What Were They Thinking?

Price: $22.95  

Subtitle: Crisis Communication: The Good, the Bad, and the Totally Clueless
Author: Steve Adubato, Ph.D
Subject: Business, Media and Communication
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4361-1
Pages: 192 pages
Publication Date: September 2008

Read the Table of Contents

Events:

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
7 p.m.- 8 p.m.
Montclair Public Library
50 S. Fullerton Ave, Montclair, NJ

Praise for What Were They Thinking?

"Steve Adubato is a national treasure! In What Were They Thinking? he offers a brilliant collection of riveting stories designed to teach the reader how to communicate quickly and effectively in the middle of a crisis. A must-read if – in your personal or professional life – you need to let others know that you are sincere, that you are competent, and that you care."
—John E. Welshons, author of When Prayers Aren’t Answered and Awakening From Grief

"Steve is a media expert, a street-smart guy with powerful insight that makes this book so relevant for our time."—Ernie Anastos, anchor, FOX 5 New York

Some corporations spend millions of dollars on so-called “crisis communication plans.” Others offer lip service, avoiding the subject like the plague. They simply hope for the best, praying that they never face a crisis. Either way, as Steve Adubato says, “Wishful thinking is no substitute for a strategic plan.”

Nationally recognized communication coach and four-time Emmy Award–winning broadcaster Steve Adubato has been teaching, writing, and thinking about comm­unication, leadership, and crisis communication for nearly two decades. In What Were They Thinking? Adubato examines twenty-two controversial and complex public relations and media mishaps, many of which were played out in public. Among cases and people discussed are:

• The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol scare: Perhaps the best crisis management ever
• Don Imus: Sometimes saying “sorry” is too little too late
• Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: Authority does not put you above questioning
• Bill O’Reilly: Know when to stop defending yourself and save face
• Former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman: Proof that your written words can come back to haunt you
• Hurricane Katrina: A natural disaster that led to a larger governmental disaster
• The Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal: Denial won’t get rid of the skeletons in your closet

Arranged in short chapters detailing each case individually, the book provides a brief history of the topics and answers the questions: Who got it right? Who got it wrong? What can the rest of us learn from them?

Steve Adubato, Ph.D. is a Rutgers University lecturer, four-time Emmy Award-winning television anchor for WNET/Channel 13 (PBS), and newspaper columnist. Steve has been an expert commentator for MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, C-Span, Court TV, the TODAY Show, and the FOX News Channel. Through his firm Stand & Deliver, Steve has provided hands-on crisis communication coaching for numerous corporations and organizations. He is also a motivational speaker and the author of two books, Speak from the Heart: Be Yourself and Get Results and Make the Connection: Improve Your Communication at Work and at Home (Rutgers University Press).