In big trouble? Better call a 'fixer'

On the ABC drama "Scandal," Kerry Washington plays Olivia Pope, a "fixer," someone who cleans up reputations after major screw-ups.

The show is set in Washington, D.C., ground zero for image-polishing. But the Twin Cities area has its share of fixers, too -- although they prefer to be called experts in crisis management (sounds less noir).

Not every case they take involves malfeasance on the scale of a Secret Service prostitution debacle. Yet they've helped clients face all sorts of public backlash, including chemical spills, legislator drunken-driving busts, and corporate executives caught with a hand in the cookie jar or all over an assistant.

"What we do is sort of like how the MASH guys did surgery," said Jon Austin, a seasoned crisis management troubleshooter, who started his own firm several years ago. "We're not necessarily going to make the patient look pretty; we might even leave a big scar. We might not have a good bedside manner, but we work fast and we're skilled enough to save the patient."

Given all the ways that individuals and businesses can taint their images, or have them ruined by others, crisis management is probably a secure career. It's certainly gotten more challenging since social media offered instant global access to embarrassments.

"No matter what your transgression is or how isolated you think it may be, the odds are almost 100 percent that there's a camera or cellphone catching it," Austin said. "If it's salacious or interesting enough, chances are it's going up on the Internet somewhere, and it can be spun all kinds of ways. If it doesn't happen mechanically, there are all sorts of people who know how to jump-start a story."

There are also more outlets for information than a crisis manager can control, he said.

"When I landed in the Cities in 1991, if you wanted to spin a message, you talked to seven or eight news outlets and you owned the message. A lot of the brakes that used to be on the system have been taken off. Now people are getting their information from so many sources, it's a free-for-all."

Since completely covering something up is virtually impossible now, if you mess up, you have to own up, said Paul Omodt, former head of crisis management for Padilla Speer Beardsley. Both he and Austin separately, and briefly, represented disgraced auto dealer Denny Hecker earlier in the history of his legal and financial troubles. Both voluntarily ended the relationship.

"You can't fix it without being honest," Omodt said. "Hecker was easy to get along with, but you can't not disclose everything to your crisis counselor."

Omodt, who has had other high-profile clients, compares his job to that of an emergency doctor.

"When you're dealing with a crisis and you've done enough of them, you actually become calmer and it's more relaxing," he said. "I have a brother who works in the ER; it's like that. Once you get used to seeing bloody gunshot wounds and can keep up the pace, it becomes like problem solving, it's actually pretty fun."

He said regional differences, stereotypical though they may be, can sometimes affect how he advises clients.

"East Coast people who have gotten themselves into trouble tend to be, 'So what, I did it, now how do I get through it,'" he said. "Midwesterners are more circumspect; they feel more guilt or shame."

Remaining calm

After they get clients to 'fess up publicly, the fixers coach them on how to behave when under an unfavorable spotlight.

"Whether it's a self-inflicted wound or a natural disaster, it's all about how you respond to adversity," said Kathy Tunheim, head of the Bloomington-based public-relations firm Tunheim and Associates. "Acknowledge the mistake, figure out what you have to do to make good and it will develop over time. A short timetable doesn't have to drive everything."

She also counsels her clients to stay focused on the facts or "you just start responding to successive waves of inquiry, and you lose your perspective on how to make it through."

What does it take to be a good fixer? The ability to think quickly and remain calm while clients are panicking is a given, but also to be "really frank," she said. "When an organization is in a state of shock or defensiveness, it's human nature to think you should step lightly, but in fact it's not the time for that."

A good fixer also has to be tough. While they often are part of a larger public-relations team, the job they do isn't exactly public relations, Austin said.

"There's value to what they do, but the skills don't always lend themselves to combative contests," he said. "It's hard to faze me. Mr. Wolf, the cleaner in 'Pulp Fiction' played by Harvey Keitel, he's my idol."

Quick response crucial

David Krejci, head of digital media for the Minneapolis division of the international PR firm Weber Shandwick, spends a good part of every day monitoring and addressing what people are saying online about clients.

"Instead of a press conference followed by the company's response in tomorrow's paper, you're having 24-hour dialogue with everyone, everywhere -- the media, the public, people who like you, people who don't like you."

As an example of how quickly social media can send public goodwill hurtling downward, Krejci cited what recently happened to the popular fashion label Lucky Brand. Someone using the company's logo sent e-mail to thousands of customers, phishing for credit-card numbers. Lucky was excoriated in the comments section of its website by angry people unaware they had been scammed.

"The company had a response up within three hours, which is incredibly fast turnaround time by corporate standards, but it was already too late. Damage was done."

Matt Kucharski, the executive vice president who now oversees crisis management at Padilla Speer Beardsley, said that "if a company has done something bad, people are going to find out," Kucharski said. "Paying someone to try to bury the news on page 5 of Google does not work," he said.

Still, he points out that social media hasn't been all bad for crisis management.

"On the plus side, we now have an immediate opportunity to hear what people are really thinking," he said. "When Tiger Woods crashed his car into the tree, we knew within an hour. Every company should be listening to what's being said about them online. There's no excuse not to these days."