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To say it’s been a long time since I last posted to this blog would be an understatement but I did want to share with everyone a piece I wrote for the Council of PR Firms’ “The Firm Voice,” regarding the lessons learned from the A-Rod steroid controversy. I’d love to hear your comments about how A-Rod and his team handled the crisis - what would you change? did he look a little too polished, etc…

A-Rod’s Steroid Crisis Offers PR Lessons: One of Baseball’s Top Brands Pivots into a Textbook Proactive Crisis Management Stance

Spring not only signals the blooming of flowers and a brighter sun, but also the start of the baseball season. No man is happier for opening day than Alex Rodriguez, also known as A-Rod, so he can get back to the game he loves after he exacerbated the current crisis in professional baseball and put in jeopardy his own position as one of sport’s all-time greats, after he admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs from 2001-2003.

From executives to managers, business leaders have often told their own employees to “learn from past mistakes.” Luckily, A-Rod heeded this advice after a report from Sports Illustrated broke the news that he had tested positive for taking steroids.

Barry Bonds, the man Rodriguez is chasing in the record books, first staunchly denied ever taking steroids but eventually morphed his statement, telling reporters that he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs after the accusations grew.

Rodriguez then learned from his one-time Yankee teammate, Andy Pettitte, who took a different approach from Bonds by admitting his use of performance-enhancing drugs in a press statement. But once the evidence against Pettitte was overwhelming, he decided to organize a press conference to admit his guilt.

Both Bonds and Pettitte were poster children for what not to do in a crisis, which helps explain why A-Rod took a different approach than his colleagues—a proactive one, and one that was a textbook example of how to respond to a crisis. Following are some of the top line crisis lessons and takeaways from the A-Rod imbroglio that those of us can apply to our own client and issues management work:

• Create a game plan. The first step in any crisis should be to bring together a team of trusted advisers to decide on immediate and short-term steps in responding to the crisis at hand. Although it is against our natural instincts to shy away from responding to media inquiries, no matter how truthful or false the reports may be, a roadmap to recovery that includes a clear strategy with support from focused tactics must be the priority. Rodriguez’s advisers likely gathered as much information possible about the extent of his steroid use so they could be armed with facts to create a solid foundation to develop their plan.

• Develop key messages. Any crisis plan, as smart as the strategy may be, will not be successful without focused messages. The messages should be in the person’s own words, concise and—most important—accurate. Rodriguez’s messages needed to display transparency, but in a controlled a disciplined manner. Notice how he has not mentioned the word “steroids” or discussed what specific products he has taken in his various interviews. This was not done by accident. The focus of his message, the one he wanted replayed on ESPN over and over again, was to express that he was sorry for taking performance-enhancing drugs.

• Train your spokesperson. Although every spokesperson should be media-trained prior to a crisis, spending time going over the basics of interviews will help build the confidence of the spokesperson. Training a spokesperson during a crisis also provides an opportunity to thoroughly test messages with an aggressive mock interview.

• Take control of the news cycle. Once the plan has been completed, a strategy has been set and the messages have been tested, the next step would be to implement an outreach strategy by taking control of the news cycle. For A-Rod and his advisers, they wanted to immediately stem all the negative coverage by agreeing to an interview with one of the most respected baseball reporters in the country, Hall of Fame reporter Peter Gammons. Having Gammons ask the questions almost guaranteed A-Rod that he would receive a balanced but tough interview.

This is where A-Rod learned from Pettitte’s mistake of not being immediately proactive. Rodriguez went straight to a TV interview, knowing that visual cues and body language can accomplish more than just providing words—underscored by A-Rod holding back tears and the genuine emotion he displayed while answering Gammons’ questions.

Despite all of the correct steps taken by A-Rod, his plan has been far from perfect. Many of his answers during various interviews lacked clarity and relied too much on his crafted messages. With that said, his genuine emotion and openness to speak about his steroid use has been a giant step forward in recovering his image.

Rodriguez will continue to face tough questions for the rest of his career and likely the rest of his life—but with support and help from third-parties validators such as his teammates and community leaders, he has the freedom to focus on hitting home runs and winning a world championship—two things Barry Bonds will likely never have the luxury of regaining.