When Every Word Counts: Inside High-Stakes Crisis Comms - A conversation with Tassilo Stave-Lins

Introduction to Crisis Communications

0:00Don't overcomplicate things, especially in crisis communications. Don't chase complexity because your job is essentially to make it more simple for the clients.

0:23Hello, everybody. This is Belen Santaolalla from Conductor Crisis Exercise Platform. You're listening to the Crisis Designer Podcast, where we share tips, thoughts, and concepts to help you create impactful crisis management exercises. So, if you're involved in crisis management, reputational risk, business continuity training, information warfare, or immersive simulations in general, this show is for you.

Guest Introduction

0:50Today, we're joined by Tassilo Stave-Lenz, Associate Director at FGS Global, where he helps organizations cut through the noise and communicate clearly when it matters most. Tassilo's work spans crisis and issues management, financial communications, and strategic storytelling. He's advised some of Europe's biggest brands on how to manage complex challenges and protect

1:25reputation under pressure. With a background in digital strategy, content design, and leadership communication, Tassilo brings a fresh perspective on how messaging, trust, and timing can make or break a response. Tassilo, welcome to the Crisis Designer Podcast. How are you today? Good. What a wonderful introduction. Thank you so much. Well, that's your life. That's your background. It sounded familiar, yes. Of course.

1:56We're going to dig a little bit further in that background.

Client Work

2:00But tell us, how do you help your clients today?

2:06So, at FGS Global, we help organizations to prepare for critical moments, to make it very simple and bold for the theme of this podcast. And crisis simulations are obviously one big part of our offering, alongside with risk audits, which could help identify potential scenarios that we can test. We also do media training.

2:36So, we have brilliant former journalists and broadcasters working in our office who can simulate some sort of executive, exclusive with the Financial Times or TV interviews and sort of prepare our clients for these situations. And then, of course, we're handling life crises for our clients to navigate stakeholders, to

3:08navigate media landscape, and help on incident response strategies. And, yeah, I would say this is very short and this is from the crisis practice that we manage. And our crisis simulations offering is basically where all this comes together, the speed, the confusion, the scrutiny of real-world scenarios, so that when it hits the fan, that leaders have

3:46some sort of some sort of muscle memory on how to react.

Importance of Crisis Communications

3:49Got it. And why would you say your work is so important?

3:57So, I think, and probably every one of our listeners today can agree on this, that in the age of social media, no one is really safe from a crisis. So, it can start with a single post or a leak and things just escalate within minutes nowadays. I mean, we've seen so many cases this year on TikTok or last year.

4:30I don't know if you remember, there was this one situation, a trend was called, I think it was Quit Talk. So, people did screen recordings of how they got laid off by their employers and posted this on TikTok. And obviously, some big names were called out on this. And this stuff can just happen to anyone nowadays.

5:02And obviously, we tell our clients, you can't really avoid crisis and like, for example, cyber attack or activism, like this TikTok, this Quit Talk incident I just told you. But you will be judged as a company on how you handle these situations, not if it happens. So, it really comes down on how well you're prepared you are. And this is really, really essential. And this is where we would jump in, ideally.

5:37And yeah, this is where it comes down to. Yeah, that's really scary, I have to say. Yeah, because a crisis is always around the corner.

Career Background

5:48And how did you end up in this line of work?

5:55I actually started my career in like more advertising, TV production, movies, sort of in the creative industries, so worked on campaigns, TV commercials.

6:12And I, throughout the years, I kind of, my interest, my interest kind of shifted a bit, where I was more interested in how companies actually talk on a more corporate level, instead of just like selling products, whereas I still enjoyed my work, don't get me wrong. But I think I wanted to shift a bit more in a strategic way.

6:43And this is how I found my way into strategic comms. And then a few years ago, when I joined FGS, I had a wonderful team leader, Bennett. You met him, and who really, really had a big impact on my career and my path at FGS. And he kind of introduced me into the way of, or into the world of crisis simulations, crisis communications at first, and then obviously crisis simulations second.

7:16And it really changed how I see comms as a wider discipline. I mean, I did comms before, whereas the outcome of my work was just a bit different. So where I sold products at the start of my career, I'm now more managing the reputations and selling division sort of of the wider corporate structure.

7:50So it's essentially the discipline is the same, the outcome is different.

7:55So yeah, Bennett had a real impact on the crisis part. And obviously, like, it was always very interesting, the moment I heard of it. And I mean, it's always a bit cool to say, there's something cool about it to say, I do crisis communications. So essentially, it started as a curiosity and became a real interest and passion of mine.

8:24So yeah. Okay, yeah, Bennett has been a guest in the show. And he shared lots of insights, very interesting experiences.

Crisis Exercising

8:35And now, right now, at your role, how do you tackle crisis exercising? Do they have any specific angle? Are they aimed for crisis communications? How do you prepare through exercisings for your clients? I mean, we are a comms company. So usually, the guests in our crisis simulations are usually comms teams on the client side.

9:11And we also do leadership training, which is less hands-on, and where we use Conductor, for example, more as a presentation tool, where we have the simulation and the content on one big screen in the room, but people are not really interacting. It's more about escalation levels and more about coaching on a much, much higher level. But obviously, if we do simulations with comms teams, it's much, much more hands-on, very immersive, very intense.

9:47So to prepare for this, we usually start by asking ourselves, what are the objectives that we want to get out of this? So what exactly do we want to test? Who do we want to test? Like I just said, sometimes it's more on a leadership level. Sometimes it's more hands-on with the actual comms teams. And based on that, we find a scenario that our client can really relate to. It's usually something that really could happen to them in real life.

10:25It could be on a more general level. It could be a misconduct issue by an executive.

10:32It could be a cyber attack. It could be policy issues, product recalls, if it's a client that's more consumer-related. I mean, the library and the creativity is essentially endless.

10:46And it's always a very individual product. Also that we tailor every simulation to our client needs. They're very, very specific personas, for example, which usually, for example, could be a journalist that they deal with on a day-to-day basis. And they actually know or have a relationship with. So the first step would be finding a scenario.

11:18The second step would be designing this ecosystem of media employees, who's involved, the stakeholders. And essentially asking the question, how will this play out in real life? And we start by doing this very simple on a piece of paper, like designing the story, laying out the elements. And then in the next step, or when we are already basically agreed on every detail, we use Conductor as kind of an incubator or the kitchen tool, so to say.

11:57We put all building blocks and ingredients together and make it look nice, layering up the emails and adding a bit more detailed pictures and images. And obviously, that makes it really, really interesting to work with. Nice. So you said, you mentioned that you have a creative background. Do you feel that creating a scenario is kind of telling a story?

12:31Absolutely. Totally. It is.

12:37In the end, it is a story. It is kind of a mix between strategy, crisis comms, and kind of a show that you put out. And obviously, you want the people to be as involved as possible. So it starts very slowly. We usually use the first 15 to 30 minutes with very easy injects. Sometimes it doesn't really have to do something with the actual crisis that we are testing.

13:07But it sort of helps the participants in a room to get acquainted with the platform. They can click around. They can set up Teams chats and WhatsApp channels. And then after 15 minutes, we sort of start pushing out the real stuff where people start to get nervous or start the actual simulation.

13:39Yeah. But it's absolutely a story that you tell. It starts easy. Then it hits the fan and then point of reckoning. And at some point, you need to end it. Yeah, definitely. Not like in your life. Which is actually, I think how you end the simulation has been sometimes actually the most difficult part. Really? Yeah.

14:08Because you have this. I mean, we use Conductor. And it's such a fantastic tool. And we found some very interesting ways of doing that. So, for example, one time we had a client situation, a simulation with a client. And the story started with the head of comms boarding a plane. So, they sent an email to the participants in the room saying, I'm boarding LAX now to London Heathrow.

14:44I'm off the grid for the next, like, 10 hours, whatever. Anything happens in the meantime, like, repair briefing. So, they were already triggered, okay, the head of comms is gone. What do we do? So, we are on our own, basically. It already set the scene. And then towards the end of the simulation where everything already happened, media inquiries came in.

15:18And we were like, okay. And then an email from this head of comms came back being like, okay, I've landed now. I'm on social media. What happened? I will be in the office in the next 15 minutes. Prepare a briefing. And she actually came into the office, which was then kind of like, okay, we need to prepare a briefing now. She's coming. And, yeah, that was kind of – that's how we ended the simulation, basically.

15:50But potentially, it's – and also, I think what makes it hard is a simulation is only set for, like, a few hours. Or at least, I mean, you could stretch it for weeks. And I – last year, when I went to your conference, I spoke to one of your clients, and they said they're doing simulations that last for weeks. And we usually do a few hours in the morning and then have some sort of debrief in the afternoon where we don't even use the conductor.

16:24But it makes it hard because, obviously, a real crisis lasts for more than a few hours. Yeah. And, I mean, we had life crises, like, real crises that last for months. But sometimes – there are sometimes days where nothing happens. And then sometimes on a Friday, everything blows up and your whole weekend is ruined.

16:56Classic on a Friday. Yeah, obviously. And then – but it makes it really hard to simulate this, like, time – the time element is very hard. So, you're like, okay, you started at 8 a.m. and now it's 12 p.m.

17:16And all these things that happened in four hours, it's not real, you know. And you kind of have to remind yourself it's still a simulation. It's not a real crisis where you deal with stuff in weeks' time. So, I think – and, yeah, to come back to your point, this makes it really hard to sort of make a cut into the simulation on the day. Yeah, gotcha. And do you ever use other storytelling elements such as conflicting information, subplots, or red herrings?

17:56Um, absolutely. I think this is – this is where it becomes very interesting. I feel like this level of uncertainty is kind of crucial.

18:11And it's the same in reality. You never know what really happens. And it's also an element that we want to test on our clients. So, um, what are you really focusing on? Where are your priorities? Um, and we sometimes throw in stuff, um, that has nothing to do with the actual simulation. Or we use some stuff, uh, we, we, we throw in some red herrings, especially at the beginning, um, to really test, oh, my God.

18:46Because essentially, yes, they know they are in a crisis simulation. Um, but they, ideally, they don't know the, the story, what, what, what the day is about. So, for example, we had a tech client and we, um, the, the, the issue that we actually tested was a misconduct, um, issue. But, um, in the beginning, we threw in some stuff that would hint maybe a cyber attack or, um, some, uh, some technical issues on the platform itself.

19:20So, it was, um, it's kind of interesting. And then they suddenly formed groups and, um, uh, groups and task forces for something that's actually not really relevant. But, um, yeah, absolutely. That's, um, I, I think, uh, I remember your, um, when I, when, when I attended your, um, conference last year, there was this, uh, your colleague said, there's this in-world and real-world. Out-of-world, yeah.

19:51And you, you sort of, actually, the, the actual simulation should actually be, consists, consists of basically just three very key moments. And, um, and, um, so, uh, but I think, yeah, it, it, it, uh, again, it depends on who's in the room. So, if you have, if we have a leadership, uh, more tabletop, less interactive exercise, we would obviously not bake in too much of that stuff.

20:22Um, but if it's a very hands-on, um, hands-on team, we would obviously build in a bit more distractions and a bit more noise around, uh, the actual simulation. But I guess it's finding the balance in the end. Yeah, gotcha. And, um, what would you say is the role of personas in your scenarios? Um, I, I mean, I mentioned it before that, um, these personas make it very, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a level of realism and it makes it very human.

20:54Um, so we bring in journalists, employees, um, politicians, customers, um, each with their own lens and emotions and, uh, um, tone of voice, so to say. Um, and, um, oftentimes because we, we often work with clients on, on these projects, um, that with clients that we know, um, ideally through longstanding relationships and therefore we know what they deal with on a day-to-day basis.

21:27Um, we can include some, like, we, we create personas for, for ourselves. So, for example, if, if it would be my, my own client, um, I, I would, like, put, put me in, into the simulation. Um, oftentimes it's, it's not my client and we, um, we, we, we throw in some, some, some people from the client teams. But, um, yeah, we, we have a relationship with them. We know, um, we know the journalists that they deal with. We know the, the employees, um, we, and therefore we, it's very important for us to, or, or us as the crisis team to work very closely with the, with the client team.

22:09So, with, with, with the team who manages the client on, on our side. Um, and, and like I said, it's also very important that the client itself, the client themselves, um, doesn't really know what's going on. Um, but obviously you have one or two people, key contacts from the client who will help you along the way in creating these, um, personas, um, personas and, uh, injects as, as, as the next step.

22:39Um, and, uh, once the exercise is designed, your personas are there, the story is there, how do you run them? Do you facilitate them yourself or how do you approach the exercise unfolding? Um, I mean, we, we always facilitate them. Um, we, we, we've never done it. We've never had a situation where we just designed them and, um, then the client facilitated it.

23:15Um, we, it's because it's, it's, it's like I said in the beginning, it's, it's part theater, um, part newsroom and part for us training with the client. Um, and, um, because, um, essentially we do strategic comms. So in the end, we want, the client wants to have good insights on how they can improve and we can, we can only make good recommendations based on what we see on the day in the room. Um, so it's, it's, it's crucial for us to be in the room.

23:48Um, and, um, the, the, the, the team that comes from our part is usually, um, uh, and could be managing director from the crisis practice, me as like some sort of the, the conductor, uh, guru. Um, and, and then we, we, we might have some, some, some, some other, uh, junior, uh, staff, um, from the crisis practice who would help me, um, facilitate in, in terms of, um, either moderation or, um, impersonation.

24:26Um, um, and it's good to just like tag team in, in, so you want someone senior, you want someone in the middle who understands the platform and, um, you want someone to like support on, on, on every level. Um, and then obviously, um, you have someone from the clients, from the client team, um, who knows the client, who understands them. Um, and, um, yeah, we, we typically run them in person for half a day.

24:58Um, so like in the morning, three to four hours simulation on, on the platform with, I don't know, 15 to 20 people in the room. Uh, it, it could be more, it could be, but it would stretch the simulation a bit. Um, but it's all possible. Um, but usually what, what we've done in the past is three to four hours simulation, 15 to 20 people in the room, um, and then a deep dive session in the afternoon where we would debrief a bit, um, on, on the actions from, from the morning session, um, and then also, uh, craft some sort of advisory and recommendations that are on the back of that.

25:43Um, we usually ask participants also to switch off, switch off all other apps on, on their computers, um, to not be distracted. Um, and there, therefore it's, it's crucial to have this client lead on their side who would brief them in the beginning to say like, look, this is, you've set aside eight hours. You set aside a full day, um, please be switched off, um, be in the room, um, engage fully, stay in the moment.

26:22Um, I mean, you, you, you've, you've probably run way more simulations than, than I have, uh, but you know, they can get really, really intense. Um, and it's very important that everybody is on full, on full concentration on the day. Um, and I also feel like one, one day of simulation is also, also for us as, as, as the facilitators is really, it's really, really intense. It's, um, there's, there's lots of work behind these simulations.

26:54There's weeks of preparation and designing and get the story right and the level of detail. And then when it happens, it's, it's, it's really quick, really intense. Um, and yeah, it's, um, yeah, that, that's why it's really important to be like fully immersed in on the day. But it's what, what makes it, um, really, really effective as a good, good tool to practice. And like I said, in the beginning of our conversation today, it's, um, it's about the muscle memory.

27:28Because sometimes you have, you have people in the room who never worked with each other. Um, it could be, could be a new joiner. Um, it could be, it could be anything. Um, but it's all about building this muscle memory. And, and, and the good thing for us, if they go out of, out of the simulation and know, uh, know who to call when, when it hits a fan, um, know how to escalate things within the wider organization structure.

27:59Um, and some people have never dealt with a crisis. So, um, and it's good to see like how, how, how it, how it unfolds essentially. Definitely. I mean, you've touched something very important. It's like the matter of engagement, how you make sure that they are engaged, that they are present, that they are, uh, fully experiencing it. That is, it is very intense. Uh, I can't give you that. Um, so when the thing is over and you've, uh, done an after action review, you've done like your recommendations, how do you, uh, know that the learnings are sticking?

28:40Uh, how do you, uh, make sure that they are applying it or do you do, uh, recurrent simulations? How do you tackle the day after the simulation? Um, so what we usually do is, um, I mean, this could be baked into the debrief session, for example, that we have in the afternoon where we already give some sort of feedback, but, um, our client that, um, where we run these simulations, they always get a written report.

29:16Um, it could be, um, it could be, could be, uh, three to five pages or 10, if it's a bit more detailed, depending on the situation, obviously. Um, but this is a report where we have detailed and structured feedback, and then we would go in. Um, if, if we, because for us as strategic advisors, our goal is to, um, to, a, create, uh, to create value for our, for our, for our clients on the day. So the value for the client would be, they know what to do if it really happens.

29:52Um, and for us, it's obviously important to identify any gaps if there are any, but we could, for example, go in, um, and then, uh, analyze what they replied on social media or how they replied to journalists. Um, did they put out a statement, uh, and then analyze tone of voice and then, um, go in there and for example, say, look, we identified, you, you made some mistakes and errors while replying on social media.

30:23So it would be good to go into your, uh, to, to analyze your social media guidelines that you put out for employees. That could be one example, because what, what you don't want in a crisis situation is, um, an employee of your company going online and speaking on behalf of the company. Even, even, even if it's a pro company, but, um, you, if a crisis happens, you, as the, the organization, you need to be in control of the, of, of, of, of the, of the conversation.

31:06And if you have employees going out there and involving themselves into a conversation, that's something you really want to avoid. So essentially, yes, identifying gaps, um, creating value for the client, um, so that they know what to do when it hits the fan, um, and then, um, kind of create some sort of crisis guidelines, playbooks, uh, messaging guidelines, um, could be, for example, an incident response matrix for social media, um, where, where we say, if,

31:41if, if you see something X, you reply Y, uh, and so on. So, and, and, and some sort of do's and don'ts, um, and this, this could be a wider document and, and obviously then it's up for, up for discussion if they need this and, um, if it needs to be another project, but, uh, this is where we can help. So essentially it's, it's, it's a tool for us to give better advice and it's good for the client because they are trained on stuff.

32:14Totally. Woof. Um, now I would like to know a little bit more about a specific scenario.

Challenging Scenario

32:21What's, what's the, the most challenges and most challenging scenario that you had to put together? What, what did you learn about it? Um, the most challenging, um, I would, I would say everything around government is always, is always very challenging, um, because there's always fine line between, um, like, yeah, cultural, culture and obviously policies.

32:54Um, uh, and the way government agencies and organizations are structured is, it makes it really, really challenging. Um, but, uh, I think so for myself, I think it was, um, it was also, it was a potential client, um, in another region of the world, which makes it even more difficult for us. Um, so it was, uh, how do you describe it without, without, without leaking anything?

33:27Um, so it's, so probably, yeah, for a government client dealing with allegations on human rights abuses on infrastructure projects. Yeah, that's how I would frame it. Um, and, um, and, uh, such a story can have, obviously, um, global political implications and it really required balancing sensitivity with, like, realistic outcomes.

33:59Um, and as creator and designer, you really need to get into the details of the story. Um, and, um, yeah, and I said before, it's, it's, it's all about the details. So scenarios like this, um, require lots of back and forth to, to get it right. Um, especially if it's another part of the world, it's something you don't deal on a daily basis. And the, the way government organizations are structured makes it even more difficult because, um, it's, it's not a normal company you deal with.

34:36It's not a, not your day-to-day client. Um, and, yeah, the back and forth, the challenging, the challenges between culture, realism, um, and not stepping on anyone's toes, I think. But still having some sort of really challenging, uh, scenario for the client. So, um, yeah, that, that, that makes it really hard. Finding the right balance, uh, to make sure that they are engaged and it's difficult enough for them.

35:09So it's a challenge, but also making sure that you get it right in all the other aspects, uh, especially when there's, it's something that you are not very familiar with. I really like to finish up, uh, the show always with this question. And that would be, um, if you, um, could have the chance to talk to a younger version of yourself, what would you tell him? What would you have liked to know earlier? Um, I think one main thing is, um, don't, don't overcomplicate things, um, especially, especially in crisis communications.

35:51Don't chase complexity for complexity's sake. Because your job is essentially to make it more simple for the client. Um, it's, um, and, and sometimes all, all it's about is, um, being focused, being steady, um, and focus on the message and focus on, um, focus on a good stakeholder engagement and good, good media relations and managing the situation.

36:21Because, I don't know, things tend to pass. Um, especially nowadays is, uh, the, the attention span of the average human being and, and including me, it's very short. So, um, I think, um, everything out there, it's, it's not, it's, it's oftentimes it's not that deep. Um, the importance is stay focused, stay on, stay on the message.

36:54Don't invent anything. Don't overcomplicate and be steady because this, this is what, what the client needs in, in, in, in, in these moments. They need a steady hand to guide them and navigate complex situations. Um, so yeah, the situation is already complex. Don't make it more complex. That's, that's a fantastic summary that I think is really applicable to the times we're living in. So, thank you very much, Tassitler.

37:27It's been great to have you in the show. Uh, thank you for sharing your insights and your knowledge. Thank you, Belen. It was, um, it was a huge pleasure. Uh, thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you.

37:57Thank you.