#100K: Rod Cartwright
The most difficult communications crisis I have experienced in my career was the BSE crisis in 2000 as spokesperson for Burger King Germany. In general, I've been through some interesting – difficult - times for this brand. And the most extreme was certainly the Rudolph Moshammer murder case, because the killer of this Munich celebrity was a crew member (and he returned to his workplace after the crime. The following morning, the restaurant at Sonnenstrasse/Munich was packed with TV crews.)
For almost ten years, I worked on crisis communications - for many companies and in many different industries. But all this is nothing compared to the experience and professionalism of this man: Rod Cartwright.
From Rod I learned - and still learn - how not to lose overview, calmness and a sense of humour even in the worst of times. And Rod is a great storyteller as well. I'll never forget a client calling us both the "Mom and Dad of Storytelling" in a workshop (note that the age difference between the two of us and the rest of the workshop participants was approximately 25 years … it was the first time in my life I started to think about retirement).
Today Rod has his own business – Rod Cartwright Consulting - and I am very happy that he - between all the issues and crises he manages – found time for this #100K interview.
Rod, you live in UK/London and also from time to time in South Africa. But the last three pandemic years made travelling difficult. We were locked in for quite a long time. No one would have thought that. A time that even the perfect crisis scenario could not have foreseen. Actually, though, this crisis period was right up your alley, or how did you experience it? What observation and what learnings do you keep from three years of Covid crisis?
The timing was crazy. I started my own business as an independent consultant at exactly that time. To be precise, I opened my business a month before Brexit (another disaster) and two months before the Covid outbreak and lockdowns in Europe.
But today I can say, everything went well for one reason above all others: family and friends.
The sudden lockdown was a stress test for many families. And I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful wife and such a great daughter. Like so many, we supported each other from one day to the next and the whole experience was proof positive of proof how resilient relationships can be. Building on nearly 25 years of marriage, every day together – even in lockdown - was a gift. Our daughter also spent most of that first lockdown year with us, even though it should have been her first full year at university . In retrospect, we have great memories of about that time at home.
I learned – again – how important family and best friends are. Everything else is peripheral. Indeed, a number of friendships were re-evaluated. It's not actually new for me to see that people behave differently in a crisis. In my own circle of friends, however, I was sometimes surprised. I expected some old friends to deal with this stressful situation brilliantly, but some reacted really unpredictably. So the crisis was an opportunity to reassess some friendships and even distil a few of them down.
Those months and years were a real life test for all of us. A test of how resilient, crisis-ready and reliable we are.
Rod, you are one of the most internationally respected crisis experts in the world. You help organizations and companies prepare for issues and crises and react appropriately in the case of an emergency. In your business creativity doesn´t play a big role, right? Or what kind of creativity are you in? And what´s your source for creativity? What do you need coming up with new ideas?
Crisis is about strategy. But the most important element is the human factor. In the end, how an organisations reacts to an issue or a crisis comes down to human beings. Therefore, in times of stress, it takes intellectual creativity to lead people and motivate them to do the right thing.
As the outset, it is crucial to ask the right questions. For example, what do you want to cause, rather than simply what should you do?
Do not rush to judgment. Keep questioning the situation again and again, and get to the heart of the issue. In the end, it all comes down to the first principles. (This thinking goes back Aristotle who defined a first principle as “the first basis from which a thing is known”. It´s the act of boiling a process down to the fundamental parts that you know are true and building up from there).
Today we can´t take the “normal” for granted. We live amid a "new abnormal" (the new term is not VUCA - volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity or BANI – brittle, anxious, non-linear, incomprehensible - it´s RUPT - rapid, unpredictable, paradoxical, tangle).
Nothing is the same anymore. Many rules of the past can no longer be simply adopted for the future. We must force ourselves to remain attentive and question everything before we act. That is a very special and specific form of creativity.
The “New abnormal” - I like that. It's a much more honest term, rather than the "new normal". Nothing is "normal” anymore. We live in a world with multiple crises - geopolitical, economic, social, with environmental disasters and media disruptions that threaten democracies in all regions of the world. Challenging times. And each of us is asked to deal with it. To make a contribution and help to make the world a bit better. How do you see this and what would you claim for yourself making the world a little bit better?
During the pandemic, I participated in a volunteer program that brought people together to share, inform, and help each other through half hour mentoring sessions. These allowed participants to meet different people, some looking for practical tips, others – when lockdown got lonely – who just wanted to chat. I gladly supported the programme because giving just 30 minutes of your time – making a human connection and having a real conversation – made a huge impact on people’s life.
Communication played such an important role in the pandemic. So I became part of the PRCA (Public Relations and Communications Association UK) COVID-19 Global Taskforce, as its – as Deputy Chair. (It’s no wonder that during this time, the importance of crisis communications jumped to number one among PR professionals in an ICCO global survey).
Shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I also became involved in various initiatives to support Ukraine. Communication plays an incredibly important role in this conflict. Parallel to the actual war on the battlefield, there is a media war going on, and here, too, Ukraine needs all the support it can get. PRCA and ICCO rapidly creative the Ukraine Communication Support Network – whose Steering Committee I sit on – and I’ve been involved in consulting, content curation and copywriting. This included curating a PRovoke Media Ukraine Special Edition, including conducting interview with the Head of Global Communications at UNHCR.
Basically, I believe generosity is a key to making the world a little better and is one of my main contributions. I try to help organisations and individuals with my knowledge and experience as best as I can. and hope they benefit from this.
For example, I regularly publish communication reports and thought leadership pieces to help organisations better manage the complex issues and crises they face. One example is the “Trust, Risk and Resilience´ Report” I released in February – a summary and analysis of the five major global risk and trust reports published at the start of 2023 (see a summary here).
Yes, I believe in generosity. The world would be a better if we - humans - shared our knowledge and experience openly, transparently and generously.
