In a recent APCO post about protecting reputation through Issue Management, Deanna Javadi and Jim Moorehead write that: An effective issues management program is proactive and always changing day-to-day. An organization must continuously monitor issues and implement different practices to “avoid surprises, anticipate new needs, and act quickly and proactively.”
At CommCore, we know that clever phrases or TLA’s (three letter acronyms) help instill an idea or strategy. We’re calling the continuous issues management approach the AAA Strategy. We liken the approach to the American Automobile Association (one of the original AAA’s) and their focus on trip preparation and highway safety.
AAA claims to always be there to help you plan a trip (they were around before Waze and Google Maps) and to provide you with a variety of emergency services on the road, much like these three “As” can do for your reputation. If you follow the AAA Strategy, you will be able to prepare, manage, and address any issues that might arise to damage an organization’s reputation.
Our AAA Strategy is: Avoid, Anticipate, and Act.
First, Avoid surprises. Avoiding reputation surprises includes creating a crisis plan, setting up and actually reading news and social media monitoring services, analyzing other recent crises to see if they apply to your organization.
Looking into ChatGPT DeepFakes is one way to Anticipate new needs. In the crisis and reputation protection arena, anticipation is creating a series of checklists that help plan for eventualities. Once you have a good set up checklists and plans, then conducting different types of crisis drills is part of anticipation (aka preparation).
Finally, when issues or events arise that might damage reputation, you must Act quickly and proactively. AAA aims to provide rapid roadside assistance. Like AAA, organizations must act on the issue quickly in order to assemble the crisis team, decide whether to monitor the crisis issue or take specific actions.
If the AAA Strategy works for your organization, feel free to implement it. If not, figure out another way to create a process to monitor issues and events that can impact your reputation and long-term viability.
By: Andrew Gilman and Kelli Rasmussen