ANZ crisis: ASIC has learned the art of communicating
This week ANZ was fined a record $240m for a range of wrongdoings affecting 65,000 customers and costing the Federal government millions. ASIC chair Joe Longo maintains the bank’s behaviour was “very grubby and very serious”. “It was unconscionable conduct … unacceptable,” he told The Australian. “It’s probably one of the most serious things a bank has done in Australia in years.” Communications expert Peter Wilkinson picks apart the crisis.
It’s worth watching and learning from ANZ’s bad few days. Sometimes big organisations get so tied up in complexity that they overlook the basics. Sometimes, too, fear drives decision-making.
Here are two winning communication principles in a crisis.
First: Go early and strong. If you wait, someone else will control the narrative. That appears to be what’s happened at the start of this week. ASIC chair Joe Longo has all the strong quotes, and is in control of the narrative. He monopolised the media space, in the media through the day, on 7.30 last night, and his video piece on Linkedin is well done.
Joe Longo’s ‘down the barrel’ video on Linkedin
There’s a warning there for all companies: watch out! ASIC has learnt the art of communicating in this complex era.
It’s hard to change opinions once people make up their minds. So, many people will agree with Joe Longo, simply because yesterday he went early and went strong.
Now I don’t know the internal workings at ANZ, but this is what I have experienced elsewhere, old-school slow decision making by committee: first coordinate diaries, then draft a strategy including draft key messages (multiple versions in tracking changes), then run it by lawyers (maybe including externals) and company secretaries who instil fear of consequences, then more rewrites and pedantic arguments over one or two particular words (particularly neutralising any strong grabs). And on and on, sucking the life out of any innovation.
Or, here’s another possibility: the lawyers and the media team simply can’t agree on strategy, with the lawyers dominating the arguments, negating the proactivity or creativity needed to win in the court of public opinion.
Am I being unfair? This is the reason we do crisis simulations – time is our enemy.
Second: Focus on building trust from the get-go, albeit that can seem tough during a crisis. To do that, you tap into what people are thinking, or if they haven’t made up their minds, their curiosity. If sacking 3500 people seems horrible, call it ‘horrible’. If a $240m fine seems unjustified (or justified), call it, if you believe you have a winning argument.
At ANZ the main stakeholders watching include present and future customers, mum and dad shareholders, and staff.
The thing is, early on, you don’t have to dig into the details. New CEOs, especially, can get away with a clear vision, a variation on “We are in a bad situation, but in three years we can turn this around and be the best. This is what I think that looks like …”
And the vision is always an important focus in strategy, “Where do we want to end up?” In a crisis, yes, it’s important to focus on the immediate, but constantly keep the longer game in mind.
If you’ve done your best on the above two principles, now stay ahead of the narrative.
The author, Peter Wilkinson
You need to be nimble. This is more important now than ever, with a judgmental public, a critical media and toxic social media. Our political leaders, who are constantly in crisis, do it all the time, some better than others. First out every morning, anticipating what people are thinking, and then keeping ahead of what’s happening through the day.
It’s worth noting that ANZ has what appears to be a terrific asset, their new CEO. Nuno Matos seems to be a warm and engaging communicator. He could be everywhere. Why not on the ANZ sites on Youtube, Facebook and Linkedin? We are told by the Reuters Institute that about 30% of Australians get some of their news from those channels, with fewer seeking out legacy media.
Finally, there is an exception to the above that’s worth remembering. A key tactical question always is, “Are we better off not in the story?” If we judge that the crisis will be short lived, an option is to avoid going public so that the story dies quickly.
That’s not the case with ANZ.
Peter Wilkinson is chair of Wilkinson Butler and a crisis communications expert.
