Christopher Lehane

I apologize to both authors and publisher for being late with this review. This is an excellent book, rife with examples ranging from a charter school affiliated with KIPP that had to close its doors to Major League Baseball (both as an organization and some of its specific players) to politicians such as Al Gore to corporations including Maple Leaf Foods and Murray Enterprises to city departments such as San Francisco's transportation entity which faced a crisis caused by complaints over the welding of parts for the reconstruction of the Golden Gate Bridge.

What makes the book so excellent is its presentation of both successes AND failures in the 'crisis management' of these several entities, and that the authors underscore the differences between the two. Given that in some cases the differences are over a very fine line, I am not persuaded of the viability of ALL of the examples of success compared with failure. But in most cases I was able to pick out WHY one individual or corporation successfully managed its crisis whereas another did not. It has to do with leadership habits which unfortunately are not being given enough play in business programs at universities. In an age where, as the authors say up front, crisis is the norm and is to be expected (in large part because of a paranoid populace), this book is EXTREMELY important.

I docked the book one star for its challenges with prepositions--they seem to have thought it okay to omit them on several dozen occasions, and the editors failed to catch this--and for its failure to update its account of Alex Rodriguez prior to publication, since they cite him as an example of successful crisis management when we know that he has not been. I would have liked to have seen examples of college football coaches--they did include Paterno along with Penn State's general leadership--and also examples dating somewhat farther back from 1998 or whenever their first example was set, because crisis management has certainly been a factor in organizational success and failure for several centuries. Even an analysis of Louis XVI--or of Andrew Johnson or Samuel Chase--in light of these principles would have been a great addition to a work that is already excellent.… (más)

I received a free copy of this book through the Library Thing Early Reviewers Program. All opinions expressed are my own.
I have to say that this book is not exactly what I expected, through no fault of the authors. I’d hoped for more examples of PERSONAL disasters and how to mitigate the damage from those. One personal disaster example that comes to mind that is covered in the book is how to handle things when one accidentally hits the “reply all” button on an email rather than just replying to one person. That is something that any of us could have happen.
Most of the examples of disasters mentioned in Masters of Disaster: The Ten Commandments of Damage Control tend to address MAJOR faux pas that the average person wouldn’t encounter. Since I’m not the president of a company or country, or a global fortune 500 country, I felt that this book didn’t really address any of the things that could go wrong in the day to day work of the average blue or white collar worker. That isn’t to say that there was no helpful advice in the book. There was plenty, but in my opinion you have to REALLY mess up on a global scale for it to be useful.… (más)

Believability or trustworthiness, is the sine qua non of effective communication. If one loses the trust of the audience, it matters little what is said for it will not be believed either way. Bad things happen. That is inevitable. How one responds when put under public scrutiny can ruin one's career regardless of blame.

Masters of Disaster presents a very clear process for communication in times of crises, accessible to the layman and handy for the specialist at the same time. This is not a spin-doctor's manifesto, nor is it a 'get-out-of-jail-free' manual. It would be a valuable addition for every politician or businessman's library.… (más)

This book certainly has much valuable information and insight into crisis management and damage control. Definitely not "my field", so I was not able to evaluate whether the book is comprehensive, or whether important concepts were left out.

After having read the book, my impression is that crisis management and damage control are far from being a science. Some of the precepts presented seem to be in mutual contradiction - react quickly, don't react quickly - and sometimes the resolution of such conflicts seems to be an admonition to "do the right thing", depending on the specific scenario.

In some ways, the book is an easy read - highly colloquial, with plenty of stories to exemplify the points being raised (though sometimes the connection between the story at hand and the point seems a bit obscure). On the other hand, the language is HIGHLY steeped in American culture, which makes me wonder how intelligible this book will be for readers less familiar with it. Events, institutions, acronyms are mentioned without introduction or explanation. There is extensive use and abuse of clichés, metaphors and mixed metaphors, making some passages seem a parody of the book itself. Sometimes such "passages" extend through large sections of chapters.

The book ends with a summary of sorts - the "user's manual" - which collects the highlights of each chapter in a slightly more generic way, though the "corollaries" in it still are particularly obscure.… (más)