Damage Control: Why Everything You Know About Crisis Management Is Wrong

Eric Dezenhall and John Weber

Retail Price: $15.00 LS Price: $0.00 Availability: Out-of-Print Format: Paperback, 240pp. ISBN: 9781591841883 Publisher: Portfolio Pub. Date: March 25, 2008 Average Customer Review:

Out-Of-Print A new copy is not available from the LeaderShop at this time. A used copy may be available from our network of book dealers. Search Out-of-Print

Contrarian, in-your-face advice from two masters of crisis management

Much of the conventional wisdom about damage control and crisis PR is self-serving, self- congratulatory, self-deceiving—and flat out wrong. And no one knows it better than Eric Dezenhall and John Weber, who have helped countless companies, politicians, and celebrities get out of various kinds of trouble.

If you’re facing a lawsuit, a sex scandal, a defective product, or allegations of insider trading, other PR experts will tell you to stay positive, get your message out, and everything will be just fine. But happy talk doesn’t help much during a real crisis, and it’s easy to lose sight of your real priorities. In a trial, for instance, you might want the whole world to think you’re a wonderful person, but all that matters is whether twelve jurors think you’re guilty.

Dezenhall and Weber are especially dismayed by flacks who compare every problem to the famous Tylenol/cyanide episode of 1982—supposedly proof that making nice, admitting fault, and taking immediate corrective action is all you need to do. In reality, Tylenol’s situation was nothing like the typical corporate crisis.

The authors share many powerful lessons, including:

• the difference between a nuisance, a problem, and a crisis
• when you can’t get them to like you, get them not to attack you
• it’s not about facts; it’s about symbols
• the best case studies are the ones you’ll never hear about
• good deeds won’t position you out of the line of fire

Damage Control will reveal what works, what doesn’t, and how to really survive a career- threatening situation. It will be the definitive book on this subject for years to come.


Reviews

"Damage Control shows us that most of today's crises--corporate and government alike--are inherently about conflict. Leaving aside the media spin zone, Eric Dezenhall and John Weber rise to the fight."

—Ian Bremmer, President, the Eurasia Group and author of The J Curve

It's truly rare that one sees a great business strategist in operation, particularly on a subject about which so much total schweck is offered as wisdom. This is a mandatory for read for any corporate person who is facing a gut wrenching crisis right now or is likely to one day - which of course means just about everybody.

—Stanley Bing, author and Fortune magazine columnist

I do this kind of stuff for a living, and this book gave me chills. Corporate executives pay consultants fifty grand a month for advice a whole lot less intelligent and compelling than this, which is good news for consultants but bad news for just about everybody else. Now for just a few bucks they can get this book, put it under their pillows, and sleep well at night, if they sleep at all.

—Gil Schwartz, Executive Vice President, CBS Corporation

Damage Control is one of the few books that get it right. Most of the conventional wisdom and experts have it wrong. This book has application to almost every person and career.

—Mark Geragos

 


Reader's Index 
Send us your favorite quotes or passages from this book.

Management