Transcript

Glenn Bunting 0:00

Music.

Dave 0:13

Welcome to Dean's Council, a podcast aimed at supporting university leaders holding one of the more critical jobs on a university campus. Your panelists, Ken Kring, Jim Ellis and Dave eichenberry, engage in conversation with highly accomplished deans and other academic leaders regarding the ever complex array of challenges that Deans face in one of the loneliest and most unique jobs in the academy, starting in late 2023 and throughout the spring of 2024 universities, not only in the United States but also around the world, were tossed into crisis management mode for a variety of reasons. For many institutions, these were highly charged, emotional and divisive events, and on some college campuses, led to several academic leaders losing their jobs while the targets of these crisis situations were often at the campus level. Deans, too need to be sensitive to the volatility that can arise from these situations as well. Our guest today, Glenn bunting, is an expert on crisis management. He is president and co founder of the firm g f bunting and company which supports both corporate and academic clients in crisis situations. In this episode of Dean's Council, we hear Glenn's advice on what as Deans we should be doing when we encounter a crisis situation, and also what we should not be doing. Interestingly, we also hear Glenn's assessment as to why higher education, by its nature, is not particularly adept at handling crisis situations as always. We hope you learn and benefit from this episode. It's our pleasure to have Glenn bunting on Dean's Council today. Glenn, welcome.

Glenn Bunting 1:53

Thank you. Glad to be here. You're

Dave 1:56

an expert in what those of us in the academy typically don't get much exposure to I mean, we we read about crises in the newspaper and on television. We see it, but as individual leaders, as deans and and prospective deans, we don't always get a hands on experience. So having you share your insight into how we should be thinking about this will be incredibly helpful. Higher education seems to struggle. This is just my perception, but compared to other industries, other domains, seems like higher education struggles a little bit more with dealing with crises of the moment, why is that and and moreover, what? What should we as as deans, be thinking about in terms of managing our institutions as these crises erupt?

Glenn Bunting 2:52

It's good question. I agree with your observation. We're kind of fortunate that we have a wide range of clients, right? So we have corporate clients, we have private individuals, CEOs, celebrities, athletes, we have nonprofits, and we also have a robust college and university clientele. And we find that for a lot of good reasons, or certainly not evil reasons, leaders from colleges and universities don't handle crises Well, I think it begins with the fact that you know they want every voice to be heard. They want to be cautious, they want to be deferential, they want to be polite. And in times of crises, you know you need to act decisively. You need, oftentimes, to get your message out first. We have a strong belief at our firm that, you know, being the first responder is critical, because if you don't shape the narrative, somebody else will. And so what we find with our college and university clients, it's obvious, you know, everybody gets in a room, everybody debates, everybody has a say, and the meeting's over and we have made a decision. That's not an uncommon experience. Secondly, you know, I don't think the academic environment really lends itself to dealing with crises well, and I'll take the recent USC kind of debacle as an example, which we've all seen in the papers, in terms of the way the President and the university kind of handled the Israeli Palestine protest. And, you know, banning the speakers at graduation, canceling graduation, back and forth, you know about, I think it was 10 days to two weeks went by and not a word was heard from the President. And, you know, I'm sure the President acted in what she thought was the best interest of the university, and was doing everything that she could and her team behind the scenes, but her voice wasn't heard. And I think if there's Lesson number one, particularly for deans, whether it's internal or external communications. If you have a crisis, if you have a controversy, your voice needs to be heard. You need to reassure your employees, your students, other clientele, audiences, constituencies that are important to you, that you are the leader, that you're in command, that you have the facts, that you're going to be as transparent as possible, and, most importantly, you know, acknowledge what you don't know, right? You can't have the answer to every question. And so what we find with with university leaders, too often, is they're very measured in their approach. They're very studious, and they want to hear from everybody, and that kind of bogs down the process, because you really need to cut to the chase quickly but carefully and have a message, and then make sure that message is delivered. And so I think going back to the USC case, the message wasn't delivered to the constituents that needed to know, faculty, students, the media, supporters of the university, and they're left scratching their heads, wondering what's going on, other than the headlines they're reading every day or what they're reading on social media, which, you know, that's a whole different conversation. So yes, I think you're spot on Davis in that, whether they're deans or presidents or leaders on campus, you know, they don't always respond well, although I think they're well intentioned in their approach, right? Glenn,

Ken 6:23

that's fascinating. I'd be curious to hear you take either that example or another example out of the horizon, the time horizon of a crisis. Mean, the early communication sounds absolutely an imperative. How about the frequency of communication? And how does you know university leadership that isn't accustomed to this kind of crisis communication, think about the timeliness of sequential communications. You know,

Glenn Bunting 6:55

I think it really depends, Ken, on the particular crisis and the situation at hand. What we've learned in doing this, and our firm was founded in 2011 is, you know, every case is different, and the response needs to be held appropriately. Generally, though, you know, you can't, it's one of those things like, you know, it's not like teaching a course and you've got a curriculum and agenda, and you're going to be able to, you know, try things out twice a week for the next, you know, three months or whatever, right? And so oftentimes curve balls are thrown at you, or situations happen, or the crisis is escalated. And sometimes clients feel like, Oh, well, we tried it one time, it kind of backfired. It didn't go as well as we like. Therefore we should stop talking and our thinking is no we need to learn from that internal round of communication and do better, because kind of going into a foxhole and saying nothing and letting other voices Take Over is generally the wrong approach. So, you know, early and often is generally the best way to go, and it really depends on and I'll just take the position of a dean. Let's just say a dean has a crisis at a business school, and while some decisions may be made above his or her level if they're dealing with a crisis, the kind of first thing we do is okay, who are the constituents that matter most to you? Okay? And let's just say it's you know, our employees, our faculty, our staff. Well, that's you're in a position as a leader to take particularly a small group of sub leaders and make sure that they are constantly aware of what's going on, what are the developments, what you're struggling with, and what they can communicate. Because transparency is paramount in our business. And again, social media is the Wild Wild West, right? So much disinformation, so much misinformation. Things get out of control, and it's really important to hear from the leader Well, what is accurate and what's not, and it's very different now than it was even 10 years ago, when things go viral, people are consuming that and they're consuming it on their mobile device, and they're doing it instantaneously, and all of a sudden, things are spinning out of control, and that's the time Where leadership kind of has to assert itself, and oftentimes in more than one communication and on more than you know, various formats. So it can take a private meeting with, you know, your trusted core group, then meeting with your faculty, then putting something out on social media, and then maybe doing a traditional media interview, those are the kinds of things we we are not big fans of press conferences, because, frankly, you can't control a press conference, and they get out of control more often. And you know, you want to have scripted, transparent, strategic messaging, and you want to be in control of that messaging. And while each case is different. I think there are some kind of themes and principles that kind of apply. So first is, you know, communicate as clearly and as quickly as you can identify who the people that matter most are in terms of who you want to receive the message, and then be very transparent, honest, you know, go into these communications with these meetings or these, whatever the opportunities are, with a clear strategy and a clear message, but don't pretend you know everything, or you have to answer every question. And one of the things we tell our clients is, you know, if you don't know the answer, say you don't know the answer too often clients, both in academia and outside, try to be helpful, try to answer every question. It's kind of human nature, right? You're asked a question and you want to answer it. And in a times of crisis, you don't really want to go off script. You don't really want to start kind of freelancing and spitballing, because it's really important that you kind of stick to your strategy and stick to your talking points and your message, because that's the reason why you're communicating to begin

Dave 11:06

with, that's great to hear. Thanks for that opening comment. Glenn, sometimes when a crisis erupts, the dean of a school or a college is actually the target of the issue, there may be some rumblings that start, you know, some some constituency, whether it's students or staff or faculty. It may start behind the curtain and in a quiet way, but at some point it may become public and public in a very stressful way, and it's certainly reaching a crisis level of stress. Do things change? Does the recipe change when I, as the dean, am the target,

Glenn Bunting 11:48

it does, and it does for several reasons, and we've had experience in representing deans who have come under fire, personal attack, in some cases, not a good outcome, and have lost their position due to outcries that kind of start out as a small fire and erupt into, you know, a bonfire. So here's some of the lessons we've learned. The first thing is, the Dean needs to understand when he or she comes under personal attack that they need their own representation and counsel, and sometimes, actually too often, they rely on the communications organization or apparatus within the university, thinking that they have the Deans and the college or university's best interest in terms of handling this. And the fact is, university communication shops report to the President, and they have the president and the University and the Board of Regents best interest, which, in a case like this, doesn't necessarily align with the deans. Second thing is, you know, when Deans come under attack, they they don't have a lot of outlets that they can use, and it's not like, right, that they can call a press conference. It's not like they can have an interview directly with the media without it being approved, authorized and scripted by the university's communication shop. And so that presents a whole different set of challenges, because what we talked about initially, on dealing with a crisis, you have all these opportunities, right? Well, as a dean, you don't have those opportunities. So now you got to figure out, well, wait a minute, my message isn't being delivered. I am not able to defend myself. How do I then go about achieving that in real time, while my job is at stake and we find kind of two ways to work there. The first is third party advocates are so critical, right? So identify who is somebody on campus, off campus, who is a respected voice who can articulate your message, because you know, if I'm accused of something and I'm denying or saying not true or don't pay attention to that bad behind the curtain kind of thing, people aren't going to believe me because I'm the one who is the subject of the attack. If you can identify third party advocates who are willing to rally your support, get up front, be a messenger. That's one way that we have found to be effective. The other is, and this is a bold action that one of our clients took when the writing was on the wall, and this client knew that they were on their way out. We worked with a client to do a first person op ed and to lay the whole situation up. And while the person lost their job as dean of a top business school at the end of the day, people saw exactly how it played out. We worked with them in terms of very carefully you. Doing this op ed. It was very highly read on a mainstream newspaper, and it really changed the equation for the Dean sympathy support, and frankly, was looked at in a whole different view from others and outsiders and people in and around the campus, because he took a bold move and followed our advice that you need to say something, and you need to say in an environment you can control and let us work with you in doing this first person op ed, which is basically why I was railroaded out of the university. You don't see that very often. What often happens is Deans go quietly, and this was a way for the dean to get out his message, to say exactly what he wanted to say, to take a stand. And frankly, our advice was, look at you're on the way out anyway. So you don't gotta worry about sacred cows. You don't gotta worry about offending. You know, be true to yourself. Be transparent and tell the people that you want to know exactly how the situation occurred, and the facts were very different than what the university was putting out, which put the Dean very much at odds with what the university line was that was being put out, both publicly and within the campus. That op ed also allowed the dean then to communicate with others that were important to him on campus, who then approached him, right? So that was a boat strike in that case. But you know, it's you just can't sit back and let everyone else have their say and be the pinata that everybody keeps taking wax at hourly and daily and really not being able to communicate. And it's very challenging for deans in that situation, because they're often being told, whether it's by their lawyer or by the university, don't say anything. And we kind of differ in those situations, because you know silence at your peril, and you're letting others create the narrative, and oftentimes it's at odds with what's really going on. Glenn,

Ken 17:06

on a related note, I would guess, you know, four out of five, nine out of 10, kind of crisis situations don't result in sort of the personal assault on the individual. But there it's a crisis, nonetheless, sort of within their, you know, within their domain. And you know, deans are like regional general managers. You know, they they report up. They actually, you know, work at the pleasure of a provost, to work through the pleasure of a president or a chancellor. And they have strong and empowered faculty base. Do you have thoughts or advice for sort of how middle level leaders can sort out what they're accountable for, what they're not accountable for, how to how to manage their both, their anticipation, their reaction to crisis as it occurs.

Glenn Bunting 18:06

Yeah, good question. You know, Deans find themselves often doing 100 things at once, right? They're juggling all of these various responsibilities, and oftentimes the communication part of things gets relegated or lost. And I think it's really important, when Deans look at their job description, that they are communicating both above and below, that they should be familiar with the whatever the communication organization apparatus set up. Personnel are at a university. You know, we believe it's important that you stay in touch with these people, that you have a liaison or a conduit, and that you aren't talking to them for the very first time when there's a crisis, because at that point you don't have a rapport or relationship, and all of a sudden you're trying to put out a fire with someone who you really don't have a good relationship or certainly trust and confidence in. Yet, deans are very busy, and that may not be important. Similarly, with the people who report to the dean, you know, communication is just so important to keep them informed, whether it's day to day or week to week, on exactly what's going on and what's important, so that they can then relay those messages in the appropriate settings. And again, you know, Dean's got a lot going on and and these generally are not priorities for them. So I think, just from a okay, how do I prepare myself for a potential crisis? One of the key things is, you know, knowing who those people are that you're going to be communicating with. Now, you raised a great point. Ken, is that a lot of times, Dean. In particular, are hamstrung because it's the responsibility of the provost and kind of all the way up the chain, and they really can't call up a reporter and start talking right, or they can't do things that might make a lot of sense. And so again, I think communicating early and often to the people who are your kind of brain trust, and make sure that the people who are in your chain of command are informed about all the things that are going on that are important to to the dean, because then you know, you're going to have a lot of respect, you're going to have a lot of trust. And if that crisis occurs, whether it is within the business school, or it is something that involves the Dean personally, and you're right, that is the minority of cases. You've already got this kind of structure. You already have people who you're not talking to them for the very first time when there's a crisis. And that's really, really important, I would say first Secondly, you know, as I said, colleges and universities are different or unique compared to our other clients, in that they want to have all voices heard, and they want to be deliberate in making a decision. We actually have a joke within our firm that we had one major university as a client. We had a crisis that we had identified, that we knew was going to rob and we had three different hour long calls, and we started the fourth call with, Can we all just agree here that we are going to finish this meeting by making a decision. And the line we add is, even if it means we're going to go sharpen the pencils or, you know, get the erasers out. I mean, we can't keep talking debating, right? Postulate, we've got to make decisions. And I think in a university setting, that's really good advice, because you need to nip things in the bud, right? If you see something that is of a concern or is troubling or could potentially blow up. And particularly true now with social media, whereas in the past, you could probably get away with, yeah, yeah, I'll let that go, or I'm not going to worry about that, or I'm going to let someone else handle it, and then all of a sudden, it kind of mushrooms. And so I think today, university leaders and deans really have to be thinking about worst case scenarios. And in social media and the kind of megaphones that you see that get turned on immediately, it's not hard to think about what those scenarios are. Now that doesn't mean they need to be paranoid. Doesn't mean that every little thing that crosses their desk they have to worry about. It. Just needs it. Just need to be thinking about communication challenges and thinking about, how can I get out front early? And oftentimes again, that means bringing in your brain trust, bringing in your leaders, and talking about things that maybe ordinarily you wouldn't talk about, because these are not comfortable things to discuss. It's much easier to just kind of put it in the back burner, forget about it until it becomes a crisis. And there are a lot of times when we talk to clients about crises, and we kind of, after it's been done, we go back and look, and, you know, more often than not, it's like, you shouldn't call this a lot earlier. You should have called us when the house isn't on fire. You should have called this when you identified this and knew in your gut that it was going to be a problem, but you decided, no, we're going to wait because maybe it'll go away. Because more often than not, it doesn't go away, right?

Dave 23:41

Glenn, you so pulling on this thread just a little bit further, I suppose the best crisis to have is, is a crisis that really never materializes, which, of course, is hopeful thinking. But in those early stages you've you've already mentioned a few things you should do or could do, bringing your brain trust in together to make sure they're fully informed, and perhaps keeping your outside constituency that is valuable to you, keeping them informed. But what are two or three things that a dean should not do to make matters worse? You know, delay you've already touched on. But are there two or three other things that just makes a smoldering situation turn into a fire? Well, one

Glenn Bunting 24:29

of the things I've kind of touched on is, you know, just don't go into a rabbit hole, right? Don't feel like you are the only one that can resolve this, or you'll take care of it, or you're gonna, you know, do this without having your brain trust or your team around you. Because we see a lot of people think, okay, I can deal with this myself. And deans, just with everything they got going and their backgrounds and what make them great deans, you know, generally resolving these matters. Yes, and doing them exactly the right way isn't one of them. And so kind of going into that foxhole maybe is a better analogy than a rabbit hole. Is not a way to do it. I think that if we talked about managing the people above you right, it's really important that you know, if it's the provost, say hypothetically, early and often that they're made aware of what the problem is. Again, everybody's busy and the thinking is okay, we're just going to let this fester. And I just can't tell you how so many crisis can be averted if at the beginning, when you identify something that you act on it, something that's either troubling or bothersome may appear minor, but again, has the potential to blow up. And so we talked about kind of hierarchy and how deans are kind of handcuffed in their inability to communicate oftentimes. And so I think it's important to kind of, you know, bring the leadership levels one or two above, kind of, into the fold, as opposed to, again, going into the foxhole. What other things would say not do, I mean, we don't. Oftentimes we'll say to clients to put it in a corporate world, you know, don't feel the need to respond instantaneously. Don't, don't feel the need to get out there with messaging before it's clearly thought out. That generally isn't a problem in an academic setting, because it's generally the reverse, honestly. But there are, on occasion, you know, there are people in that setting that just decide, well, I'm going to I'm going to convey things through certain channels, or I'm going to vent. I tell you, one don't is, you know, don't call in people that you don't absolutely have their full trust and confidence and vent or complain or gripe or just feel like you're airing out your feelings, because in this era of social media, that is a prescription for just suicide. Because I can't tell you how many times, not necessarily, academic settings where people are confided to, they're kind of brought in and for whatever reason, they then, kind of, you know, decide they're going to be a whistleblower, and they then use that to go to others, and then without their fingerprints, all of a sudden, you're seeing things, and clients are wondering, Well, how did that happen? Right? Well, it happened because the client, the person in leadership, was far too transparent in telling too many people about the issue at hand without thinking about, wait a minute, you know. Is this really smart of me to be having this conversation with this person, and what are the risks involved? So when you are sharing information, when you are working collaboratively with people, you know, make sure these people are ones that you have absolute trust and confidence in, that have your best interest, because we find too often that that ends up backfiring and blowing up on a leader.

Ken 28:14

Glenn, you've talked about some of the pervasive and dangerous effects of social media coming from others. Do you have thoughts or advice to our listening audiences about their own use of social media and whether there are one platform or another that's more effective or perhaps more dangerous?

Glenn Bunting 28:34

Well, I think that most platforms are risky and dangerous now on social media, unfortunately, so so many things now. Well, first thing advice for the Deans I'll have for our CEO and other clients, and that is, don't be obsessed with your own Google search. Be surprised the number of people that Google themselves far too often and put a lot of you know, credibility and what they're seeing. It's funny that people don't know this, but when I google myself, I will have a very different set of results than you would can, or you would date. Google is so specialized now it knows that I like to play golf, you know, it knows that I've, you know, restored a 62 Plymouth Valiant, you know, it knows what my interests are, therefore my returns are specialized to me, right? One of the things we do for our clients is we have proprietary software that tells you what the world sees globally. Call it a global scrape. And so don't get too hung up on what you see, because what you're seeing is not what everyone else is seeing. So that's that's kind of point 1.2. Is it's so easy to stoke the flames on social media, and so it's good to have people you. Monitoring it and knowing what's out there when you have a crisis or an area of concern, you, as you all know, social media can become all consuming, and you could do nothing but, you know, listen to the noise. But so much of what's on social media is just flat out wrong, inaccurate, misleading, misinformation, disinformation. And the important thing for leaders and I think deans, to think about is, if there's a crisis brewing and it's out there on social media, you need to communicate very clearly to the important constituents that matter to you and your university and your business school, what's real and what's not because so much of it is not real, and by identifying what's authentic, what's real, what's true, that's what you're going to focus on. But you need to reassure people who don't know better, right? Because all they're doing is reading this crap that's on social media, and they're doing it instantaneously, and then others are chiming in. I mean, we kind of have a joke inside our firm that we tell our CEO clients. In particular, you realize the person who is putting out all this garbage, you know, it's three o'clock in the afternoon, and they haven't pulled the shade yet, and they haven't brushed their teeth or shaved, they're still in their pajamas. They're nut cases. So don't take them seriously, because too often, think about it, we've got this iPhone. We're looking at news One minute we're reading the New York Times. The next minute, we're reading, you know, a bulletin or something that Pierce factual and the next meeting, we're reading the social media garbage. And our instinct is to, kind of like, just take it all in as if they're all equal, they're not and so it's really important, as these social media firestorms kind of erupt to communicate to your people. Look at this is out there, much of its misinformation, but here is precisely what we have to let people know is not true. Is fantasy land, is complete garbage. And here's what's true, and here's what we're going to focus on. And I just find that social media is a beast that nobody can control. Nobody's gonna be able to influence it. You know the thing about Wikipedia now, you know, we have a lot of clients that say, Hey, this isn't right about Wikipedia, about me, or, Hey, they're calling me a convicted felon, but that was actually a misdemeanor that got dismissed years ago and isn't on the record. And, you know, people don't understand that wiki is open, that anybody can go on and basically say anything. It's not any different than a lawsuit you can file against you. I can file a lawsuit against Davis, in this day and age, pretty much say anything, and then I can leak it to the media, if he's a dean, and all of a sudden it's a headline, right? So when it comes to social media, there are venues you can use. I mean, there are a lot of self publishing ones, and we have used them for clients very effectively, where you take kind of that massive misinformation that's out there, you use a self publishing device, and you're able to very effectively, very calmly and very responsibly, kind of react without getting into a channel where, the minute you post something, there's going to be 100 responses, And they're going to be venomous, they're going to be vindictive, and they're going to be personal attacks. You do not want to engage on that territory or that turf. You want to pick one of your own that allows you to convey your message without being lost. And all of a sudden, your post is down to number 100 because in the next 15 minutes, 99 other people have comment.

Dave 33:42

Glenn, you've what great insight you've shared with us today. Again, as academics, this is just a space that a lot of us don't tread that frequently, so listening to your advice and your reflections is so helpful. Thank thanks for sharing time with us today. Hey, glad to be

Glenn Bunting 34:01

with you, and good luck. And I really in looking these podcasts, they've been interesting, and I think you're doing a great public service for Deans across the land. Well, thank you.

Ken 34:11

Thanks. Glenn, great being with you.

Dave 34:22

Ken, what was your reaction to Glenn's thoughts there?

Ken 34:25

Well, you know, I was very able to communicate, as is his skill set, from a really nuanced perspective about the role in higher education, and I thought that some of his insights for our prospective deans were really very thoughtful and both a cautionary tale, but also some you know good tools and techniques,

Dave 34:48

right? You know that it used to be that a crisis on campus could take a semester, a year or even longer to erupt. And. And, of course, social media and the modern era has just flipped that on its ear, where it can go from zero to 60 in a matter of hours, you know, certainly days. So the luxury we used to have is completely gone, but I some very helpful advice and and this notion of particularly if it's the actions of the dean that are in question, this notion of making sure that the deans are getting counsel that's focused on on them, as opposed to what may be in the best interest of the institution, that that may create conflict, but it might serve deans. It might serve everybody a little better for the dean to make sure that they they're getting their own advice as to what the environment is, again, if they're at the center of the action. So I thought that was, again, helpful advice. But overall, again, this, it's this whole issue of communications and crisis management is is such a a stressful and emotional issue, and hearing his thoughts were as unpleasant as it might be, we're kind of reassuring to hear Yeah, and

Ken 36:16

frankly, some of the more persistent and regular challenges of you know, what you might call garden variety or regular crises. I thought that his insights around communicating with his, you know, with one's team, right? You know, regularly and sufficiently so that you know when the moment comes. You know, pretty clear communication with them, and it's not impossible to go the next yard. Yeah, interesting show. Yeah. Good session. Great.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Deans Counsel. This show is supported in part by Korn Ferry leaders in executive search. Deans Counsel was produced in Boulder, Colorado by Joel Davis of analog digital arts. For a catalogue of previous shows, please visit our website at Dean's council.com If you have any feedback for us, please let us know by sending an email to feedback at Dean's council.com. And finally, please hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you can automatically receive our latest show