Wennmachers: Establish internal comms before crises to maintain trust through legal silences
Margit Wennmachers · a16z Podcast | Crisis Communications · Jan 2, 2019 · at 24:47
Margit Wennmachers, operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz, discusses why companies must build employee trust prior to legal or public crises.
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“I will also say you ought to start an internal communications cadence very early on. Don't wait for the crisis. You want to have built trust with the employees because let's say there's a lawsuit. Your company all of a sudden is in a lawsuit. You feel it's completely unfair, but like You are very much shackled. The lawyers are telling you this pending litigation. You can't afford a leak. Even if you are doing an all hands meeting and there's nothing written down, you know, stuff could be recorded. People could leak it anyways. You just can't say anything. If you have established trust with the employee base beforehand, they will have faith that you're doing the right thing for the company and that you would be more forthcoming. Were you able to? Right, so that is just important to establish, you know, way before you hit a problem.”
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