I was fortunate to take a crisis management course in Business School taught by Michael Corasiniti an adjunct professor who could not have been more suitable to teach the course. Mike didn’t look for crisis, but it seemed to find him. First, he took over the research department at Keefe, Brunette & Woods, a boutique investment bank near the top of the World Trade Center shortly after 9/11. Then, he moved to become Chief Investment Officer of Pequot Capital, the world’s largest hedge fund at the time and would ultimately be forced to liquidate under a barrage of SEC investigations. And to top it off he was also on the Board of Directors at Tulane University during Hurricane Katrina.

Mike’s lectures burned into my memory a firm sense of Do’s & Don’ts in a crisis:

Do

• Be as sensitive & empathetic as possible to those negatively impacted

• Over communicate: Provide updates frequently & be willing to answer unfiltered questions. As a leader, it’s critical to lead from the front & share details

• Talk about what you did, you are doing and what you will do now

• Proactively share what you know, you don’t know & what you are seeking to ascertain

• Be on the front lines

Don’t

• Make it about yourself

• Let others do the talking for you

• Provide assurances about the future, particularly timelines, that are not explicitly known with high confidence

• Try to minimize the crisis

• Speak in generalities

• Stay back in central headquarters

The COVID-19 crisis provides the opportunity to look at four personalities (from a New York lens) and contrast how they have communicated through the crisis: Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Mayor Bill DiBlasio & of course the man who sucks all of the oxygen from the room: President Donald J. Trump.

The Good - Governor Andrew Cuomo

Governor Andrew Cuomo has earned high praise, adulation & rumors of a long-shot, last-minute Presidential bid due to his handling of the crisis, particularly his daily briefings. In addition to projecting a commanding presence (they don’t call him “King Andrew” for nothing), his briefings have been ripe with detail, full of facts and useful information to serve the public that have made his daily Press Conferences appointment viewing. He has shared the details the public wants to hear, hasn’t been shy about demurring when he does not have answers and has steered questions about larger implications back to the matter at hand. And with his interviews with his brother (who ultimately got sick) provided a necessary and useful personal touch.

He has however allowed himself to get pulled into discussions over timelines, picked unnecessary fights with the President (who makes it not to at times) and allowed discourse to focus on an unknown future. He also could have been more forceful and persuasive in his arguments for more Federal budget support for New York given its contributions to the Federal tax base when congress was more willing to spend as opposed to later when the crisis eased and many returned to their partisan ways.

The Best - Dr. Anthony Fauci

With his long-years of expertise, command of the details & endearing New York accent, Dr. Fauci has become an accidental hero (and villain to some). In addition to being in the details and being fact-driven in all his statements, I admire most that when pulled into details of what will happen and when he always gives the same response: “The virus will tell us.” This attitude demonstrates that public decisions will be made based upon the information at hand and the situation, not artificial timelines or even educated guesses from the nation’s leading epidemiologist

The Governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy has also done an outstanding job of humanizing the victims, remaining focused on the big picture and avoiding fights with the President. I don’t know how he’s even functioning after effectively getting off the operating table from serious cancer surgery to return to work for his state, skipping his own recovery and deflecting all praise for doing so.

The Bad - Mayor Bill DiBlasio

Personal Disclosure: I’m no fan of his honor.

While admirable that he is a champion for minorities and the poor, Mayor DiBlasio’s focus on protecting the underserved has had disastrous public health consequences. He was behind the curve and dragged his feet in closing schools, suspending alternate side of the street parking rules and taking other actions to protect New Yorkers when the City’s other leaders all urged action well in advance. It’s likely there will be a historical accounting of his performance that will blame his indecision & narrow mindedness on parochial issues for the death of thousands.

In the midst of the crisis, the Mayor equipped himself well at times for focusing on the need for PPE and ventilators, but his spats with the governor about opening schools and narrow focus on trivial issues revealed him as a poor manager of the City’s bureaucracy. He also looked the other way as the homeless emptied from the shelters and took over the subways, endangering the many critical frontline workers who rely on them to get to work, all while setting a terrible example to travel back-and-forth to Brooklyn without any practical reason for doing so when he asked New Yorkers to stay at hom. His focus on trivial issues aligned with his political ideology was an unnecessary distraction that exposed him as a poor crisis manager.

The Ugly - President Trump

Just go back to the “Don’t” section above and he’s checking all the boxes!