Slow Horse Crisis Management

One of my favorite books and TV series is Slow Horses, created by Mick Herron. It deals with a group of MI5 (British domestic security) agents who are the rejects of the intelligence world. I have affection for the “slow horses” because there are parallels to those of us who, for some reason, went into damage control.

In the 1980s, when I co-founded our company, there weren’t really crisis management firms. Characters like me didn’t quite fit anywhere, at least not in the corporate world. The few of us who did this kind of thing had some politics in our background but were no longer in that game. We weren’t conventional marketing types. We weren’t lobbyists or publicists, and we definitely weren’t lawyers. We were the ones, you know…over there. Nobody knew quite what to do with us. Gary Oldman plays the part of such a character brilliantly — and he’s a mess, not a polished operator.

Herron’s “slow horses” are technically a part of MI5, but no one wants them — unless it’s absolutely necessary. For most of my career, crisis managers were discretionary warfare or “tiger teams,” as the series calls them. We were called in to do specific things that nobody really wanted to talk about in part because we didn’t fit into any particular discipline, in part because the outcome of our fights rarely ended in clear victories, and in part because some of the things we did didn’t look great in memo form. Opposition research, finding surrogates, and fighting the media come to mind.

A related analogy I think of involves what I learned a few decades ago when I began working with the defense industry. I was surprised to know that many military leaders don’t want to fight; they want to advance in their careers. Fighting is risky and unpleasant. Many who get ahead in the military are very good at politics. Then there are the “warfighters” — the people tasked with combat — and a lot of folks don’t want them around. Crisis managers are the warfighters of the communications and consulting world.

I understand the discomfort with discretionary warfare, really. The older I get, the less flippant I am about conflict. I don’t want to see anybody get hurt. Nevertheless, I understand that the nature of conflict requires that there are opposing sides that must fight one another. Today’s businesses and institutions are so besieged by guerilla-style attacks that they’re often just looking for a gentle snowfall in the form of soft PR.

We will never return to the era when everything had to be memorialized in an email after a meeting where twenty-seven people took detailed notes that could end up in the Washington Post. Nevertheless, today’s executives would do well to inquire about how fleet-footed tiger teams that reported directly to the CEO, general counsel or business unit chief worked in the heyday of crisis management. It was much more efficient and effective than the cumbersome “stakeholder” bureaucracies we see today.

If you want to get a feel for this kind of thing in its most entertaining form, read and watch the Slow Horses series.

Dezenhall Resources is a leading consultancy specializing in high-stakes crisis management and strategic communication. With decades of experience, our firm is adept at navigating complex, controversial issues for a diverse clientele, including Fortune 500 companies, high-profile individuals, and non-profit organizations.