the immediacy of our worldthat we live in and social
media, people want to weigh in,they want to comment, they want
to have an opinion.
I mean, look at anythingrelated to Charlie Kirk, whether
you said something nice orsomething not nice, nothing good
(25:37):
came from it.
Somebody was mad at you.
So, as a company with a brandto protect, and maybe even a
celebrity where you are yourbrand, you have to be very
thoughtful about when you wantto weigh in on something and
when you don't.
Is it your story?
No, then be quiet.
But if you're the mayor of LAand you have wildfires happening
(25:58):
all around you, and you get offan airplane and the media is
standing there waiting for you,and you don't have anything to
say, shame on you.
Because then what you did isyou handed them the narrative.
And I'm sure she had a lot tosay, and probably very important
what she planned to do at apress conference the next day.
All she had to do was say, I'mgonna tell you all of this at a
press conference.
I just landed.
(26:19):
I need to go meet with my team,and I appreciate you
understanding.
But she didn't say anything,and so they did.
They said everything.
Tom Mueller (26:27):
Yeah, that was uh so unusual and unexpected for an
elected official to sort ofbrush, you know, all these
concerns off with this horrificwildfires.
But it, you know, you it bringsto mind another company
example.
That was the Volkswagenemissions scandal from some
years ago.
Um, and I did a case study ontheir communications around
(26:50):
this.
And what I've learned in thatis that the company uh went
silent for five days uh afterthe original story broke that
they were, you know, beingindicted for emissions, um, you
know, malfeasance with theirsoftware programs and some of
their vehicles.
And, you know, they hadnumerous social media channels,
(27:12):
some one, you know, that's sortof activations for their sports
sponsorships for the F1 race andwhatnot.
And it just all went dark.
And there was nothing from thecompany for five days, right?
And you know what their firststatement was when they finally
came back online.
Hey, we have a new CEO.
(27:34):
And and it just floored me thatthe company would go dark like
that, right?
Now, my guess is they weretrying to figure out what was
happening, they didn't know youknow what was happening, how
much validity there might be.
But what's your take on that asa as a silent?
Michele Ehrhart (27:53):
Actually, use that as an example in my book.
I agree.
You know, that's a bad time togo silent.
Uh, a couple of things.
I think that by being quiet inthe midst of all of that, you're
in the public's eye admittingguilt.
And if the first statement thatyou make when you come back is
we have a new CEO, you just putan exclamation point on the end
(28:18):
of that guilt.
Yeah, we did something wrongand we fired this guy, but
everything's gonna be great.
I think five days is a littletoo long to wait to say all of
those things.
Tom Mueller (28:29):
Well, Michele, your book is a fascinating read, and
I'd certainly recommend it.
Uh, it should be on everybody'sshelves for those of you who do
crisis management, crisiscommunications.
A lot of good information inhere, and a terrific expert on
the other end of the phone lineif you need some help in a
crisis as well.
So, Michelle, thank you so muchfor taking time to join us on
(28:52):
the podcast today.
It's been a pleasure.
Michele Ehrhart (28:55):
My pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.
Tom Mueller (28:58):
And that's gonna do it for this episode of the
Leading in a Crisis Podcast.
Thanks again for joining us.
We appreciate you.
Hey, if you like what you'rehearing, please tell your
friends about us as well.
And if you want to drop me anemail, it's at Tom at
Leadinginacrisis.com.
Cheers.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis Podcast.
On this podcast, we talk allthings crisis management with an
emphasis on leadership.
I'm Tom Mueller.
Thanks for joining us again foranother episode.
On this week's episode, we'regoing to talk to a new author
who has a new book out on in thecrisis communications realm.
(00:30):
And she is Michele Ehrhart.
Now, Michele is a former vicepresident of global
communications at FedEx, and uhwhere she led uh crisis response
efforts across cyber breaches.
Cyber breaches.
Did you write this, Michelle?
This is across cyber breaches,workplace tragedies, and brand
(00:56):
impacting events.
A lot of experience on theother end of the line here.
Now Michelle serves as C as achief marketing and
communications officer at theUniversity of Memphis.
So she has moved into theeducation realm just to try that
on for size.
And I'll bet there's someinteresting stories coming out
(01:17):
of that so far.
And she also serves as CEO ofHeart Communications, which is a
reputation management firm.
Now, her book is called CrisisCompass and is really intended
to be a guide for any companytrying to prepare for crisis or
(01:38):
being ready to respond to acrisis.
Michele, thanks for joining us.
Michele Ehrhart (01:43):
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm glad to be here.
Tom Mueller (01:46):
So, first of all, you've got a lot of experience
there, but why write a book?
Michele Ehrhart (01:52):
I think I used to joke early in my career with
anyone who would listen, I had abook in me.
I thought maybe it'd befiction, but as I decided to
pivot in my career, I started tothink about what I wanted to do
after I left FedEx.
And I left FedEx in 22.
And I was thinking about heartcommunications and what did I
(02:14):
have to offer that someone mightbe interested in?
And I kept circling back tocrisis communications.
And I kept thinking, whenyou're in a crisis, what you
need is someone who's beenthrough many.
And I had been, and that wasthe area that I could lend a lot
of expertise.
But then I started to thinkabout what if you can't find
(02:35):
that person or you can't, you'rea small business or you're a
startup and you can't afford it.
What do you do?
And that's really where thebook came about.
I started thinking about how Ibecame a crisis communicator
because I did not seek it out.
I bumped into it, I fell inlove with it, and it became
really the pinnacle of myexpertise.
(02:56):
So what book would I wouldhave, what did I need when I
started out in crisis comms?
What did I wish I had?
And that's the book I wrote.
So that anyone, whether you'rea small business or the CEO of a
Fortune 50 company, could pickup this book and get something
out of it.
Tom Mueller (03:13):
Now, I read in your bio that uh, and you just
mentioned you kind of bumpedinto crisis communications along
the way, right?
It was part of your careerprogression, and you were kind
of in the marketing space, butthinking about communications.
And um, but you had to kind ofmake a decision at one point to
take a role that would give youthat type of experience, right?
Michele Ehrhart (03:36):
Right.
I had a leader tell me early inmy career, and he he was
talking in a town hall, but itfelt like he was talking
directly to me.
And he talked about sometimesthe best path up in a company is
sideways.
So think about looking forareas where you can grow and
learn that allows you to haveenough skill set and leadership
(03:59):
to be prepared for the nextlevel.
And that I took that to heart.
And I actually made severallateral moves early in my career
at FedEx to gain moreexperience.
And I was up for a directorrole, and it came down to me and
one other person, and the otherperson got the job.
So I went back to the vicepresident who was hiring, and I
(04:19):
said, Tell me what I could dobetter.
What do I need to do in orderto be considered?
And he said, Well, let me tellyou why the other person got the
job.
It had everything to do withthe experience in media, and I
had some PR and media experiencebefore I came to the company,
but I didn't have any within thecompany.
(04:40):
And after he shared that withme, I thought, well, I have two
choices.
I can figure out how to getmedia experience, or I go back
to marketing, where I have a lotof experience and years of
background in it.
And as I was contemplating thatand talking with him about it,
a few days later I got a phonecall from my senior vice
(05:03):
president who said, What do youthink about moving into a media
relations role?
And I thought, well, that'sgreat, because what company at
this level and magnitude wouldbe willing to invest in me like
that?
And then he said, It's in mediarelations focused on crisis
communication.
And I thought, oh wow, I'mgoing from the frying pan to the
(05:27):
fire because I had spent a lotof my time storytelling
beautiful stories about a greatbrand that everybody loved the
shiny, happy side of.
I took the role and four monthslater had an opportunity to get
promoted and would not havebeen qualified had I not taken
that lateral role.
And I joke in the book aboutthat four months being the
(05:49):
longest five years of my life,because in four months I list
out in the book all of thethings that I encountered and
worked on and became aspokesperson for.
And it is years of experiencethat most people would get.
But because it's a globalcompany, there's so many
potential reputation-crumblingsituations that you encounter.
(06:13):
And I had spent my entirecareer up to that point on the
brand side, making things lookgood, sound good.
But learning about thevulnerabilities of the company
made me a better marketer, abetter communicator, and
certainly a better crisiscommunicator.
So it was a pivotal moment inmy career and it changed
(06:34):
everything.
And so that's one of the thingsI talk about in the book about
making sure as you are you arethe CEO of your own career.
Think about lateral moves andopportunities to go and learn
and do new things.
It doesn't have to be apromotion for it to be
beneficial.
Tom Mueller (06:51):
Yeah, some really great career advice there.
And you know, you're you'retaking me back to um early in my
career where I started kind ofin operations roles.
And I worked in the oil and gasindustry my entire career,
other than the four years as ajournalist.
Um, but I've counseled youngerpeople over time to go look for
(07:14):
some of those operational rolesthat take you out to the
facility level.
Learn the business from theground up.
And you will meet people therewho are, you know, engineers,
managers, who are also early intheir careers.
And you're going to followthose people through the company
your entire career.
And so it's huge.
And I was just amazed at howmany contacts I had across the
(07:39):
executive levels of the companybecause of that time I spent
early in my career out in thefield.
Michele Ehrhart (07:45):
So that's such great advice.
Tom Mueller (07:48):
Yeah, unfortunately, most young people
I spoke to were like, no, wewant to be here close to
headquarters where things arehappening, right?
And it was, um, I stand by theadvice, but it was hard to get
people to listen to it.
You offer a lot of good advicein the book, Michelle.
Um, you know, and preparing fora crisis, developing a crisis
(08:09):
plan is a key part of that, aswell as executing when things go
wrong.
In your view, you know, whichis the most important?
Preparing for the crisis orexecuting during a crisis?
Michele Ehrhart (08:23):
Yes.
You have to do both.
Tom Mueller (08:28):
Good answer.
Michele Ehrhart (08:30):
The reality is this if you find yourself in a
crisis, that should not be thefirst time you have thought
about what you're going to do ifsomething happens.
Because if you do, then you'reon your heels.
So when I talk about planningfor a crisis, it goes back to
what you said and the advice yougive these young people.
(08:51):
Know the business.
In order for you to really be agood communicator for any
organization that you'recommunicating for, you gotta
know what they do.
You gotta understand thebusiness.
And if you know the business,then you can easily spot where
there could be issues.
You're in the oil industry.
(09:11):
I mean, think about refineriesand issues with operations or
supply chain, you know, anymalfunction that might go wrong.
You knew where the problemscould be.
So that's what I mean bypreparing for it.
Understanding where thevulnerabilities are for your
company.
And then to your point, havespent time building your network
(09:34):
so that you know who to call ifone of those things did comes
to life.
And when I talk about best inclass, I mean FedEx really is
best in class.
I would imagine any globaltransportation company that's
flying airplanes 365 days a yearand has large vehicles on the
road, I mean, they're they'revulnerable to issues.
(09:56):
If they aren't prepared forthat, then shame on them.
And they are prepared for thatbecause they know that that is
actually part of their standardoperating procedures is to think
through those contingencies forbusiness continuity purposes,
but then also from a crisisperspective.
So a large amount of the time Ispent in leading crisis
(10:19):
communications was in tabletopdrills or scenario planning, or
we would get into a room and go,all right, give me some
terrible situation you thinkcould happen.
And then we would take it fivesteps further.
All right, what if thishappens?
What if that happens?
What if this happens?
And it's not that we werewriting a plan for each of those
(10:43):
specific instances.
We were thinking.
And we were learning to thinkon our feet.
We were learning to go, okay,if something else comes our way,
what's the next step?
Because you don't want thatcrisis to be the first day
you've ever thought, oh my gosh,what would we do?
Because you're not going tomake the best decisions, you're
not going to have the rightpeople to contact.
(11:04):
You're going to be paralyzedwhen you really could just be in
the action.
Because that's what matters ina crisis.
You don't have a you don't havetime to plan.
It's too late.
You have to go.
Tom Mueller (11:19):
Well, one of the tenets of your book is that
crisis communications is amuscle memory skill, right?
To your point now about umpracticing.
And it doesn't take a lot tobrainstorm with your team,
right?
You could do that in weeklyteam meetings or once-a-month
team meetings and just take 30minutes uh and set it aside and
(11:41):
say, let's talk crisis for aminute.
What what about this scenario?
How would we manage that andtalk through those kinds of
things?
Um the you and I have beentalking uh offline about the
recent crash of UPS aircraft inLouisville, Kentucky, which as
(12:02):
we go to air on this podcast isis only 18 hours old or so.
Um but uh you know that's kindof a horrific scenario that that
company's dealing with now withan aircraft that you know
crashes or people injured on theground.
In your time at FedEx, did yousort of contemplate those types
(12:23):
of scenarios?
Michele Ehrhart (12:24):
Oh, did we?
Yes, and I can guarantee UPShas done the same because you
can you are not a responsiblebusiness of that global
magnitude if you haven't donethat, if you haven't thought
through what's going to happenif we have an issue with our
equipment.
Uh, we went through things atFedEx, nothing to the magnitude
(12:46):
of what we saw today while Iworked there, uh, but very many
scenarios.
And we would test the scenario.
Okay, what happens if a planecrashes?
What happens if it crashes intoa school?
What happens if it crashes intoa hospital?
I mean, you don't want to haveto think like that because
that's the most terrible thingyou could think of, but that's
(13:08):
what you do when you prepare fora crisis.
You think of the absolute worstthing that could happen and you
work backwards from that.
That's that muscle memory I'mtalking about.
And and I had a great, I have astory in the book, but I'll
tell you a little bit about it.
My son had a teacher in thefourth grade that taught math.
(13:28):
Her name was Mrs.
Love, and it was an all-boysschool.
And for the first time ever, myson came home and talked about
how much he loved math.
And I thought, what ishappening?
What I need to meet this womanbecause she has changed the
trajectory of my household.
Tom Mueller (13:44):
Yeah.
Michele Ehrhart (13:44):
So parent teacher conference comes, she
brings us all in and talks aboutwhat she does and how she
teaches the boys.
And she kept saying somethingover and over.
Practice makes permanent.
I'm not trying to teach theseboys how to do perfect math.
That's not the goal here.
We're not striving for perfect.
We are striving for permanencebecause the foundational skills
(14:08):
they learn in about math in thefourth grade is what they will
use to take the ACT when theyare 17 and 18.
I tutor people all the time,and it's the same skill.
So if all their life they arepracticing for permanence, it's
going to be easier when theyhave to do those things that are
hard when they get intocalculus.
(14:28):
Or and that resonated with mebecause she was talking about
math, but it's true for life.
Football players don't show upand play a game, they practice
before they go.
Ballet dancers don't just showup and do a show.
They had to condition andpractice and rehearse.
And the same holds true forgood crisis communications.
I would imagine the UPS crisiscommunications team is uh
(14:53):
hitting on all cylinders rightnow because this is not the
first day they thought aboutthis happening.
It's a tragic day and it didhappen, but they know what to
do.
Tom Mueller (15:04):
Hey, in your planning, did you uh have
resources lined up for uh toscale up your communications
capability so you could pull inadditional resources?
Talk to us a little bit abouthow you sort of see that for a
company.
Michele Ehrhart (15:21):
It's it's interesting because what when
you have the resources to do itright, you certainly can spend
those resources and do it.
And we would have large-scalescenario planning drills where
we would have mapped out, okay,now this has happened.
And we would bring in somebodyfrom that department to come in
and go, okay, now we've had tocall you in because this has
(15:44):
happened.
Um, even to the point we didone scenario planning drill
where we had used an outsidecompany to come in and kind of
keep us on our toes and surpriseus.
And they had created videos of,oh, this has happened.
And by the way, now the mediahas showed up, and here's your
employee talking to the mediaunscripted and saying things you
(16:06):
didn't want them to say.
Now, what do you do?
And they had actually gone outand staged our own employees
doing these things, and it washelpful because it puts you in
the moment and you go, Oh mygoodness, oh, I did not want you
to say that.
Now what do I do?
So you can go as elaborate asthat, or to your point, it can
(16:30):
be your leadership team sittingaround at the end of one of your
weekly staff meetings and goingthrough it.
But the key is to have createdthat kind of path in your brain
that you've thought about thisbefore the day it happens.
Tom Mueller (16:46):
And there's so much value in doing that uh and just
getting your team coached up onit and just ready.
If something happens and youget that call, you know, at 1:30
in the morning, hey, we've hadan incident, we need you to
mobilize.
People are already thinkingabout okay, what's the scenario?
What should our messaging be?
What's our staffing levelsgoing to be?
(17:09):
All of those things.
Michele Ehrhart (17:11):
Who do we call in?
Who's next?
Who's got to be in the room?
Uh you make a good point.
And one of the original storiesI tell in the book is probably
the worst crisis I've everworked on.
And it was when I was the vicepresident, and it was in the
midst of COVID, and we had anactive workplace shooting in
(17:32):
Indianapolis that happened whilewe were all working from our
homes, right?
So we'd kind of already been inthat crisis mode of knowing
COVID taught us every day, everyminute is often different.
And you had to kind of be onalert.
But in the midst of even COVIDand the longevity of it, we were
doing scenario planning.
(17:52):
And we had done a tabletopexercise two weeks prior to that
awful incident that was aworkplace shooting drill.
And of course, it wascompletely different because you
don't have any way ofpredicting what could happen in
reality.
But when I got the phone callat 11:30 at night saying it was
happening right now, and by theway, it's playing out on social
(18:14):
media, our security team hasn'teven had a chance to call us
yet.
We knew what to do.
We knew exactly what to do.
And I talk about in the book,as terrible as it sounds, I mean
it as a great compliment.
It was the best crisis we'veever done because we were
prepared and ready.
And we knew what to do next.
(18:35):
And it was still horrific andsad and and all of the things
that you feel.
But when you're in it, we knewwhat to do.
And it allowed me as a leaderto be the leader.
It allowed me to lead thepeople, find a way to make sure
they had space to rest, to eat,to see their kids, and to come
(18:57):
back because it wasn't a 24-hourcycle crisis.
It was a five-week crisis.
Tom Mueller (19:05):
Fascinating story.
Again, the value of preparingand being ready and having to do
it, you know, remotely justbrings a whole nother layer of
logistics.
But I want to shift gears nowand and talk to you a little bit
uh about the messenger, becauseanother tenet of your book is
sort of control the messenger.
As we know, not all of us, uh,not all executives are created
(19:30):
equal in terms of their skillset for standing in front of
cameras or fronting a pressconference or being empathetic
in front of a room of familymembers.
So have you ever had to tell asenior executive, no, this role
isn't for you?
Michele Ehrhart (19:48):
Yes, more than once.
But I think the good news for acompany like FedEx, it's a big
company, and you have optionsand you have people who have
been through training.
And the person closest to theissue may not be the right
person to be the spokespersonfor it.
And that goes back to the wholeidea of being prepared for a
(20:09):
crisis.
You know, media coachingsomeone to walk into a press
conference is too late.
Right.
That media training should havehappened long before.
And most executives have anopportunity to stand in front of
large groups and practice thisjust naturally in the course of
how they run theirorganizations.
I think when you put a camerain someone's face, it brings a
(20:33):
different level of anxiety andnervousness.
Tom Mueller (20:35):
It does.
Michele Ehrhart (20:46):
Of giving them the opportunity to sit in front
of a camera and pretend it'sreal and then play it back for
them.
Right.
And that's the hard part.
Tom Mueller (20:55):
It is.
And there's so much value indoing that.
But I want to share one quickstory with you.
Uh, this is uh back from theDeepwater Horizon oil spill
response.
This is back in 2010 now.
Uh, but one of the sort of mostimpactful things we did
communicating around that wascreated a series of technical
(21:17):
videos, right?
Because remember, things thatwere happening were happening
5,000 feet below the surface ofthe ocean on the seafloor.
There's equipment movingaround, submarines manipulating
things, equipment's beinglowered.
And it was hard to tell thatstory to people and to
reporters.
So we started producing aseries of technical videos to
(21:41):
update people and show them whatwas happening.
And we had chosen one of thesenior executives in the firm to
present those videos.
But interestingly, and this isa very competent executive who,
as you said, had done town hallsand other things.
But when we put him in thisposition, it just didn't work.
Michele Ehrhart (22:04):
And quite a similar situation.
Tom Mueller (22:12):
And we had to sort of stand him aside, found
another manager uh who was uhvery, you know, again, equally
competent, more a little moretechnical focused, and he was
fabulous.
And so he became our technicalvideo spokesperson for the
duration of the incident.
And they produced, I don'tknow, maybe 15 different
(22:35):
technical videos over the courseof that, which were highly
sought after by journalists andpretty much everybody watching.
Brilliant, brilliant approach.
Good job.
But the point is, sometimes theperson you think's gonna be the
right spokesperson isn't, andyou have to be able to shift
gears.
You know, and when egos getinvolved, sometimes that's not
(22:57):
an easy thing to do.
Michele Ehrhart (23:00):
But if you think about what your job is, my
job was to be honest and totell them if you want to repair
the brand and ensure thereputation doesn't seek out more
damage, we have to change whothe spokesperson is for this.
And most people will notquestion that.
(23:22):
Maybe I got taken off aChristmas card list or two, but
I did my job.
And we're not doing these jobsbecause they're easy.
We do these jobs because we'redoing what's right for the the
organization, which everyexecutive is there because I
mean you would think they'rethere because they want that
(23:43):
too.
So they can be reasoned with.
Uncomfortable conversations,yes, but they're still
important.
Tom Mueller (23:53):
Hey, there's one other chapter in your book that
really caught my attention, andit's chapter five on strategic
silence, choosing not tocommunicate.
That just sounds like troublein the making, there, Michelle.
What on earth are you talkingabout?
Michele Ehrhart (24:10):
I got your attention.
Uh so what I mean by strategicsilence, 90% of the time, I
would never recommend you besilent.
If it's a crisis that you own,you have to get out and talk
about it.
And you better do it as quicklyas possible because it's your
brand.
What I'm talking about is whenit is not your story and you are
(24:34):
asked to weigh in on it, or youare asked to pontificate on
something you don't even haveall the facts for, you could
cause more damage to your brandin doing so.
There's a an example in thebook that I used where there was
a former employee of anorganization who had been a very
high-profile former employee.
(24:54):
They went to a new organizationand ended up getting into a lot
of trouble.
So then reporters startedcalling the previous employer
saying, Hey, did this personwork for you?
What do you know about them?
What can you tell us?
You don't talk.
It's not about you.
You don't want it to be aboutyou.
(25:15):
If you say anything, then youbecome part of somebody else's
bad story.
So that's what I mean bystrategic silence.
And the immediacy of our worldthat we live in and social
media, people want to weigh in,they want to comment, they want
to have an opinion.
I mean, look at anythingrelated to Charlie Kirk, whether
you said something nice orsomething not nice, nothing good
(25:37):
came from it.
Somebody was mad at you.
So, as a company with a brandto protect, and maybe even a
celebrity where you are yourbrand, you have to be very
thoughtful about when you wantto weigh in on something and
when you don't.
Is it your story?
No, then be quiet.
But if you're the mayor of LAand you have wildfires happening
(25:58):
all around you, and you get offan airplane and the media is
standing there waiting for you,and you don't have anything to
say, shame on you.
Because then what you did isyou handed them the narrative.
And I'm sure she had a lot tosay, and probably very important
what she planned to do at apress conference the next day.
All she had to do was say, I'mgonna tell you all of this at a
press conference.
I just landed.
(26:19):
I need to go meet with my team,and I appreciate you
understanding.
But she didn't say anything,and so they did.
They said everything.
Tom Mueller (26:27):
Yeah, that was uh so unusual and unexpected for an
elected official to sort ofbrush, you know, all these
concerns off with this horrificwildfires.
But it, you know, you it bringsto mind another company
example.
That was the Volkswagenemissions scandal from some
years ago.
Um, and I did a case study ontheir communications around
(26:50):
this.
And what I've learned in thatis that the company uh went
silent for five days uh afterthe original story broke that
they were, you know, beingindicted for emissions, um, you
know, malfeasance with theirsoftware programs and some of
their vehicles.
And, you know, they hadnumerous social media channels,
(27:12):
some one, you know, that's sortof activations for their sports
sponsorships for the F1 race andwhatnot.
And it just all went dark.
And there was nothing from thecompany for five days, right?
And you know what their firststatement was when they finally
came back online.
Hey, we have a new CEO.
(27:34):
And and it just floored me thatthe company would go dark like
that, right?
Now, my guess is they weretrying to figure out what was
happening, they didn't know youknow what was happening, how
much validity there might be.
But what's your take on that asa as a silent?
Michele Ehrhart (27:53):
Actually, use that as an example in my book.
I agree.
You know, that's a bad time togo silent.
Uh, a couple of things.
I think that by being quiet inthe midst of all of that, you're
in the public's eye admittingguilt.
And if the first statement thatyou make when you come back is
we have a new CEO, you just putan exclamation point on the end
(28:18):
of that guilt.
Yeah, we did something wrongand we fired this guy, but
everything's gonna be great.
I think five days is a littletoo long to wait to say all of
those things.
Tom Mueller (28:29):
Well, Michele, your book is a fascinating read, and
I'd certainly recommend it.
Uh, it should be on everybody'sshelves for those of you who do
crisis management, crisiscommunications.
A lot of good information inhere, and a terrific expert on
the other end of the phone lineif you need some help in a
crisis as well.
So, Michelle, thank you so muchfor taking time to join us on
(28:52):
the podcast today.
It's been a pleasure.
Michele Ehrhart (28:55):
My pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.
Tom Mueller (28:58):
And that's gonna do it for this episode of the
Leading in a Crisis Podcast.
Thanks again for joining us.
We appreciate you.
Hey, if you like what you'rehearing, please tell your
friends about us as well.
And if you want to drop me anemail, it's at Tom at
Leadinginacrisis.com.
Cheers.
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Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.