Masters of Disaster: The Ten Commandments of Damage Control – Christopher Lehane, Mark Fabiani and Bill Guttenberg (Palgrave Macmillan)

With the staggering growth of communications vehicles; the 24 hour news cycle, internet news sites, citizen journalists, bloggers, social media, and the everyone’s a reporter cell phone video, crisis communications has become not only an art form, but a highly valued skillset.

Dubbed the “go-to manual” of crisis communications, Masters of Disaster: The Ten Commandments of Damage Control by former Clinton White House spin masters Christopher Lehane and Mark Fabiani and their business partner Bill Guttenberg really proves that crisis communications and damage control isn’t brain surgery; much of what they preach boils down to common sense.

The authors cite numerous, recent, high profile examples of crisis situations that went off the rails because the principals involved more often than not left common sense at the door and stumbled over one, two, even three or more of the simple ten commandments they lay out in the book. Even major players get tripped up by these things; Penn State University with the Jerry Sandusky scandal, the Tiger Woods’ sex scandal and the BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico leap to mind.

Easily the most important “Commandment” that the trio lay out is the first; Full Disclosure. There is a reason way the phrase “the cover up is worse than the crime” has become a cliché…because it’s TRUE! Even the “Masters” have been tripped up by this one, when President Bill Clinton wagged his finger at the nation and boldly proclaimed “I did not have sex with that women…Miss Lewinsky.” When the crude details of Clinton sexual exploits with a White House intern played out on the 24 hour news channels and the Drudge Report most couldn’t help but recall the President’s finger wagging proclamation.

The days of the sycophant media covering up the dalliances of President Kennedy are a long forgotten memory. Now the trick according to the authors is Commandment II; speak to Your Core Audience. The Masters rebounded well in Clinton’s case skillfully utilizing the sycophant, liberal media to spin the sex scandal into an indictment of the “vast right- wing conspiracy” out to get the President.

Like I said, it’s not brain surgery, but it is based on a strategy to be responsive, upfront, straight forward and to lay out the problem as you see it and how you plan to directly address it. Think about how things could have been different in some of those high profile cases if the players involved had acted prudently and developed a plan to be ahead of the story instead of chasing after it. The outcomes certainly would have been much more favorable in the end.