Don't React, Act: Business Crisis Communication Made Simple, with Lea Greene

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Lea Greene about her book, "Don't React, Act: Business Crisis Communication Made Simple." Lea Greene spent her Air Force career telling the truth on deadline. As a broadcast journalist for American Forces Network, she reported from Korea, Germany, Bosnia, and Iraq. She later served seven years as a base spokesperson with final release authority over worldwide RQ-4 Global Hawk operations. Today she helps business leaders stay human, think clearly, and build trust in an AI-driven world. She owns Top Ten Communication and she teaches AI to business owners, chambers, and public information officers. Her message to leaders is short. Every hard moment is a communication moment. The tools keep changing. The trust problem does not.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to the HCI family of podcasts, where your source for personal, professional, and organizational growth and development. We share our own original research, explore industry trends, and interview executives and thought leaders from across the globe. Join us for practitioner-oriented content around all things leadership, HR, talent management, organizational development, and change management. Maximize your personal and organizational potential with the HCI family of podcasts.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Leah Green, welcome to the conversation today.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  It is so exciting to be here. Thanks, John.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  It is a real pleasure to be sitting down with you. You're joining us from North Dakota. I'm south of Salt Lake City in Utah. Today, we're going to be talking about your recent book, Don't React, Act: Business Crisis Communication Made Simple. I love the title, by the way. I think acting and being proactive rather than just responsive to what's happening around you is super important. So, we're going to talk about this, unpack it, and explore your book together today. And it's just a pleasure to be able to sit down. We've been planning this. It's been on the schedule for a long, long time, and we finally get the chance to sit down and have the conversation. So, it's really just a pleasure. As we get

• 1:20Speaker 00

  started, I wanted to share Leah's bio with everyone. Let's see. Leah Green spent her Air Force career telling the truth on Deadline. As a broadcast journalist for American Forces Network, she reported from Korea, Germany, Bosnia, and Iraq. She later served seven years as a base spokesperson with final release authority over worldwide RQ4 Global Hawk operations. Today, she helps business leaders stay human, think clearly, and build trust in an AI-driven world. She owns Top 10 Communication, and she teaches AI to business owners, chambers, and public information officers. Her message to leaders is short:

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Every hard moment is a communication moment. The tools keep changing, the trust problems don't. And I completely agree with that. It's all about trust, right? Business and relationships and everything we do, it's all about trust, and it's all about relationships. Relationships are built on trust, right? And trust is built on communication. So, I think it's all, it all boils down to some fairly simple things that are really hard to do because we're human, and humans are messy.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  It's so hard to be human. It is so hard to stay human, I tell you what. And that is my message. Just stay human. In an AI-driven world, you know, books are just being generated by the minute, and Amazon is just swarmed with this drivel of AI chatbot stuff. But if leaders can just remember to stay human, we're going to go so far. We're going to get through this, John. We're going to.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Well, Leah, before we dive on into the conversation about your book, is there anything else you would like to share with the audience about your own personal background? Yeah, and then we'll dive on in.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I think one thing that your audience would find interesting is, in my 25 years between the military and federal service, working for military leaders, I added it up, and I think I had over 50 bosses. Because the military changes them out, if not yearly, at least every two years. So, that way, everybody gets a continuous ladder of leadership growth. And I think that that is a perspective that really taught me exposure to a ton of different styles and a ton of do's and don'ts. And so, from that, I was

• 3:48Speaker 01

  able to provide a lot of advice and counsel to a lot of different personality types. And often, I was in a room where I was surrounded by the biggest brains in literally the world. These people can move mountains. And I just had the utmost respect. And it was very hard to tell someone I respected to the highest of the high. Sorry, you can't say that. And so, you know, it's hard. It's hard to provide that advice and counsel.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's super hard when you're in those situations to feel both safe to provide the counsel, the pushback, to also not feel like imposter syndrome, right? And to feel like you have something valid and worthwhile enough to provide the counsel on. Yeah, I think for multiple reasons, that can be really challenging. But what a fascinating, you know, 25-plus-year career in all those different environments, 50 bosses, you said?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Over 50, at least. At least. Because, you know, when an emergency would happen, you would get a code, and the code would tell you what kind of emergency it was. And immediately, you put on your badge, you would go down into the secure area, cellphone away. I would text my husband, pick up the kid, because it's no communication. Because you go underground, and then in there, once you're secure and classified, then you learn about the situation. And the details, the first details are always wrong. But one thing I found about crisis communication and managing yourself and your emotions first, in that

• 5:35Speaker 01

  staying human, there was always steps. And so, sometimes, they would be outside, sometimes they'd be inside. And I would be hand on the badge, hand on the ID. And on the way down, I would be looking at the steps, making sure I didn't slip. And I would count them. And I would just think, steady, steady. And I would just put myself in that moment, and deep breaths, and clear my mind of everything else. And then, from there, I was able to put myself into my expertise mode. And that was able to calm the nervous system down. And I think that's a key. I think, I think as a society, we're very protected now. Children

• 6:17Speaker 01

  aren't allowed to fail. You know, we'll pick them up, we'll coddle them. Don't skin your knee. And so, I think that when the nervous system kicks in, we need to teach them how to calm it down, how to take that deep breath. And so, that's the basis of the book, Don't React, Act. It is, it's a way to prepare yourself, and it is a way to develop the research and expertise to provide that advice, and then to communicate it.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I love that. Because we're all, we're all going to find ourselves in those situations, right? All the time, where externally, external forces are upon us constantly. And the world is moving, it seems, moving faster and faster and faster. And it's just more and more complex, and change is more and more ever-present, right? And so, we're just constantly in a state of turmoil, almost, it seems. And so, what ends up happening, it seems like, for a lot of leaders and a lot of organizations, is like, they spend most of their time just kind of running around like a chicken with

• 7:27Speaker 00

  their heads cut off, you know, putting out fires, trying to respond to crises. And that's, that's not proactively acting, that's reacting, right? And so, like, so often, and it's not because they don't know it's better to be strategic and proactively act and plan and whatever, but it's just like, they feel like there's no other choice, right? Like, you're just, you're bombarded. And so, you wake up every morning with just an avalanche of stuff coming at you, and you have no choice but to just react and respond, and to just put out all the fires, you know?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  It's a barrage. Yeah.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  A barrage of everything, right? But there is a different way. Like, and there is a way you can get a handle on things, and then start to move the needle in a different direction, so that pretty soon, you're putting out fewer and fewer fires, and pretty soon, you're moving in a different direction, where instead of being constantly reactive, you are taking control. Now, don't get me wrong, like, it's, it's not real. We can't control life. Like, if you think, if you think you can, like, take control of, like, a completely messy world, like, you're fooling yourself, you're delusional. So, I'm not saying that. But like, we don't have to be in this constant state of reaction. Like,

• 8:48Speaker 00

  so many people find themselves all the time. Like, we can take a measure of, like, proactive, actionable control over, like, how we interact with our teams, how we interact with our workplace, how we interact with our own schedule and our day. And there's always going to be some, you know, some, some new crises that arise. There's always going to be some new things that require our immediate attention. But it doesn't have to be constant, and it doesn't have to be like 80, 90, 100% of our time, right?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yes. So, if I could speak to that. So, not everything is a crisis.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  And that is something that, there are very sensitive leaders who think that one bad comment on social media is a crisis. And it might not necessarily be. So, what you need to do is take a pause. And that's the key, to not react to the news immediately. And so, often, I would have somebody run into my office, and they would say, so-and-so needs this immediately. And me, having experience, I would understand, okay, that order is going to change in 10 minutes. So, I paused. And I knew that that was not going to require

• 10:04Speaker 01

  my action, because it's going to change. The information's going to change, the situation, and the leadership might even change. And so, I would know in 10 minutes or so. And then, sure enough, within 10 minutes, the phone call would come, and they'd say, hold, hold, hold, don't do that. And so, that is just something that I learned throughout the years. The pause to research is key. It might sound counterintuitive and not productive, but just even five minutes of research, for instance, Exhibit A. So, you get a bad review. Your Google alert goes off, and I hope everyone has a Google alert. It's free. Set it up for your business.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Your Google Alert pins and you have a one star review. Oh no, they just ripped you apart. And so immediately you're thinking crisis, crisis, crisis. And you want to fire off an immediate response, um, offering them the sun, the moon and the stars. Um, but maybe the crisis isn't the review. Maybe the crisis is your frontline chef. Maybe it's the supervisor. Maybe it is, um, the seating. So if you pause and research the situation that caused the comment, instead of immediately reacting to the comment, that allows for clear communication and problem resolution. Does that track?

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we just have a clear head, right? When we pause. So like when, if, if there is a moment where we, because we have that initial, uh, fight, flight or freeze response, right? When, when something happens and we feel that immediate emotional response. Um, and, and maybe, maybe our initial response is the correct response. And maybe that is the way we, you know, uh, should respond. But often not, and often that's not going to be helpful. And so like pausing, um, collecting ourselves, taking some deep breaths, doing even a minute or five minutes of research, like just thinking about it for just a moment.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Um, just checking ourselves, checking, you know, like, why am I feeling this way? Um, just asking that question, um, just reflecting for a moment, maybe talk to a couple of people, throw, you know, just, just throw your, throw your reaction against a couple of other trusted advisors, you know, like.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  John, were you going to speak to the employee involved?

• 12:33Speaker 00

  You know, just do a couple of basic things like that, right? Like once, once you, once you do a couple of those basic things and it doesn't take a lot of time. Um, it, it's amazing like how quickly.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Your.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  All you need to do is. Yeah. All you need to do is approach with curiosity. Don't approach with anger. Don't approach accusatory. Just approach the situation with a mindset of curiosity of problems, resolution. Like, hmm, I wonder what caused that review? Was it a difficult customer? Quite possibly. I mean, everybody's going through stuff these days. And so, um, staying human is not a feeling. It's a, it can break it down into a procedure. You can break it down into steps, if you will. Um, empathy, because it's not being taught, um, we actually need to teach it. Cause we're going to be losing it with AI.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Um, as things become more automated and the language becomes more automated and as kids are playing video games where it's bang, bang all the time, we're going to have to get back to teaching empathy. There are kids in college right now that don't know how to say hello to the opposite gender. There are kids going to their first job that don't know how to answer the phone. Let's say hello, this is Silver Smith Works.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Uh, they don't know how to take messages. And as AI automates, um, the boring stuff, we're going to be able to get back to that customer service. We're going to be able to get back to that human connection. And I think that's what, um, an advantage that business owners can take. And we have an open window right, right now. The big corporations are going to be spending billions and millions of dollars on getting back customer trust. And, um, small business owners, um, your front door mom and pop shops already have trust in spades. They don't have to do that. So this is where they have the advantage. So I think that this could be a great golden era of reconnection if we take advantage of it.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and you, so you've already started to talk about this. Well, let's dig into it a little bit more. But you, you say that business leaders, um, they need to stay human. They need to think clearly. They need to build trust. Always important, of course, but especially in this AI driven world. Um, and I mean, was it just, just the last few days that the, the guy from Anthropic, um, you know, laid out the prediction, you know?

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Oh, it was a doomsday prediction. I have it. Hold on. It's crazy.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Doomsday prediction by 2030 or whatever, like kind of crazy stuff.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  I actually pulled it out because I was like, what did he say? Um, Daniel, uh, the former OpenAI governor's researcher and whistleblower. He put the odds of AI going horribly wrong at 70%.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay. So the guy, not Anthropic, but the guy from OpenAI, doomsday prediction, 70%. That, that's going to go horribly wrong. Then we're going to have some sort of like Terminator like, like dystopian future.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  So here's, I'll give you an example of how alien the AI brain is. So as I was building a chatbot, um, to help business owners, uh, because I wanted to give them access to me and my process and my procedures, um, without having to pay, you know, $200 an hour for a PR consultant. And so I was like, what if I could make a chatbot that was me? And so as I was programming the parameters, um, in the AI world, they talk about alien brain. And so I fed it all of my stories, all of my war stories, you know, plane crashes and, um, you know, people passing away and, and what to do, um, when there's an incident in your workplace and things like that.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  And, uh, media prep, all of the things. And I just was loading it for weeks and weeks. And I thought, this thing has my voice. It knows me. So I sent it to my friends and I said, put it through the wringer. And one of my friends, because she is hilarious, she said, she told my chatbot, help, my boss just, um, oopsied his pants in front of everyone. And my perfectly programmed AI chatbot told her, hmm, that's going to be a problem with the arrest in the morning news.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  So I had to add a parameter that bodily functions are not an arrestable offense.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  That is the AI alien brain. AI is a librarian right now. It will show you the world. It will not do the work for you. The agents will go out and do the work as you tell them to. Um, and then a gentic is the manager managing all the agents doing the work as you told them to. So the human still needs to think critically and be in the loop, be very aware, checking its work. And be very aware of the words and details that it's putting out and then thinking about how to communicate the end result. And so, um, I, you know, the doomsday predictions, I'm not going to fly with that. I, I am going to stick with, we can do this.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  I am, I'm not buying into doomsday predictions. Um, I think I have seen AI and I've seen the good that it can do and the good that we can use it together. I think that if we can band together and properly, um, I don't, I don't know if it needs guardrails per se, but I think if we can just spread the word that we need to stay human, man. That's all I, I mean, bottom line, that's my message because, um, as long as you are using it to critically think, it's incredible. It's a tool.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So we need to stay human. You've mentioned several times human in the loop, right? Um, yeah, I like how you frame it as the alien brain. Like there are just so many times where it, it, it can seem perfect. And it can seem like it's just giving you amazing results until it doesn't. And then it gives you something crazy, right? So.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  It's just looking for that thumbs up.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And so, so it, it really does require that human in the loop. Um, and, and we have to keep that, that, the humanness and the empathy and just all of that connected with how we're utilizing it, um, for sure. And coming back to the, the crisis communication piece. So, you know, we can leverage AI to help us in a variety of ways. How, how do you, how do you see us using AI as a tool in crisis communication?

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that question. Research. So let me settle in here. Um, uh, so what I use AI for, um, in a crisis situation is research of past responses, um, in news media. What, um, say for instance, a food recall. Happens a lot, right? You can have AI, you can prompt it to act as a market researcher and do a media analysis of past food recalls and companies that responded well, according to the public, and companies that did not respond well, according to the public, and then provide

• 20:03Speaker 01

  me a, what you would feel would be an appropriate response. So, when it comes to trust in the public in crisis communication, the public doesn't expect you to be perfect.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  But you do need to answer the question, what would a reasonable person expect you to do?

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, what would a reasonable person expect? You know, they're not going to expect you to hand out money, but they are going to expect you to take their product back for a refund.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  And so, there's things like that that you can do, and then you can click on the links, you can read the public's reactions. You can use AI, so I also use AI to monitor, because often crises in public trust come from sources that the business owner isn't even aware of. For instance, Reddit, you might not be aware that there's a Reddit thread for bakery owners. There is a Reddit thread complaining about gaming developers. You might not know that thread. And so, if you build a, an AI agent to crawl for you and provide a daily synopsis

• 21:16Speaker 01

  of your business name or your name, then it would pop up in your email, and then it would notify you if something happened. It would be like a Google Alert plus plus.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  Hmm, hmm, hmm. Yeah, well, that's really cool. I hadn't thought about that.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, so describe that a little bit more, like how, how, how, how is that different than a Google Alert? You described it as Google Alert plus plus. Yeah, so, so what, how, how would that function different than a Google Alerts? Because Google will, will scan and like kind of scrape to, to do the Google Alert. How, how would an, an agent go about doing that to, to give you a heads up when, when there's stuff being said, like?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  So a Google Alert is indexing its Google websites. And so, it indexes websites that are newsagents and on the Google. AI, however, you'd be surprised to know that AI crawlers tend to prefer Bing.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And so, the AI crawlers, they are scouring the entire internet. And so, they're diving deeper into chat rooms. They're diving deeper into pages that are not clearly catalogued as well. And so, they provide a more thorough internet scrape, if you will.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Got it. Okay. Well, that's, that's a really good tip then. I hadn't thought about that. Excellent. So, so yeah, so I think, obviously, we're, we're all using AI in a variety of ways. Some people are using it more in more sophisticated ways than others. Research is definitely a good tip, using it for notification purposes, so we can stay on top of, on top of things, you know, I think is, is a really good tip. I know at the time, we're gonna have to wrap up here in a few minutes, but maybe as we start to wrap up, what, what would maybe be, you know, one, two, maybe three tops kind of final takeaways for the audience of like,

• 23:25Speaker 00

  what can we do leveraging this new technology? Like, what can we do to ta, stay on top of crisis situations, crisis management, stay proactive rather than being constantly reactive? So that we can, we can establish trust, we can, you know, really maintain those good, healthy relationships with people in the workplace?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  My favorite mentor said to build a bank of trust. And so, what that means is, just like your bank account, you go in and you make little deposits, right?

• 23:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  And so, if you deposit that trust daily with your stakeholders, with your colleagues, with your, with your boss, that means checking in, how are you today? How's your son? I think, sorry, my parent is very excited that the mailman showed up. I have a whole zoo here. So forgive my parent, but if you can make those deposits with your customers, you know, delight them with a surprise now and again, you know, just inspire and delight when you can. I think Gary Vee says that, you know. And so, I think if you can build up that bank

• 24:38Speaker 01

  of community trust, just by being present, automate what you can, so you can spend more time with your customers and your coworkers and your colleagues. And take advantage of that time. Don't use it to pile on more work. Don't use it to, you know, and I think that that is something that is very important, because then when you need to, when there is a crisis, when something does go wrong, when the freezer breaks down, and you need to borrow your neighbor's, or the grocery store's freezer, you know, so you can maintain your restaurant, you need to make a withdrawal from that account of community trust. They'll understand and they'll be there for you. And so, that is one of my favorite takeaways.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  My other favorite takeaway is to just pick three things a day. I have spent my whole life being burnt out and running around putting out fires. Some of them were real. I'm not gonna lie, that one time, the, um, and, you know, I spent my whole life in, I swear, a dreamal fatigue, just constant burnout. And I finally learned, at the end of my career, I would start my career with 10 things on my list, and I would be so excited, and I would be so excited, and I would cross them off, and I'd be like, yes, I got that done, I got that done, I got that done. And then what I found is throughout the day, I would add things to the list that were other people's priorities, and then cross those off. Just

• 26:06Speaker 01

  to feel good. And then, I got to the end, and I realized I spent all day chasing my tail, and I couldn't get strategic.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  But it, the list never ends. There's always more things to add.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so, what I learned is pick three things. That's it. You only get three. You only get three. And just try to do those three things. And then you will feel accomplished, and it will enable you to think and get strategic. And that's the key.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  I love it. Great tips. Great tips.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Thank you. I appreciate it, John.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  Leah, this has just been a great conversation. I know there's so much more we could talk about, but you have a great book that people can go get to dig in even more. As we wrap things up for today, I just wanted to give you a chance to share with the audience how they can connect with you, find out more about your work, where they can find your book, and then give us a final word for today.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Oh, I appreciate that so much. Thank you for listening to me and my lovely parent. But my book is Don't React, Act, available on Amazon. And I also have a website, it's called whenitallgoeswrong.app. So, check me out on whenitallgoeswrong.app. And I teach AI courses there. I do custom AI business consulting, where I come into your team and I look at your process, the AI tools that are allowed for your agency or AI policies, and I can help your team understand what prompts will work for them. And yeah, we do it keeping the human in the loop. And then I also can do some keynote speeches. So,

• 27:37Speaker 01

  I'm here for you at your service whenitallgoeswrong.app. And John, I appreciate your podcast. I love, I'm an avid listener. I am one of those people that puts on YouTube in the car and hits play and then drives. Don't tell the cops, but yeah. So, thank you for the content that you bring and for keeping us thinking. I appreciate you and all of your guests.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Oh, I appreciate that. Well, Leah, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. I encourage the audience to reach out, get connected, find out more about what Leah can do for you. Check out the book, check out the other opportunities to connect and work with her. And as always, I hope everyone can stay healthy and safe, that you can find meaning and purpose at work each and every day, and I hope you all have a great week.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  Thanks for joining us for this episode of the podcast. We hope you stay healthy and safe, and please join us again soon.