Episode 315 · 2 July 2026 · 50:51
How to Handle Crisis in the Workplace, with Andrew Blotky, Facebook's first Director of Global Internal Communications
Featuring Andrew Blotky
How to Handle Crisis in the Workplace, with Andrew Blotky, Facebook's first Director of Global Internal Communications
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Andrew's background: from US politics to Facebook's first global comms function
Where to start when a crisis hits
interview#crisis-management#communication-strategy#leadership
The line between responding and causing more panic
What honest communication actually means
interview#honest-communication#transparency#crisis-communication
The biggest mistake leaders make in the first 24–48 hours
interview#leadership-mistakes#crisis-response#decision-making
Communicating things you don't personally believe in
interview#authenticity#communication#ethics
Giving people agency in the age of AI anxiety
Finding compassion in commercial decisions
What listening really looks like in a crisis
interview#listening#crisis-communication#stakeholder-engagement
A real-world example: leading through the George Floyd aftermath
interview#george-floyd#crisis-example#organizational-response
First steps for leaders who want to do the pre-work
interview#preparation#leadership-development#crisis-readiness
Show notes
How to Handle Crisis in the Workplace — with Andrew Blotky
Guest: Andrew Blotky — executive coach, author, and founder of Azure Leadership Group. He built Facebook's first global employee communications function during a period of intense growth and scrutiny, and led HR communications at Johnson & Johnson.
When a crisis hits — a scandal, a mass layoff, an AI-driven restructure — most leaders go quiet. Andrew's message is simple: silence is the real crisis.
Andrew joins Al and Leanne to share practical wisdom on leading with integrity through change, crisis, and uncertainty. Moving past standard PR templates, he dives deep into the human side of leadership — how authenticity, self-reflection, and mindfulness help you stay grounded when you're under fire. They explore why speaking early matters more than having perfect answers, where the line sits between honesty and oversharing, and why the best crisis management happens long before the crisis ever hits.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Silence is the real crisis. In the absence of information, people will create their own negative narratives. Speaking early — even without all the answers — is critical to steadying your team.
- Know your two questions before you ever need them. Who's my audience? What's my message? Having these answered in advance means you're never starting from scratch mid-crisis.
- Do the work on your values now, not mid-crisis. The best crisis management happens long before the crisis hits, by grounding your organisation in true core values — not the ones on the wall.
More From Andrew Blotky
- Website: azureleadership.com
- Andrew's book, Honestly Speaking: How the Way We Communicate Transforms Leadership, Love, and Life: azureleadership.com/honestlyspeaking
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/andrewblotky
- Instagram: @blotblot
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottWhen some of the world's best-known brands hit a very public crisis, like a scandal or a mass layoff or a product recall, somebody has to decide what that company says in the next hour, not in the next week. Our guest today is that person.
Leanne ElliottAndrew Blotky started his career working in US politics, both doing media relations and as a press spokesperson for members of Congress. He then went on to build and run the crisis playbook from inside Facebook, as well as Johnson Johnson. He's coached leaders through COVID, racial justice reckonings, and And more recently, the AI layoffs dominating headlines right now. And he says most leaders make the exact same mistake when trying to handle public crisis.
Andrew BlotkyA lot of times people sort of go into bunker mode. And the reality is, we all live in a world where people, their BS meters are pretty high. They're pretty sensitive to like fake information. They can tell when somebody's lying and not being direct with them. And so what we don't want to do is in any way feel like we're obfuscating or being dishonest.
Al ElliottThat one line explains why so many layoffs, AI-driven or otherwise, land Today we're asking, what if silence, not honesty, is the real crisis?
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of work. Our guest today is Andrew Blotky, a leadership coach, consultant, and author of Honestly Speaking. Oh, and he teaches yoga and meditation, which turns out to matter more than you'd think when you're the one holding the room together while everything's on fire.
Al ElliottHis take is refreshingly simple. It's not about having the perfect words, it's about doing the work on your values before the crisis ever hits. So after the short break, we'll join Leanne and Andrew, and by the end of it, you'll finally know Exactly what to do the next time a crisis lands on your desk. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation, into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Andrew BlotkyNice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Andrew BlotkySo I started my career working in US politics, both doing media relations and being a press spokesperson for members of Congress and then spent time working in-house at, it was then Facebook, it's now Meta. I built and led the employee communications function there globally, loved my time there. And then I've also spent time running employee communications and HR communications at Johnson Johnson for a couple of years. And I currently now run my own consulting business. I wrote a book a few years ago called Honestly Speaking: How the Way We Communicate Transforms Leadership. Love and Life, meant to sort of really pull together some sort of stories and lessons around how we all can communicate in a more authentic way in all parts of our life. Happy to talk about that. And in another part of my life, I'm a longtime student and teacher of yoga and meditation.
Leanne ElliottWhich I'd imagine is very important to feel grounded and centered when you're in this type of work. And I mean, crisis is a broad term, and I think particularly more recently, there's I don't know if we've been maybe more normalized to it or numb to it because there's so much going on. But I guess I wanna, I would love to start by understanding if there's any common threads in terms of how good leaders manage a crisis, or is it completely different every time?
Andrew BlotkyYou know, I really think you're so spot on, which like, we just seem to be living from one crisis to another, and things that maybe aren't even a real legitimate crisis for some people, people still operate as though it were a crisis no matter what. So I think that your question around leadership is so important. And I think that, you know, the really the best leaders that I've worked with and the ones that I sort of advise have a balance of sort of humanity, and there's a human sort of really emotional aspect to how they show up. And then they've also planned for, and there's a very thoughtful way of approaching a crisis. So I'm happy to talk about both, but, you know, I think finding the grounding and finding the connection and the humanness, especially if you're a leader of an organization, is really important, as is making sure that you have plans and a process in place so that when the crisis comes up, you can walk through it and manage it in as sort of rational and clear and sort of really responsible way as possible. I see leaders who get into trouble when they don't have one or two of those things.
Leanne ElliottCan you talk us through then in terms of of if there's a starting point, say a crisis hits, somebody comes and says, this is happening, we need to tell somebody, everybody, what's the kind of the first step of that management process?
Andrew BlotkySo, I think that one of the things that you wanna think about is what type of crisis is it? Because that will help guide you in terms of how you communicate and how you react. So, is it sort of an earth-type crisis, like a hurricane or something that's sort of, you know, out of our control? Or is it sort of a manmade crisis? And if it's a manmade crisis than maybe there's some sort of more delicate or political sort of issue that you need to navigate through. And then you wanna sort of think about, okay, where did it happen? Is it— is who is affected? Who might we need to talk to? And I think a lot of times leaders will get into trouble when they don't speak early. So even if you don't have full information, even if you don't know everything, even if you don't have your plan set, it's still better for people to hear from you as a leader. This is what we know. This is what we're doing. We will come back to you by X time.
Al ElliottYeah.
Andrew BlotkyI think when leaders get into trouble is when they sort of just go into like bunker mode mentality, especially if it's a crisis that's manmade, but that maybe is of the corporation or of the company's doing. So, for example, maybe they would need to admit wrongdoing or some mistake or error or something. A lot of times people sort of go into bunker mode. And the reality is we all live in a world where people, their BS meters are pretty high. They're pretty sensitive to like fake information. They can tell when somebody's lying and not being direct with them. We all carry devices around that show us, you know, people can get information very quickly. And so what we don't want to do is in any way feel like we're obfuscating or being dishonest. So really the first step is assess, what did you do? What is the situation? Is it something that's in our control to change, that's out of our control to change? Because that'll help guide you what direction to go. And then how can I speak in a way that is sort of honest and grounded, even if I don't have full information or all the answers.
Leanne ElliottWhere's the line between responding in the moment in a way that doesn't cause more fear or panic or backlash and taking time to set a plan?
Andrew BlotkyJust to share why there might sometimes be backlash, it's more than just do people like it or do they not, but it's in the absence of information or in the absence of a statement, people will impute their own story. They will create a narrative. It's how the human mind works. We're very good at storytelling, storymaking. We develop narratives in our mind. So in the absence of it, people will come to their own conclusions. And so as a leader, I want to be in the place of, I want to try to guide and control to the extent that I can what people will think about me or my political party or my organization more than letting other people do it, because how they come to what conclusion they come to may actually not be accurate. may not be what I want them to come to. So that's why we want to be out there a little bit sooner. And it also is the kind of thing that people just want to hear from you. So this is why when you're not in a crisis, it's really important to do some of the work of what do we do when there is a crisis? What are the criteria that we think about? Or what are the values that we stand for? Companies, political parties all come back to what do we stand for? What are our values? Because those will ground you. They will tell you what the answer is when it isn't obvious what the answer should be.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Andrew BlotkyThat's what really good values should do. So, for me, you wanna do the work beforehand, and when you don't, people will come to their own conclusions, and oftentimes they're far more exaggerated or negative or critical, especially in our political world right now, than otherwise maybe they would be.
Leanne ElliottI'm curious, what does honest communication actually mean when you're in a situation where you feel like things are falling apart? Because again, I'm thinking leaders are thinking, well, that initial conversation, I can't tell people everything either because I don't know don't know yet, or I haven't decided how to fully respond to it yet.
Andrew BlotkyYeah. Well, so the honestly speaking is really about being honest with yourself. Anything that's worth communicating is worth communicating because you want someone to know something or to feel something or to do something. And so in order to be able to tell what is my audience likely to receive, I need to kind of understand who am I talking to? Is this a bunch of people who are going to be like my supporters? Are these people who are immediately gonna be skeptical of me no matter what I say? Are these people who are feeling an immense sense of disappointment? Are they people who are on my side? Try to understand the audience and try to be really honest with yourself about what is it that I want this group of people to feel or to know, or do I need them to do something? And so again, we wanna do some of that work of like self-reflection. What do I stand for? What are my values? What does the company stand for? What does my political party stand for? Regardless of how any particular election You know, we went through this, we've gone through this a lot here in the United States. It's happening a lot of different countries around the world. Different, very strongly held oppositional beliefs are being challenged and being, you know, voted on left and right, and there's big swings. And so it's important to be able to state where you stand for. And when you're honest, and or when you've done the work of being honest for yourself, it allows you to then know, hey, look, This election didn't turn out really well for us, or, hey, you know what? The company made an error. Our product didn't work. Here's what we're going to do to fix it. We take— assume responsibility. We're going to move forward. But it gives you those values and the sort of thinking through carefully, what do I really stand for? Who am I? What am I really trying to convey here? That really helps. The last thing I'll just say is it doesn't require an immense amount of work or time to do this. Sometimes it's a, huh, Okay, I have to go give a press conference in a few minutes. I probably should speak. What is the one or two things that I really want to convey? What really feels most true to me? And you want to surround yourself, obviously, as a leader. I work on this with my coaching clients all the time. Surround yourself with people who can be honest with you about how are they experiencing you, not just yes people, but people who will be honest with you. And then sort of think, huh, what is it that I want to say? Being honest includes saying, We haven't figured it out yet. We don't have all the answers. Here's the— we can't tell you these things for these reasons. Maybe we'll never be able to tell them for a bunch of privacy or legal reasons, but here's the process that we will use to go through to come to the decision or come to the outcome. That's honest. Being super honest. People will respond far better to you if you say, I don't know, we're going to look up the answer and we're going to figure it out. Hey, we lost the election. It wasn't good. We need to clearly regroup. We will run a process to do that. We want to hear from people. We want to get input from from people, but being honest is just, you know, people can tell when you're not and it undermines long-term trust.
Leanne ElliottI really enjoyed what you were saying about knowing, honest communication, about knowing yourself, knowing your values, not knowing what you stand for and what you want to change in the world. What percentage of leaders do you think know that ahead of going into a crisis?
Andrew BlotkyI would say very few, unfortunately. And I think, you know, what we want to do is try to think about, again, what's the system that this leader is operating in? So in a world of politics, for example, a leader is both representative of a party or a political movement and obviously representing her or his constituents. But really, it's that person. It's them.
Al ElliottYeah.
Andrew BlotkyLike, did they— we are electing a person, we are electing Donald Trump or Barack Obama or whoever. And if you're a leader of a company, you in some ways are less about you personally as the leader always, and you're really representing the brand or the shareholders or the patients or the buyers, the consumers of your product. So it kind of— the system that you're operating in as a leader will guide you a little bit. But I think that very few leaders have actually done the work. It's one of the reasons why I do the work now that I do around leadership is because it's sort of like, huh, what are the values that motivate you as a leader? Not what are your company values, not what are the Progressive Party values, but what do you stand for? How do I show up? How do I motivate? How do I inspire people? How do I bring people along with me? How do I show care for people and get them to believe that they should follow me when maybe they have the choice not to? It's my favorite definition of leadership is like, people will follow you when they have a choice not to. So what is it about what you're saying or doing or how you're showing up that really inspires, inspires people to wanna follow you. And I'd say, unfortunately, not many have done that work from what I can see.
Leanne ElliottWhat's the difference in practical terms compared to the leaders who haven't done that and the leaders that have done that? Is there a visible difference in terms of how successful those crisis communications are?
Andrew BlotkyI think so. I think you see, you know, you used that term grounding earlier in our conversation, and I love that because I think it's really a feeling. Both of the speaker or the leader, but also if you and I are on the receiving end of it, you and I can tell, huh, this leader seems like they know what they're doing. They feel steady. I feel a sense of confidence because, you know, it's not just the leader who will be shaken by a crisis. The audience will be, and they're looking to this leader to have some sort of sense of steady hand on the wheel, has some sense of direction, or at least has some moral compass that they're going to use to decide where and how and what direction to move in. So for me, I think it's like you really can actually tell it's a felt sense. And then you also can just tell because when people don't have this kind of, you know, sense of grounding in their values or in a company's values or haven't done the preparation, you can kind of see because it'll start to seem erratic that maybe some leaders will start to speak pretty quickly. Maybe they won't speak at all. Maybe there'll be like cross communications that are like, you know, mixed information or sort of cross messages that are confusing to people. So, you start to see it when it starts to get loud and that nervous energy starts to spool up, if you will.
Leanne ElliottWhat do you think is the one biggest mistake that a leader could make in, say, the first 24, 48 hours of a crisis hitting?
Andrew BlotkyI would say to not speak honestly. Like, worse to speak and say the wrong thing or to say something that's not true. But it's also really not a good thing to just be totally silent, right? If you're a leader, part of your job is to bring people along with you and help them understand how to make sense of something that may seem a little bit disordered. So again, for the natural disaster, if there's an act of war, if there's some massive product recall that your company, whatever it is, people want to hear from their leader. They want to know, they want a sense of confidence and grounding. So, As much as what you say, it's how you say it. Again, the way that you show up, the grounding. You don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to know all the 5-part plan of how you're going to fix it in the first 24 hours. But to not say anything and to not be visible for the reasons we talked about earlier is just, people will impute their own narrative and it's a lot harder to get that back and recorral it.
Leanne ElliottHave you ever had to communicate something that you didn't personally believe in?
Andrew BlotkyOh yeah. And you know, this happens a lot, and I love this question because a lot of times we'll think about a leader as like a president or a prime minister or a CEO. And really leaders are anybody who's in a position of leadership or influence over other people. So it could be a middle manager, it could be a communications director in a United States senator's office leading just the comms team within that office, for example. So leaders can be in many different places. And I think where this is really challenging is in those sort of middle management layers where maybe the company is making a decision and they're hearing it from the people above them, and then they're charged with communicating it to their direct teams. Oftentimes the problem isn't so much that they disagree, but they don't necessarily understand the reasoning behind it. I think the biggest thing that I work on with companies around this, and I do a lot of consulting with companies around their employee engagement and experience around this, is Not every leader is always gonna 100% of the time agree with 100% of the decisions a company makes. That's— we expect that. That's fine. But what's problematic is when people don't trust that there was a thoughtful process or rationale behind why a company was making a decision that it is, for example, especially if it involves maybe taking something away or changing something that people don't like. You wanna make sure that people really have a sense for, hey, you know what, look, I don't really like the decision that Andrew made, but at least I can respect him because I think he went through a thoughtful process. He gathered input and heard the feedback from us in making that decision. It's when people feel like it's a leader who's just sort of acting sort of, it's like their fiefdom and they're acting sort of by fiat. People don't like that. And they really like when they can experience or have some sense of agency or at least involvement in the conversation. And the last thing I'll just say about this is it's important, not just in the crisis moment, but that sense of agency that employees feel is what is one of the main motivating factors for them doing their best work, wanting to stay at the organization, wanting to be contributors to the culture. So, if you're not, if you don't feel like your boss cares or the company leadership cares about you, and values what you're saying, you've not just lost them in the crisis moment, but you've also probably lost them from being able to do their best work and be super committed.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Andrew BlotkyAnd 2 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which.
Al ElliottPhil, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Andrew BlotkySeamless, seamless.
Al ElliottTell us about your latest episode, Phil.
Andrew BlotkyUh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is, it's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, enjoyed. Can balsamic vinegar make beer taste better?
Andrew BlotkyIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
Andrew BlotkyDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottI feel that one of the most extreme examples we've seen recently about not giving people agency is in terms of the mass layoffs we've seen recently, primarily because of AI. I'm thinking of Block and Oracle and tens of thousands of people, with the reasoning being— and, you know, as you said, you know, if you can explain the decision. And we did see from Jack Dorsey, you know, an open kind of communication on, on that. But people are still hearing it as, I'm replaceable, AI is replacing me. And I, I feel like that's different to other layoffs we've seen in terms of the people that stay in the company and how they're valued and how they feel about it. I mean, what's your take on the layoffs we've seen because of AI, the reasoning that's been communicated publicly? And as you said right at the top of our call, holding onto that humanity aspect, it feels like this is just a— yeah, it's an example I'd love your insights on.
Andrew BlotkyYeah. And I love this I mean, I don't love the topic 'cause it's very hard for people, but I really like it because it goes to a couple of things that I think I just care a lot about. So the first thing I'll just say is I've both been laid off and I've laid people off, and it's— there's never a good way to do it. I've worked with lots of companies, I've advised them on how to communicate about them, and there just is not a great way to do something that's hard. So we'll just start there. I would say that Especially around some of the layoffs that people are experiencing now, it's hard when people don't really, you know, have a sense that in many industries, this is actually a normal course of business. And so, what we wanna do is be having an ongoing conversation around what are the expectations around job performance, around how people progress in an organization, and around how we value people. It's sort of like we were saying with crisis earlier, the time to sort of focus on your plan Planning is not when you're in the crisis. It's when you're not in a crisis that you want to develop your plans for what my criteria are. Same concept here. When you're not in a moment of reorging and relaying and laying people off, that's when you want to focus on, here's what our expectations are around performance. Here's what we want. Here's the culture that we want. Because it goes to this idea of like, yeah, it's really hard to be out of a job. But also, if you're one of the people who still has a job, your job has been changed. When other people that you've worked with are laid off, you've probably had to assume much more responsibility. You've had to take on a lot more work, and you have to do the emotional sort of upheaval of not only, oh gee, one of my best friends, my work colleagues just got laid off. I'm not gonna see them anymore. I miss that. That feels empty to me. But also you're wondering, am I next? Is this gonna come again? When is this gonna come again? What do I need to do? So, there's an immense amount of anxiety that is created inside of organizations among the people who are left. People sometimes talk about it as like survival guilt, but there's really other various aspects. And so for me, it's about regularly talking openly about here's what the company's going, here's what our plans are, here's what our expectations are. I'm working currently with several clients who are at companies where there have been layoffs, there will continue to be layoffs, and I see it personally with the clients that I work with. It's very anxiety-producing. I think the narrative around AI is true, And it is maybe a little bit oversimplified. And so sometimes I'll hear this idea that people say like, oh, you know, AI isn't gonna take away your job, but it's somebody who doesn't know how to do AI is why you're gonna lose your job. And it's like, well, I think most people in the professional world, at least that I tend to have experience with, tend to now have some familiarity with some availability. A lot of companies are not just encouraging, but requiring people to use some of their AI tools for their work and to experiment. So again, one of the things that's most important as a leader, and I took a course on this through Stanford University last summer, one of the main things we talked about was the importance of framing as a leader for your organization. Why are we doing this? What do we want people to do? How do we want people to experiment? And where do we want to go? So layoffs are never easy. AI is definitely changing the ways of people working for sure, and it doesn't take away that discomfort. But again, it's when leaders don't communicate regularly in a sort of a compassionate way that it's problematic, not just for the people who've lost their job, but especially for the people who are left behind.
Leanne ElliottWhere do you find the compassion in that, in that moment? I'm thinking kind of, you know, the big tech companies, I'm thinking about Oracle, tens of thousands of people, The official word being because we're reinvesting that in AI. And by the way, we posted record profits last quarter. Like, how do you do that compassionately when clearly it is a very cold commercial decision?
Andrew BlotkyI think you're hitting on it, which is, at the end of the day, it's a business decision. And one of the things that we sign up for when we work in corporations like that, no matter whether it's my former employers or Oracle or any of the other companies that you could name, That's part of the contract that you engage in as an employee is that this is a commercial venture. And so, I think some companies to their detriment have sort of invested too hard culturally on the idea of, oh, we're a family. We want to treat each other like a family in this culture. It's like, well, you don't lay off members of your family. You don't just cut them out when it's sort of financially not. So, it's just not really a parallel or a good analog. And so, I think we want to, again, as I said, said at the beginning, be honest about, well, what are the values that we expect? We want to treat people with respect. We want people to hold each other to high standards. We want people to continue to experiment and do good work, and we will show care in the best ways that we can for people and their families. But we, this is not a family. Like, we're not, we're not a family. And so it feels especially discompassionate or not compassionate when that's sort of the expectation that you've laid, and then they have to make a hard business decision. So it's better to actually be more real and more consistent the whole time. And that might feel a little bit cold to people. And unfortunately, the reality is, is companies will make business decisions all the time. What you don't want is to create some sense of false hope or false compassion or false, you know, we care about you. I've worked in companies before where it was sort of this culture of just expectation of like being nice and friendly. And then it's like, well, look, When the rubber meets the road, it's a business. And so, I think it actually feels quite jarring to people when they don't have that sort of maybe even slightly more skeptical, skeptical lens. I would say the last thing is what you don't want to hear as somebody who's being laid off, for example, is like a fake niceness or a fake false compassion that doesn't match the facts and the reality. Deal in the facts, deal in the reality, because if people hear one thing and they're experiencing another, it makes the person who's saying those things feel more disingenuous. And that actually like hurts more and feels like less good. And, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of times the people that we work with in these jobs and in these roles, you know, the industries are small. I've seen many people end up working with each other at different companies over time in their careers. Always just better to treat people transparently with respect because you never know, somebody that I hired and maybe had to lay off They may end up being my boss someday. So, we wanna make sure that we're sort of really just, you know, trying to, in the workplace, trying to treat each other respectfully in the contours of it's a business.
Leanne ElliottWhat does listening look like in a crisis? You've mentioned a couple of times about involving people in that consultation. How do you do that in a way that isn't overwhelming as a leader when people are kind of in that you know, emotional reactive state, but in a way that's going to give you what you need to hear to help you move forward.
Andrew BlotkyWhenever you're in something that feels scary or uncomfortable or feels like a crisis, the human brain, it's like the fight or flight mode takes over that sort of base part of our protect, you know, protective brain takes over. And so any tools that we have, whatever it is to be able to sort of get out of the fight or flight mode and to move more through like the parasympathetic nervous system so that we're in more of that sort of rational brain space. The better, because when we can do that, we have a little bit more space between what our emotional feeling is and then what our speech or our action is. And so listening to me, if it's done really well, is done in a sort of open, curious kind of way. And so whether that's, I'm going to do all of the preparation in advance so that when there's a crisis, I know my playbook, I know my plan, I've got the grounding of that to fall back on. To, I'm going to do some really basic deep belly breathing. Just take a couple of deep, even breaths. That immediately calms. Taking a break, pausing, space is really useful, especially in the coaching work that we do. We talk sometimes about 2 layers or 2 levels of listening. Level 1 listening is what most of us tend to do, which is, I'm listening to you speak from the lens of my own perspective. I'm listening to you already pre-planning my response on what I'm gonna say. I'm already pre-planning. I'm imputing, oh, I had an experience like that. I'm really interested. I'm gonna tell her my story about something when she did the same thing. Level 2 listening is really trying to shut off my own internal narrative and really be curious and open to what is this person saying. They may have gone on the exact same place that I went on vacation last summer, but I'm really curious about their experience being there. I'm not thinking about, oh, I had my own experience there. I wanna tell her about that experience. So it's really about just a more conscious, deliberative way of just sort of being and receiving in an organization. I also sort of think sometimes we need to invite feedback or invite people to tell us things. So people will often in an organization not tell you if they're nervous or they're uncomfortable. So you need to create surveys or forums or just indirect, direct conversations with people. And I find that asking open-ended questions, I work on this again with leaders a lot. How can you ask open-ended questions that get you a lot of data? It'll give you data, not just about what the words that people are saying, what are they not saying? What are they focused on? You might be focused over here, but they're focused over here. That's data for you too. So we listen from a place of groundedness and curiosity. But again, all of that can come if we've done the work of sort of maybe some mindfulness, maybe some groundedness, and also probably some preparation before a crisis.
Leanne ElliottDo you, you know, you have worked at Facebook, now Meta, and Johnson Johnson, very different places, very different organizations. Did you have to completely change how you thought about a crisis or approached a crisis?
Andrew BlotkyWell, I think, Probably not honestly too much. I think one of the things that I've learned over my time, both in both of those organizations and, you know, through 2020, 2021, I consulted with a lot of companies, media companies, tech companies around, you know, it was COVID at first and then it was sort of racial justice in the United States at that time. So a lot of hard, you know, crisis-type issues. And one of the things that I realized is that you want to make sure that you've got, you know, as a leader, you've surrounded yourself with people who can help you come to the right decision. None of these responses, you know, especially if you're a company, are best done as like in a closet by yourself as like a single leader. So we want to make sure that we've got the right people who have a seat at the table. Maybe you've got your human resources team, maybe you've got your legal team, maybe you've got the communications team. Maybe you've got sort of a scientific team or an engineering team, whatever it is, if it doesn't matter. That's again why you wanna start. What's the, what's the nature of the crisis? Was it an earthquake or was it like a product recall? And I also sort of think that over time what I've seen is that the best leaders who manage through crises are people who, you know, you may not always agree with them, but that they have sort of a collegial, respectful way of working so that when things are in crisis, that's when people's stress gets high, their patience gets low.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Andrew BlotkySo the emotions run a little bit more deeply. And so the more even we can be as leaders, the, you know, the best, that's the best way to react. And, you know, that's why you wanna sort of think about, okay, what are the things at the end of the day that are the values that undergird where we operate? You know, so I've worked in companies before where the primary focus was just sort of like, what are we doing for the people who rely on us externally? How are we taking care of our employees?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Andrew BlotkyIf they geographically, are they in a space that they're, that they need some support, that they need care for? Not all companies operate that way. There's some that really care a lot about their employees. So again, what are the criteria that we use? And that helps align people when they otherwise might disagree so that it's not like, oh, I think the process should be A and somebody else thinks, oh, and then you argue over the process. It's like, here's what the aligned process is. Let's just calmly walk through it and then make sure that we get to the right outcome. It's not always easy. It's not always clear. clear, but that's, again, those values point you to what the answer should be when it's not immediately clear what it should be. So, the more sophisticated those pre-planning, the relationship building when you're not in a crisis, all of that, all of that is so valuable so that you're better able and better equipped to deal with the crisis, which inevitably we know you're gonna have to deal with at some point. Crises come up.
Leanne ElliottIs there an example of maybe an organization, how they've handled a crisis, whether it be one that you've worked with or not, that you could maybe share with us in terms of why you think it was handled particularly well?
Andrew BlotkyYeah, so in the immediate aftermath of, you know, George Floyd's murder, and then there were, you know, several really just powerful protests all throughout the United States. I know there were protests in the UK and elsewhere around the world. A lot of companies and leaders had to sort of come to terms with sort of what did they stand for? And also, what did they— what were they doing? So what were the programmatic things that they were doing, not just the words that they were speaking, to show that they both for their customers or their consumers, but especially for their employees, cared about and understood the people who worked in those organizations? And so while our sort of relationship to diversity or inclusion has changed a lot for better and worse over the last couple of years, especially here in the United States, what is interesting to see are the companies that have remained really steadfast to their commitments, whatever the words are that they use, to programs that help support and really allow people to do their best work and to feel that they belong inside of an organization. And so, I worked with a lot of companies. So initially, it was sort of a crisis because they weren't saying anything. To go to our earlier conversation, they sort of went into bunker mentality, and then people assume, oh, they don't care about any kind of racial justice in the United States, or, oh, they must be this way or that And I think one of the things that I learned was, you know, to speak from a place of, again, I don't know, I want to learn, be honest with yourself. Here's what we stand for as a company, and we are going to run a process. We don't know what the process will be to get there, but here's what we're thinking. Here are the criteria that we're going to use. And I saw a couple of companies do this really quite well, but the ones that have done it the best are the ones that also, they put their money where their mouth was, right? So they put money behind programs, whether it be To, for, again, customers or for employees, for education, whatever it is. It doesn't have to be around racial justice. It could be around any issue. It could be around reproductive health benefits in places that maybe in the United States, for example, state legislatures are trying to close down on that, but yet it's aligned with the company's values to provide that for their employees. I've seen that. I've seen it with companies who, you know, soon after the 2016 election, President Trump instituted the Muslim ban in the United States. Well, what did that feel like for Muslim employees at a company or people who were working in Muslim-based countries? So we had listening sessions and conversations. I've seen lots of companies do that to make sure, again, leaders were seen as curious and seeking to understand, hearing. A lot of times I'll just say on these issues, Because so much of what is at the root of these issues and the problem is when people don't feel like their most core desire to be heard and acknowledged by other people is met. And so the more we can do as a leader to sort of say, hey, say, I hear you, I see you, I value you, I'm giving you the space, we will hear what you're saying and probably use what you're saying to input to help make us better, the better. But it's people don't feel like they've been heard or when they've had a chance to be seen, that I think leaders get into, um, get into problems, especially in these crisis moments.
Leanne ElliottYou mentioned George Floyd, which had massive ripples. There was MeToo. Um, there's been things around reproductive health, pushbacks on LGBTQ+ rights. There's been wars started. We've got election anxieties in terms of far-right leaders getting into power. As a small business leader, if I have a listening event after every single one, just to make sure my people feel heard, when am I gonna have time to do the work?
Andrew BlotkyThat's a very good and very legitimate question. And I think this just goes back to, again, one of the things that we started our conversation with today, which is what are the values? What do you stand for? And I think one of those ways that you plan for a crisis is what are the criteria that we care about? Because those criteria will guide you to what action do I take and do I speak? Because it's not reasonable to expect, it's actually kind of unreasonable to expect that every company or every leader will speak out on every social issue. It's actually just not frankly right. And it's also just like, if you do, your credibility is gonna be like, no one's gonna listen to you. 'Cause it's like, oh, Andrew's speaking on every single issue. Does he actually, what does he actually care about? Does he believe in anything? So, one of the One of the things that we want to do is come up with some criteria that describe, we will speak out if our products or our services were directly involved, or if we had employees directly involved, or if we are uniquely able because of what services we offer to help make the situation better so that we don't come across as being opportunistic, for example. And one of the things that's really important is not so much externally, but internally for an organization, You will inevitably have employees who will care deeply about an issue and they'll want you to speak out. And what you need to do is have those criteria so that you can say, look, we hear you, we value you, really understand. For us as a company, that doesn't meet the criteria for how we would actually influence the conversation in a credible way. You wanna speak when, again, you want people to know, feel, or do something. So, do you as a leader or a company Have the unique credibility with your audience to be able to speak in that way. And that will help guide you so that then you're not doing a listening session or you're not doing a public statement on every single issue. I also think that it's always valuable to have regular opportunities, again, not in a crisis, where leaders can be listening to their employees so that you don't just wait until after there's a crisis to then be like, oh, now I need to listen to people. Because it gives people an opportunity to be like, oh, you know what, Andrew is a leader. He's always listening to me every quarter or every month or every week. He's providing forums, or I have an opportunity. Maybe there's different kind of interesting ways that you can survey your employee population, for example, so that it doesn't feel like only one time a year are they asking about employee benefits. Maybe there's a way that they can just be talking and having an ongoing light conversation. You know, I've worked with companies that do sort of an always-on employee listening where they'll sort of randomly survey groups of employees and then they'll see different questions in so that, you know, you kind of pulse the organization over time. You're always in conversation with people. That, I think, is really the most important.
Leanne ElliottI agree. And I think that managers have such an important role to play. And as you know, as you said before, it's not always necessarily the CEO, it's leaders across levels that are influence people and can serve this role. We're also seeing hierarchies being flattened, managers especially being either either, you know, turned to individual contributor roles or laid off. Does this concern you in terms of that ongoing communication, ongoing, I guess, crisis management? Could that have an impact on how effective organizations deal with these things ahead of time if they haven't got the managers in the organization to be, you know, initiating these ongoing conversations?
Andrew BlotkyIt absolutely does, and I think you're so just spot on here. I mean, I'm working, for example, with a current client who told me in our last conversation that, you know, Found out recently that the team that they are working with is about to expand to like 50 or maybe more people. And he has a pretty small team currently. And it's all because of just, you know, changes in the organization and management layers being changed. And so, one of the things that that means is that how leaders, these middle manager leaders who are inheriting large groups of people, how you communicate and how you bring people along with you, how you communicate expectations, Performance, direct strategic direction, all of that is going to change. And a lot of times people get into these roles, they're put into these roles without having either experience or really the proper training on just like how to communicate. So, all the things that you and I are talking about today, like we need to make sure that leaders have these sort of these tools and the sort of experience and the judgment, the confidence to be able to really communicate. So, for me, that's like the biggest challenge. It's less like specific navigating of any one particular crisis. And it's more, I wanna give people really the tools, both again, as we started, the heart, the grounding, the emotional grounding, but also then the sort of tools and the playbook or the plan, the criteria, so that helps equip them with both in order to communicate effectively.
Leanne ElliottAnd for leaders listening who are completely on board with this, maybe haven't started, you know, know, planning this ahead of a potential crisis or feel like they're constantly fighting fires in terms of what's going on, is there one thing that they could do today that would help them feel more grounded, feel more balanced, but also more start that, I guess, that playbook of preparations?
Andrew BlotkyWell, they could give me a call and I'd be happy to talk with them and work with them. But I would say that this is so individual to a person and it's so individual to an organization that, you know, we want people to really be able to lead and speak from a place of confidence and clarity and authenticity. And it's really why I wrote the book that I did, 'cause I want people to be honest with themselves. It's not what Andrew is telling you to do or how to communicate. It's really about you doing a little bit of that investigation and that work for yourself so that you show up as the leader that you want to be and that people will respond to. Authenticity, we use that word a lot. It's maybe a little overused, But it really is about finding your own voice and your own authenticity, you know, really just way of showing up so that people will believe you and follow you and feel good. So for me, it's about just starting a little bit of the work. And then the 2 questions that I always ask people to just really think carefully about before they communicate anything is, who is my audience and what's my purpose? So who really am I communicating with? Is a one-on-one conversation, a group of 1,000 people, an email, it doesn't matter. But try to be as nuanced and understanding of who you're speaking to or you're communicating with as you can be, because you want to meet people where they are. It doesn't matter what you say. What matters is what people hear. And so, your job is you try to get people to hear maximally what you want them to hear, and then being very clear, what is it that I want to communicate, to convey here? A lot of times leaders will start speaking, especially when that fight or flight mode, that sort of frenetic nervous energy is around. Without really being clear, what do I want this person to feel? What do I want this person to know? What do I want this person to do? Doesn't have to be all 3. It could be just one, but being really honest for yourself, hey, I need this organization to know I'm grateful for the work, grateful for everybody's contributions. We don't need to ask anything of you today. Thank you for your work. That could be enough. I want people to feel good. Or it's like a, hey, in the next 24 hours, we need everyone to do A, B, and C things. Here's why.
Leanne ElliottSo, whatever it is, just be clear Honestly, it's so wonderful to hear all the words that, you know, an org psych wants to hear around, you know, consulting people and bringing them in, authenticity and compassion. And, and, and yes, it's still business, but we can do it in a, in a healthier way. We're also seeing though, behaviors, leadership behaviors that are fairly, I guess, coercive being normalized at scale through various politicians, not just on, on your side, our side as well, where they're winning votes still, but we know that they've lied. We know that they haven't delivered what they've promised. We know that they're accepting bribes, and yet people are still voting. People are still following. What's your view? I guess in terms of the communication of, of that, are they just brilliant communicators that are just batting these things away so people just accept them blindly? Or is it more that this is, they're kind of building up to a breaking point where it's all gonna fall apart?
Andrew BlotkyYou know, I think that it's a longer, broader conversation, and it's probably beyond my pay grade, so to speak, because I do think it goes to more, much more than just communication, or even just, but it is really around questions of leadership. And where I really go back to is, you know, some of the ancient, really truly ancient traditions in this world that have transcended generations, that have transcended geographic boundaries, the wisdom and the stories that so many of the— that come out of in the yoga tradition, the Buddhist tradition, for example, all are about just the human condition, about the ego, and about how the end and the influence of power over other people. And over time, big picture time, history time, generation time, we see that, you know, humans are imperfect. We will continue to be imperfect, but that really this idea of like evenness, kindness, compassion, these are things that are uniquely human. They make— it's what separates humans from other species, all of the other species. And if you just look like, yes, it can be painful. Yes, history repeats itself. Yes, humans are imperfect. But over time, you know, these stories, they're ancient, they're thousands of years old, and they contain within them a lot of wisdom about how humans can not just persevere, but actually really thrive over time, overcome the sort of infallibility, the imperfection of people who maybe make harmful decisions, who maybe don't care about anybody but themselves, who, as you say, are very dishonest. In the end, there will be a big wake of destruction. in their path. And still we're here and we're here over time. So how can I every day show up and take care of people to the best of my ability? How can I be a kind of a leader that I want to follow and feel good about? You know, these are the things that I can control and that ultimately history tells us despite the destruction, despite the pain, despite the loss, That was Andrew Blotky, and I think the we are not a family line made Leanne's day, didn't it?
Leanne ElliottIt really did. It really did. It is one of the biggest mistakes I see founders and, and leaders making, and Andrew sums it up perfectly. You wouldn't fire a member of your family, but you might need to fire a member of staff. Therefore, it is not a family.
Al ElliottYeah. Okay, 3 takeaways. Number 1, silence is the real crisis. In the absence of information, people are gonna write their own story, and usually it's much worse than the truth.
Leanne ElliottAnd 2, no one is a family member. Know your 2 questions before you ever need them. Who's my audience? What's my purpose?
Al ElliottAnd 3, unfortunately, you have to do some work, but you need to do some work on your values right now, not mid-crisis. You need to know the answer's already there when things get loud.
Leanne ElliottOh, and go and get Andrew's book, Honestly Speaking. It's a long-form version of everything we've talked about here. And also follow him on LinkedIn, and you can find out more about his work at azureleadership.com. That's azureleadership.com.
Al ElliottAnd even if you're elbows deep in a crisis, remember, this too shall pass, but it's how you show up while it does is what people remember.
Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work. We will see you next week.