9/11: The Lessons Learned

Robert Densen
Senior Vice President & Director of Corporate Affairs
OppenheimerFunds, Inc.

It is 7:30 PM on a Thursday night. I’m still at my desk writing this article; it’s due tomorrow. That is, I suppose, one of the unfortunate and under-reported ramifications of 9/11 – workloads double while workdays can only increase at the margin.

What I am about to write may seem mawkish or overly emotional but it is also true – those of us in the Towers on that awful day may never recollect the events with tranquility but I believe we have a special obligation to share, to reflect and to try to derive meaning. Let me attempt to do that from a communicator’s perspective.

One year later, there may not be a communications implication to 9/11 that’s gone unremarked on.  From where I sit, one of the essential truths of 9/11 is that the unprecedented and even unfathomable nature of the events of that day notwithstanding, 9/11 served to reinforce the basic precepts of effective crisis communications – responsiveness, flexibility, honesty, customer/employee focus, and effective use of technology.   As a communications practitioner, you defy them at your own risk. Steve Goldstein of Dow Jones & Co. and Frank Vaccaro of American Express did a great job in the August edition of Positioning Online demonstrating how those principles applied to 9/11.

Another unsurprising notion is this: preparation does matter – and not just as it relates to communications. For OppenheimerFunds, the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 was a wake-up call. In the months afterward, we conducted an extensive, enterprise-wide review and planning process. The result was a comprehensive contingency plan contemplating all aspects of our business. It included operating and information systems, facilities, technology, operating procedures, communications and, of course, our people. One of the scenarios contemplated by our plan was one in which we would not be able to return to the World Trade Center.

What the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was to OppenheimerFunds, I hope 9/11 is to Corporate America: a shot across the bow. The tragedy of 9/11 will be made greater still if Corporate America does not use it as an opportunity for learning. Unfortunately, in this new post-9/11 world, it is a lesson plan more than one of us will likely have to draw on.

How can I be helpful to my colleagues?  Another blow-by-blow, they-said, we-said account will probably not add to your learning; instead, let me share some observations:

As Woody Allen Once Said, 90% of Life Is Just Showing Up.  In a crisis of this magnitude – particularly one in which you lose your headquarters – it was critical simply to be there for the media.  By noon on September 11, we had a presence at our ad agency in SoHo and were handling media communications in conjunction with the communications team at our parent company, the MassMutual Financial Group.  Home and cell phone numbers were immediately and broadly re-disseminated to the media. More than 400 media inquiries from around the world were handled during the first week alone.  An open letter to the public appeared in national newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Barron’s beginning on Friday.

It’s Not Enough to Claim Full Functionality; You Must Demonstrate It. Ads are helpful, but pronouncements of well being are not enough, particularly when people’s life savings are involved; you must demonstrate it. That’s why when the bond market opened on Thursday, September 13, we had national media at our fixed income trading facility. And when the stock market opened the following Monday, we had a New York Times reporter sit in with our leading domestic equity manager and a Wall Street Journal reporter with the head of our Global team.  We did everything we could in advance to ensure that our portfolio managers would be able to successfully trade when the markets re-opened, but there were no guarantees. We knew there was a chance that our systems might fail or that the markets might spiral out of control or that the reporters would not report fairly or in context.   On the other hand, we believed it to be the most tangible, timely and impactful way to demonstrate that we were back in business.

Being fully functional also means doing the little, workaday things too: from announcing the close of an acquisition to a product launch to participating in cancer walks. And there can be no diminution of performance.   We’re particularly proud that we were the first fund company to hold a national investment briefing in the wake of September 11 – a telephone conference call with the heads of our investment management teams in which 50 reporters from across the country participated.

No Two Crises Are Exactly Alike. It’s great to have plans and precepts, but you must be responsive to specific circumstances.  In this case, it was important to remember that we were in the midst of a national crisis with international implications; we were obligated to pick up the phone every where and every time it rang.  At the same time, while we lost space and possessions, we were an extraordinarily fortunate company: all 598 of our World Trade Center employees were safe. Our communications needed to be infused with twin senses of perspective and gratitude.

It was also important to remember that our employees had experienced a trauma of unprecedented proportions. While we experienced no employee casualties, the emotional injuries were significant and not always manifest. Without getting into details…we’ve spent lots of time and resources and imagination trying to help our employees regain a sense of equilibrium.

At Times Like These, There’s Nothing Like a Strong Brand/Great Reputation.  In PR Week’s 2001 post-September 11 CEO survey, the percent of CEOs describing its company reputation as its most precious asset actually dropped by 10+ percentage points.  Wrong direction.  A company’s brand/reputation is never more important than in times of crisis. It is a beacon through the confusion and dislocation.  Our brand/great public reputation is one of the reasons that despite being the only major fund company domiciled in the World Trade Center, we’ve had some of the strongest net flows in the industry post-September 11. That’s remarkable, if you think about it.

Contrary to Popular Belief, PR Practitioners Are People Too.  It’s hard to put a strong public face on the company if you’re less than your best.  Major crises of international proportions like September 11 are particularly tough on the media relations team.  They had to be there around the clock and never really had a chance early on to process what they’d experienced.

Post-September 11, we’ve redoubled our efforts to maintain a work environment in Corporate Affairs that recognizes and responds to the individual needs of each employee. We’ve made one-on-one counseling available to any employee in our department who needs it. We are flexible in terms of work – hours and arrangements. We share experiences, recognize accomplishments, celebrate milestones and complain as appropriate. We have lots of long, group lunches.  And within the constraints of an incredibly painful, dislocating experience, we try to have some laughs.

There Is No Substitute for Smart, Dedicated People with Shared Values and a Mutual Respect for Each Other. A crisis is not the time to find out how good your staff is. A large part of our ability to function so well in the aftermath of September 11 goes to the quality of our people and to the large measure of esprit de corps across functions.  In Corporate Affairs, we are committed to the company – and to each other. Whatever needs to get done, frequently irrespective of function, we get done. We share space as easily as we share ideas. And we have an abiding commitment to get this company back and beyond – and to share our learning along the way. 

A Company’s Values Put to the Test

Peter Thonis
Senior Vice President, External Communications
Verizon Communications Inc.

The terrorist attacks last September 11 confronted Verizon with the worst physical disaster in telecommunications’ more than 100-year history.  All three attacks – at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Western Pennsylvania – occurred in Verizon’s service territory. 

The portion of Verizon’s network that covered most of lower Manhattan, including the financial district, stopped functioning as a result of heavy damage to a major switching center at 140 West Street, adjacent to 7 World Trade Center, and to the underground telephone cables in the World Trade Center area.  The New York Stock Exchange, the worldwide symbol of American capitalism, had no telecommunications service and could not operate. More than 300,000 voice lines and 3.6 million data circuits were silenced.  Ten cellular telephone towers were destroyed.  More than 14,000 businesses and 20,000 residential customers were without phone service.

Although telecommunications service was not disrupted at the Pentagon or at the site of the third plane crash near Somerset, Pa., Verizon had to quickly install hundreds of additional telephone lines at both locations for emergency workers and government officials.

Tragically, three Verizon employees – two at the World Trade Center and one at the Pentagon – were among the victims who lost their lives in the attacks.

The Whole World Was Watching

The unprecedented dimensions of this crisis presented an extraordinary challenge to the Verizon Public Affairs and Corporate Communications team.  In addition, as one Verizon executive put it, “the whole world was watching” to see how Verizon would respond to the crisis.  We had to respond immediately, with no margin for error.

Within minutes after the airplane hit the second World Trade Center Tower, we mobilized and implemented a comprehensive external and internal crisis communications plan that involved all the groups in Public Affairs: Employee Communications, Executive Positioning, Media Relations and Verizon Foundation. 

The plan supported three key Verizon objectives:

• Care for our employees, 2,200 of whom worked in the World Trade Center area
• Help the thousands of our customers without telecommunications services
• Support our communities and the disaster relief efforts

In addition, we provided advice and counsel to the company’s senior leaders and thus played a major role in the decisions involving the recovery effort, including prioritizing the restoration of service.

Obstacles to Implementation

However, to implement the crisis communications plan, we had to overcome several obstacles.

For example, within an hour after the attacks, I and other team members at corporate headquarters were ordered to leave our offices on the 32^nd floor as a safety precaution.  Nearly all other employees in the building were sent home.   But, confronted with a stream of calls from the media that was quickly becoming a torrent, we had no time to move to another building.  So we quickly set up temporary quarters on the fourth floor of the headquarters building and continued working.

Because our entire public affairs team is spread out across the United States, we had to find a way to remain in close touch with one another to keep abreast of developments and ensure that everyone was delivering the same key messages.  The solution: a conference call line that remained open 24 hours a day; a daily series of key talk points; and twice-a-day team strategy sessions.

The service disruption in lower Manhattan made it difficult to obtain enough lines for the dial-in news briefings that we held during the first week after the attacks, so we used two separate numbers for calls from the United States and a third number for international calls.  The news briefings were also broadcast over Verizon’s Web site and tape-recorded and then played over a toll-free number for 24 hours.

Internally, we kept employees up to date on the company’s plans to restore service and provide assistance to Verizon’s more than 200,000 employees.  We wrote and distributed 34 e-mail messages, each reaching 131,000 employees.  Nine fax updates were transmitted to 109 fax hubs capable of reaching thousands of employees throughout the company.  Toll-free numbers were set up for employees without access to e-mail.

An internal Web portal was set up to provide additional information. Flyers were hand-delivered to employees working in the affected areas.  Senior managers personally visited those areas to meet with employees, and Verizon provided counselors to help employees cope with their shock and grief.

Several closed-circuit TV broadcasts and frequent voice mail messages from Ivan Seidenberg, then Verizon’s president and co-CEO and now CEO, also provided employees with the latest information and a sense of the company’s priorities.

Externally, we repeatedly emphasized to the media how the company was assisting customers by: establishing a special call center for large business customers; deploying thousands of cell phones and temporary phone lines; and providing free calls on curbside pay-phones in New York City.

We placed public service ads in newspapers and arranged for senior executives to talk before key audiences and with the media one-on-one and in multiple news conferences to keep the world abreast of the status of restoring service.  We conducted more than 1,000 interviews last September, resulting in more than 660 news stories quoting Verizon representatives. 

Results Speak for Themselves

The media coverage was overwhelmingly positive, and the company was particularly gratified by the praise employees received from elected officials, federal and state regulators, business leaders and journalists for restoring service to the stock exchange just six days after the attacks.

To help raise funds for disaster relief and community support, Verizon Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm, quickly mobilized a series of initiatives – including a 3-to-1 employee gift-matching program – that ultimately raised more than $16 million.

Another major initiative was participating in the national fund-raising telethon, “America: A Tribute to Heroes.”  Thousands of Verizon volunteers at company call centers across the country manned the phones for the telethon.  

After the crisis subsided, recognition dinners and other events were held to thank employees.  A commemorative publication and video were distributed, and senior executives visited employees across the country.

Status Report a Year Later

Looking back a year later at the tragedy of September 11, we’ve come a long way. 

Verizon has completely restored service to the lower Manhattan area, and the enormous job of repairing the interior and exterior damage to our 140 West Street building is now about 75 percent complete.  The telephone cables that hung out of the building’s windows to provide temporary service to customers have been replaced by permanent underground facilities.

At the Pentagon, Verizon technicians have replaced nearly all of the 3,791 damaged lines and installed 926 additional lines.

We are proud of all that we were able to accomplish, although our pride is tempered by the grief and anger everyone feels over the senseless, tragic loss of so many lives.

We’ve also learned a valuable lesson about how to handle a crisis: Let the actions of your company speak for themselves.  There is no need to seek accolades if you are doing the right thing.

With that as our guiding principle, Verizon’s recovery efforts have become an integral part of a larger story that will be written about and remembered for years to come.  It is the story of how New York City’s resilient, determined residents, workers and businesses all united, performed extraordinary and, in some cases, heroic acts and refused to be defeated by terrorism.

© 2004 Heyman Associates, Inc.