Sean Murphy, Practice Leader, CSI Critical Communications joins Dr. Steve Wood to talk about the myth that safety is the top priority for most businesses. Many company communications, mission statements, and handbooks default to stating that the safety of their employees/customers/shareholders/community is the foremost priority of their business, but this unnecessarily blanket claim can create potential litigation issues in the future. And this issue has become even more pervasive since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Sean and Steve discuss the importance of companies aligning their crisis communications with their litigation strategy and understanding the potential legal ramifications of a seemingly innocuous public statement. They specifically discuss the myth about “Safety being the top priority” for a company and how, when Covid hit, many companies sent out messages that stated that the safety of their customers and employees and communities was their top priority, but how safety should be communicated as A priority but not THE top priority. Sean explains how the messaging and positioning of the concept of safety should be handled and how, now that companies are deciding to bring employees back into the office, opening up their businesses/stores, etc., how they should craft their messaging to limit future litigation risk and exposure.
Sean and Steve discuss the importance of doing research to figure out what messaging will resonate with your target audience, plus crafting messaging that doesn’t box you in in the future. They also talk about using messaging that is specific to what the business is doing to address the specifics of the crisis situation they find themselves in, rather than simply defaulting to the headline of “safety is our top priority”.
Full Episode Transcript
[00:05] Steve Welcome to the Litigation Psychology Podcast, brought to you by Courtroom Sciences Inc. I am Dr. Steve Wood, and today we’re going to talk about a topic that’s somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. In fact, I’ll probably go as far as to say it’s one of my biggest pet peeves, and that being safety and the language that is being used by corporations around safety. And to help me talk about that today is a colleague of mine, Sean Murphy. Sean, how are you? Thanks for being on the podcast.
[00:31] Sean Hi, Steve. Good to see you. Thank you.
[00:34] Steve And you and i have done some work together on critical communications in kind of the wing and arm of our company. But for those of you who don’t know, the listeners who don’t know about it, could you just give a brief general overview about what you do in critical communications?
[00:50] Sean Right. So we do provide crisis and litigation communication support for companies and organizations who find themselves in, in these high-profile difficult situations where they need to communicate very clearly and quickly and protect and defend the reputations of their organizations. That will be on the crisis side. On the litigation side, it’s working with attorneys and both in in-house counsel to make sure that the communication strategy matches and aligns with and supports the litigation strategy itself because a lot of things, as we know, um you know, they’re decided in court but often there’s influence from the court of public opinion.
[01:35] Steve Yeah, I think that’s why you probably share similar thoughts as far as this goes across the topic. But I want to talk to you a little bit about this concept that we’re seeing nowadays, especially with COVID. The idea that everywhere you look is “safety is your top priority,” “safety is your top priority,” “safety is your top priority.” And you and I actually just wrote a blog together where we dispel the notion that safety doesn’t necessarily have to be your top priority. But can you talk a little bit more about what we meant by that and kind of what your thoughts are around the idea of claiming that safety is your top priority?
[02:08] Sean Sure, and I’ll take it from the communications perspective and maybe, you know, you can loop back and talk about the the implications in in litigation. But uh you know we saw it a lot when when COVID occurred. A lot of companies, from hotels to to cell phone companies, it didn’t really matter what the company was or what it did, but they reached out and they all had the same message and it said “safety is our top, your safety is our top priority.” And we started publishing and talking to people and the clients we worked with, counsels against that because safety can be a priority, but you are taking on an awful lot of responsibility by saying it’s the the priority.
So it was kind of uh not well thought out because it was a obviously a once in a hundred year event. People were reacting. If you googled your competitors or your peers or other large companies, they were all saying it. So you can imagine a mid-sized company saying, “well, it must be the right thing to do so I’ll do it too.” But unfortunately, it sets the wrong expectation in terms of how far you’re willing to go to protect somebody’s safety and also it’s off message. If if you’re a bank and we’re having a pandemic, I really want to know what you’re doing to make sure I have access to my money or my banking services because I have to keep my business running. You know, if you’re a cell phone company I want to know, you know, um what you’re doing to make sure that I have reliable service because I’m probably going to need that cell phone, especially in the pandemic. I don’t have access to other things.
So it’s it’s that kind of a thinking, it’s the kind of a groupthink that occurred that uh people may be paying the price for now because um now that uh you know we’re on a different end of the pandemic, then companies are having to decide are they going to bring people back into the office? What’s the process for that? They have to remember that they made a commitment that safety was their number one priority. So what does that mean and how is that defined?
[04:09] Steve Yeah, I think that’s a good point and we’ll circle back to that at the end. But I think one of the things you brought up, and really what it looks like for me from a litigation perspective, is if you can think about safety being your top priority but then that company has someone get injured on the job and then now that they’re suing the organization. And then it comes to time for a deposition and plaintiff counsel comes in with that manual that says “safety is a top priority” or the screenshots from your website where it says “safety is our top priority.” That becomes really difficult for a witness to say that safety is not the top priority.
Now you could say, “well I didn’t write the manual” or “I didn’t have anything to do with the manual,” but that only gets you so far because essentially you’re a company employee, you work for that organization, so essentially you have to abide by that. And that’s one of the things you and I had talked about in the paper was that a lot of times these messaging and things are not being done by the legal department, right? They’re being done by communications department or they’re being done by some outside consultant who has that public image in their mind, but not writing it from a legal perspective.
But you know, obviously there’s very big legal implications when you’re writing those things. Like I said, it doesn’t take a very savvy plaintiff attorney to shove that down your throat during a deposition when you have such things. You know, so I asked the question to you is, you know, what is your thoughts on from getting that involved the correct messaging as far as that goes? Not necessarily just with bringing back employees but like, where should companies be going right now in their messaging about how they’re sending things out to the perception of of the client or a perception of the public?
[05:52] Sean And uh it really is important to have uh the kind of assistance and advice that is sensitive to both sides of the equation, right? So understanding what communications need to be in order to protect the company’s reputation, but also looking down the line and saying, “does this where is liability for this uh for me in this?” So it is important to to have someone with that kind of expertise because it’s not, these aren’t ordinary crises, right? These aren’t ordinary situations. And so um you know that’s that’s one of the of the most critical things is that is that you have that kind of advice.
And there’s better ways of communicating the same message. So for example, one thing you know that we do that you and I have done together at Courtroom Sciences is that we figure out messaging that we know—we do research and we figure out messaging that we know will resonate with the audiences that we’re trying to reach and influence while at the same time uh uh answering the need that they have, right? And so if you do testing around what’s a really good safety message for people, for example, we would find probably a number of ways to express that that don’t box you in a corner.
And so you know if you have—some organizations have had and will continue to have is some time to invest some resources to figure out what is the best way to say that. I mean a simple answer is it’s it’s a priority, right? You know there’s lots of ways to finesse and nuance it so that you’re not making these you know definitive statements. And it’s going to be really important now especially as people are coming back to work.
[07:39] Steve I think you make a—bring up a really good point and that always ends up being a problem when we talk about this topic is that when we’re saying that safety is not your top priority, there always ends up being this like idea like, “oh my god, they’re saying that safety is not a priority at all.” And I think that’s not even close to being the truth, right? You and I would be in agreement with that. That when you say it’s a priority, is that it’s okay for it to be a priority. And just because it’s not the top priority doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t care about it.
I think too many times corporations get into the mindset of, “well this is what feels good, this is what we have to say, this is what sounds good to everybody.” So for us to say it’s not a top priority, “oh my god, we look terrible, we look like we don’t care about our customers.” But that’s not true. It’s really just getting people to believe and understand the fact that it’s okay for it to be just one of your top priorities and that safety doesn’t necessarily work on a step one, step two, step three, step four as far as what a priority goes—is that it can be in line in a continuum with other topics too.
I mean, because let’s be honest, people know that corporations are in it to make money. They’re in it to help their customers, to make their customers’ life easier, all those different things that don’t necessarily revolve around safety. I mean, if we think about cell phones, right, and it goes back to your perfect example you had of cell phones is that: is it really my safety or do I want them to be able to have a good strong signal for me that when I need to make a phone call, right? It’s not necessarily whether or not I feel safe outside of the aspect of the store. Now a lot of times they you know talk about safety within the store concept, but there’s so many other things to an organization, right, like a cell phone carrier that’s not necessarily just safety related. So kind of what are your thoughts about that as well as far as you know how how people should feel okay with the idea that safety is just a priority, not necessarily has to be the top priority and how that doesn’t necessarily need to be you know mutually exclusive?
[09:40] Sean Right. Well, I mean it’s an obsession with the headline, right? Because what is the message that they’re trying to break through? And so this notion that you have to hit people over the head with this very blunt statement about safety—here’s what here’s what would work probably even better in situations like this: but if you if you assured people that you were concerned for their safety and that you were acting on their behalf and then listed the top three, five things that you were doing and were really could show what you were doing, then it’s a completely different equation.
No longer is it even in the courtroom this idea that so it was safety first and and then asking questions that kind of destroyed that whole idea. It’s, “we were concerned about safety and we did these three things that were really important and that really mattered.” And that’s where credibility comes, and it’s not in the headline; the credibility is in the actions that you take uh to support what it is you’re saying.
And also you know this was, even though it’s a pandemic, it even has gone on for 15 months, it’s not going to last forever. And if you look at uh you know the way the things that companies communicate about what it is that they do and what they’re committed to, well many companies, you know, they have mission statements. They appear everywhere. They those mission statements probably are contradicted everywhere by “safety first,” right? Because they probably don’t say safety first. So what is it you know? It is a matter of that credibility.
So when an issue arises you don’t immediately have to run to this notion that “this is it so because this is hot right now this is my number one thing.” You can say “this is really important and we’re addressing it and here are the things we’re doing to address it very specifically.” Then I feel then I feel a sense of comfort. I think you’re on top of it. And so it’s it’s the nuance of that that in their rush to assure people a lot of organizations may have missed.
[11:33] Steve I think that’s a good point too when you talk about the actions that are being taken to protect people because I think that’s what we see a lot on our side, on the litigation psychology side, is that opposing counsel in a personal injury case is trying to box that witness into this concept of “safety first,” “safety first,” “danger always eliminate it” and then box them in and then say, “okay, well now that you’ve just said that that it’s so important and it’s so critical to your business, now let’s overlay your actions against you know what you did in this case.” And then always it’s going to be something that contradicts the belief of that safety, right? But because that’s because it’s the overarching idea of safety versus necessarily like, what are the steps that we’re taking in order to protect our clients?
So then it makes more sense to say, “these are all the different things that we do for our employees and yes we had a bad situation here, but these are all the different things that we’ve done in order to protect our employees.” So I think that’s that’s an excellent point that you bring up and I kind of want to use that to dovetail into another conversation that we’re talking about. You know you’ve mentioned it a few times about companies opening back up post COVID and employees making the decision whether or not to have employees to come back or to keep them at home working remotely. That’s kind of want to get your sense of what you think or kind of the approach that companies should be at least thinking of or considering when they’re making these decisions or how they message to their employees if they’re going to have them come back.
[12:56] Sean Right. Well it’s interesting because you know if you look at organizational uh dynamics and leadership right now, trends right now, um there are people who are beginning to think that that the power equation has shifted as a result of this pandemic and it’s shifted to the employee base. So there are a lot of people out there whose lives are made more difficult by having to work from home, but there’s also a lot of people out there whose lives were made a lot better by being able to work remotely.
And so um you know organizations really need to get a handle on what their employee base is thinking. So before they talk, before they finalize these plans, they should really be doing a lot of formal surveying and asking people about not just their preferences but kind of like the work that we do together: getting underneath those preferences. How can you meet—you know, there’s a surface level of what’s going on but then underneath it, what’s driving their decision making? What’s driving their—what are the emotions under that? So it’s really understanding what our employee attitude [is] so that they can figure out the best way to meet them.
And are they going to have to come up with a hybrid? I mean the facts in many ways are with the employees because there you see various studies were published talking about how employees were a lot more productive and companies got a lot more out of them with this arrangement. So it would be hard to say except for maybe you know, “I’d rather have my people there” or “I think that having people there creates a different creative dynamic” or whatever the reason may be. Unless you understand your employee attitudes first, you you are likely to misstep. So they should be aggressively uh surveying and listening to their employee base before they finalize their plan to bring people back. That’s the first thing.
The second thing is they really are going to have to ease people into this because there’s different segments of the population that are reflected in their employee base. And there’s a segment of the population that’s really safety oriented and even though they may be vaccinated, their question is going to be, “what about other people? What are you going to do protect me from them or protect them or protect them because I want a safe working environment all the way around?” Then there are others who are not as concerned about you know this this uh pandemic or its impacts and and would think that anything that the organization would do would be too much in terms of safety.
So they’ve really got to talk to people and figure out the best balance that they can bring for their employee base on bringing them back to work. Then you know today in Chicago—I’m in Chicago—and today in Chicago we’re opening up you know the first time in 15 months. And so you know what kinds of things are stores and other other you know places that have a lot of traffic, what are they doing to communicate to their customers the same kind of thing? Because again, it’s there’s going to be a mix of people showing up with different levels of concern and different priorities. So it’s a lot of listening to get it right. And as you and i have worked together and we do you know we create the kind of messaging that we know resonates before a company delivers it, because we’ve actually talked to the people that we’re trying to communicate with. We know how the best way to say it, we also know how to say it in a way that uh doesn’t get us in trouble later legally.
[16:32] Steve Yeah, I think that’s a great point that you bring up about listening and that that’s one of the things I think that needs to be done for sure, right? Is that we all have a sense for what we think people believe, we all have a sense for what we think people want to hear. But without actually going out and really talking to people to get a better understanding about what it is that they really want to hear, you’re not going to be able to have a clear picture.
And I think that really goes back to the topic that we talked about that we started off on is that “safety is a top priority.” Is that it makes people feel good, companies say it because that’s what they think that that the employees, that’s what they think customers want to hear. But necessarily that’s not necessarily what they want to hear, but you know ends up being essentially tone deaf to what people really want to hear. So I think it’s a great point that you’ve hit on that one of the biggest things that you could probably take away is listen a lot more to the people who you’re actually reaching out to, right?
Don’t just assume that you know what they think and don’t just assume that that’s messaging that’s going to resonate with them. Especially like as you said that that messaging could potentially get you in a lawsuit later and then cause problems for you. And then you come to us and say, “hey, what can you do to fix this?” and we just look at you and go, “change your manual,” right? That’s what they’re going to be the things. And then now you have a problem there too we’re talking about changing manuals and changing out those ideas of “safety first” and then having to explain later why you changed it. But like I said, getting yourself to the point where you’re not even there in the first place because you have a better understanding of your customer base, of your employee base. I think that’s that’s a great point that you bring up.
Yeah, it’s funny that you talk about Chicago you know opening up. I’m in Texas here and it feels like we never really closed. So it’s another thing I have to keep in mind too as I travel is that it’s not all Texas, right? It’s not all—everybody’s still going to be a little apprehensive. Around here mostly everybody’s maskless, but you know you go in every once in a while and there’s people that are in masks. But like if you go someplace like Chicago, my guess is you’re going to have a lot of people that are in masks and it’s probably going to be fewer and far between the people who are not wearing masks. Is that what you’ve noticed?
[18:33] Sean Well, actually it’s transitioning fast, at least outdoors. It’s kind of a mix in the stores or any kind of place where you’re enclosed, it’s kind of a mix. But you know, people people are going to have to ease back into it. Some people, other people are just ready to go because they’ve been locked up for 15 months.
[18:49] Steve Yeah, and it’s like I said and it’s a really it’s a really touchy issue. I mean like you said being locked up—that’s what they’re talking about, all the the problems that they’ve had in the basketball playoffs about people running on the court and people doing a lot of things because people have been cooped up for so long they’re ready to to get out.
And you know that we talked about just came out of Mental Health Month, you know, and that was another thing too that we could talk about on another podcast about mental health. But like I said it’s just another thing that people need to understand that there’s the human factor in this. And that understanding people’s perspectives and that not everybody’s going to have the same perspective. And that the goal is to find the perspective that resonates with the most amount of people versus being this really narrow focus on the actual message that you have and missing out on a big portion of people that you need to target.
[19:37] Sean Yes, a little TLC right now will go a long way too. You’re absolutely right. There’s two benefits to listening to people. One of them is you get really good insights and know how to speak with them. The other thing is how much better do we feel when we feel we’ve been listened to, when someone’s actually heard about our experiences during this and is attempting to do something to make it better going forward?
[19:59] Steve Yup, exactly. Well Sean, I appreciate you coming on to the podcast. People need to get a hold of you for any sort of critical communications related topics or they just want to talk to you about what your insights are. You have a lot of insights man, you’ve done a lot of stuff over the years that you and I have worked on and other things that you have that I haven’t worked on you with. So you’re definitely a wealth of knowledge when it comes to fine-lining on how you do communication. So if anybody wanted to reach out to you and talk to you more about that, how do they get a hold of you?
[20:26] Sean Just email me: smurphy@courtroomsciences.com.
[20:29] Steve Great. I can be reached at swood@courtroomsciences.com. Check out courtroomsciences.com for all of our blogs, podcasts, any information related to the company. We do a lot, Sean does a lot, I do a lot, Bill Kanasky does a lot, we do—all of our employees do a lot. So go to courtroomsciences.com and check that out. We’ll be back with another podcast. This has been another edition of the Litigation Psychology Podcast, brought to you by Courtroom Sciences Inc. Have a good one.
Be confident in achieving superior litigation outcomes. CSI has the expertise, track record, and capabilities to help you win.
Learn more about our Crisis Communications services
Go to Page
