Beef businesses get crisis prepared

They are, however, finding it can be counter-intuitive.

From rehearsals of food recalls and managing animal welfare breaches to long term plans for dealing with the demands of activist groups, agriculture is finding it has too much to lose to not be proactive in this arena.

Leading Australian crisis management expert Kelly Parkinson, from Melbourne firm Futureye, said everyone in the food industry was now taking the need to be “crisis prepared” very seriously - but some were having more success than others.

Many of the messages coming from the latest in this field run completely against the grain for a sector traditionally conservative and guarded.

Such as resisting the temptation to wait until you have all the facts before speaking publically.

“Talk early and talk a lot,” says Mr Parkinson.

“Say what you do know, what the range of possibilities are and what you are doing to find out more.

“Companies and peak industry groups often fail to communicate quickly enough during the start of an incident and the resulting vacuum is filled with speculation, rumours and half truths.

“What you have to do is establish yourself as the source of information on the issue.

“If you don’t say something, others will. The media will quote your employees, your competitors, activists - there are plenty of sources and it is exacerbated by social media.”

Just how honest and transparent should we be?

There is no clear cut answer but Mr Parkinson suggests considering this: Research has consistently shown that damaging information generates 20 times more concern when you keep it secret and the whistle is blown than when you reveal it yourself.

Therefor secrecy has to have a better than 95pc success rate to be worth the risk.

Understanding the various “see-saws” at play was fundamental to being able to come through a crisis without enormous reputation cost, according to Mr Parkinson, who has managed crises for the likes of Cadbury, Fosters Brewing Group and Philip Morris, ran communications during the Victorian gas supply emergency and currently advises the live export peak body.

Research had clearly shown the more human you appear the more competent you are perceived.

“Big business has a tendency to appear robotic,” Mr Parkinson said.

“Where they come unstuck in food safety is they respond to the technical issue not the emotive public response.

“Sometimes there is not even a problem with the product but it takes months before that is confirmed and meanwhile the perceived problem has done enormous damage.”

Another important see-saw is the balance between blame and responsibility.

The more responsibility you accept the less you are blamed.

Yet this, once again, runs counter to the natural reaction.

“The first thing that tends to happen in a crisis is the lawyers are called in and accepting responsibility becomes a hot topic,” Mr Parkinson said.

“The reality is your liability doesn’t change if you accept responsibility - if you’ve hurt someone, you’ve hurt someone.

“What does change is public perception.”

The patterns were clear on how an industry or businesses loses its social license, Mr Parkinson said.

As disagreement starts to emerge, the first thing most do is try to convince those expressing that concern or disagreement they are wrong.

Then they fight with them and try to “beat” them.

That creates increased interest in the issue from a wider section of society.

“Eventually, the industry or company will try negotiating,” Mr Parkinson said.

“They end up giving up much more than they ever would have if they dealt with the issue early on.

“What you need to do is validate the concerns early and work with those expressing them on the things they do have right.

“Usually it’s on a range - they will have some stuff dead wrong but other concerns could well be justified.

“Making progress on those latter issues will generally prevent an escalation into the more unreasonable demands.”