CEO危机公关榜样：玛丽•巴拉

    “通用汽车不仅在践行最佳做法，而且还为汽车业未来的召回事件树立了一个更高的行业标准，实际上，他们正在撰写一部全新的危机应对手册，”利维克危机管理公司(Levick)副总裁菲利普•埃尔伍德这样说道。

    埃尔伍德指出，通用汽车一直在积极致力于清除导致点火开关故障的体制问题——解雇了15位员工，重组诉讼业务流程，并开创了一个名为“为安全发声(Speaking Up for Safety)”的项目。他认为后者相当于“一种内部举报人保护法”。

    巴拉一直处于所有这些行动的中心。它们并没有移交给其他高管来处理，也不是在某个周五下午通过新闻通稿对外发布的。巴拉站在舞台上，对媒体和公众详细解释她认为通用汽车是如何失败的，该公司将采取哪些改进措施等问题。她的行动看上去毫无矫饰，也显示出她为此感到痛心：这家她供职了几十年的公司竟然允许这种事情发生。

    让我们比照一下过去十年中另一场重大的公关危机：2010年英国石油公司(BP)墨西哥湾漏油事件。该公司时任CEO唐熙华最初打算降低这起事件的严重程度，声称这不是什么大不了的事。当然，他最著名的失态之举是对一位记者说，他想“重回过去的生活”。海沃德随后遭受铺天盖地的指责声，没过几个月就黯然辞职。

    埃尔伍德还表示，巴拉在这场危机袭来之前已经积聚的高人气，可能对她也很有助益。

    “玛丽•巴拉在今年1月15日被任命为新任CEO的消息的确令人振奋，”他说。“她由此成为一家美国汽车巨头的首位女性首席执行官，悬挂在女性高管头顶的玻璃天花板被悄然粉碎。毫无疑问，此举给通用汽车打了一剂防疫针。”

    通用汽车的危机还远远没有结束。但如果巴拉延续她的应对策略，她就很有可能被载入史册，成为一位CEO如何挽狂澜于既倒，扶大厦之将倾的典型例证。（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    “GM is not only following best practices, they’re also effectively writing a new book by setting higher industry standards for future recalls by automakers,” said Philip Elwood, a vice-president at crisis management firm Levick.

    Elwood noted that GM has been proactive in working to eliminate the institutional issues that led to the ignition switch issues — firing 15 people, reorganizing the litigation practice and creating the “Speaking Up for Safety” program, which he calls “a sort of internal whistleblower protection act.”

    Barra has been at the center of all of these actions. They weren’t handed off to other executives. They weren’t announced in press releases on a Friday afternoon. Barra got on stage in front of the press and the public and explained exactly how she believes the company failed, and what it was going to do to get better. Her actions never seemed fake, and it was difficult to say she wasn’t legitimately upset that the automaker she has worked at for several decades allowed this to happen.

    Compare that to one of the other big public relations crises of the past decade: the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Then-CEO Tony Hayward started by minimizing the incident, saying it wasn’t a big deal. Of course, his most famous gaffe was saying to a reporter that he would like his “life back.” Hayward was massively criticized, and was out of the company within a matter of months.

    Elwood also said that the popularity Barra had before the crisis hit has probably helped her.

    “The announcement of Mary Barra as the new CEO on Jan. 15 of this year was done in spectacular fashion,” he said. “The unspoken shattering of the glass ceiling, as the first female CEO of a U.S. auto giant, surely gave GM some preemptive inoculation.”

    The crisis at GM is far from over. But if Barra keeps playing her cards the way she has so far, she could be held up for years as a textbook example of how a CEO should handle a potentially fatal crisis.