Crisis communications and how to avoid the ‘foot-in-mouth’ disease

It was Abraham Lincoln who remarked that it is “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” The Bible also says in effect that silence is wisdom when speaking is folly. Two things have shown the extent to which our government suffers from the foot-in-mouth disease. One is the coronavirus pandemic.

The other is the verbiage spewing Ugandan residing in Turkey who attracted the adverse attention of the authorities.
These are but two of the most recent cases where those supposed to speak for government have said things foolishly and tactlessly with the result that the government has ended up in an embarrassing situation. The wise choose silence where speaking may worsen one’s standing and credibility.  

In the age of constant news barrages fueled by social media frenzy, silence may not be an option. The provocative outpouring of news – true, untrue and twisted – pushes everyone to dive into the news vortex. When this is done without preparation and without considering that news has boomerang effects, then silence would be the better option. 

Murphy’s Law states that “whatever can go wrong, will go wrong (or, whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way). It is advisable that everybody in a position of power should pin a copy of Murphy’s Law on their office wall. The public has been shocked and bewildered by the miscommunication and cacophony of confused messaging coming from government when addressing issues of how the coronavirus pandemic is being handled. 

The whole thing would make the Tower of Babel sound highly coherent. There has only been one saving grace - the occasional addresses by the head of State. This has become the magnifying glass that at least focuses the scattered rays of chaotic communication coming from a multiplicity of uncoordinated sources.

Many times government officials contradict themselves because they all feel they have to say something instead of speaking only when they have something to say. This kind of grandstanding hurts the reputation of government. The contradictions range from the status of implementation of policies, resources allocated towards intervention measures to numbers of citizens who have been vaccinated! 

But the mother of all cases of the foot-in-mouth disease was the one by the State minister for Foreign Affairs concerning our man in Turkey. A confident minister had asserted that “Lumbuye will be deported to Uganda tomorrow (two Saturdays ago) morning. On arrival he will be put in custody and later brought to book for inciting sectarianism using social media.” 

He then added,” Nobody is above the law, including me. Lumbuye and his friends will have to pay the price. They will be interrogated and then prosecuted in court depending on the charges preferred by the DPP.”

After inquisitive journalists waited in vain at Entebbe airport for the arrival of the suspect they sought out the spokesperson of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Jacob Siminyu. “I don’t have any information pertaining the arrival or entry of Lumbuye. I don’t have any information indicating that Lumbuye entered Uganda. When we get it, we shall let you know,” he told the journalists. This was a total contradiction of the minister’s announcement.

Not to be outdone, police spokesperson Fred Enanga convened a media briefing and announced that Lumbuye was not yet in police custody, but was under investigation for 15 offences reported by Ugandan authorities.

So what should a government do when there’s a crisis? First, the government should face the crisis head-on and resolve it and create the perception that they are doing so. The other issue is credibility. The credibility a government has must be earned before a crisis.

A bad reputation on the part of a government undermines its credibility and ability to communicate effectively in a crisis. A government whose bank of credibility is bankrupt cannot spearhead effective crisis communications. The way forward is simple. Invest in credibility, not spin. Silk stockings cannot heal a broken leg!

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