Say it Sister...
Lucy and Karen, two 40-somethings, are always chatting about life, and all that it has to throw at them, and now want to share their raw, honest conversations with you. Their journey of self-discovery and healing is something many of us can relate to. We all possess a unique power within us, but life’s trials often knock us off course. They have the tools, the courage to speak up and simply say it as it is, so you might feel seen, and understood and gain practical tools and techniques for self-discovery and personal growth during the changes we experience.
Say it Sister...
Crisis Management: Emma Streets on Feminine Wisdom and Resilience
Emma Streets is a powerful woman. One of the only women operating at board level in Crisis Management. Emma has spent more than a decade in integrated brand and specialist PR agencies, as well as consulting at Board level for one of the UK’s largest companies.
Navigating crises requires not just skills but a keen intuition, especially from women in the industry. In this episode, we explore the importance of feminine wisdom and the profound impact mental health has on leaders facing turbulent times, alongside key strategies for managing crises effectively.
• Emma Streets shares her journey in crisis management
• Discussing the value of women's perspectives in crises
• Importance of mental health for leaders in high-pressure situations
• Transparency and authenticity in communication
• Practical tips for staying true to your values during crises
• Emphasising the role of community and perspective in decision-making
Hello and welcome to the Say it Sister podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Lucy and I'm Karen, and we're thrilled to have you here. Our paths crossed years ago on a shared journey of self-discovery, and what we found was an unshakable bond and a mutual desire to help others heal and live their very best lives.
Speaker 1:For years, we've had open, honest and courageous conversations, discussions that challenged us, lifted us and sometimes even brought us to tears. We want to share those conversations with you. We believe that by letting you into our world, you might find the courage to use your voice and say what really needs to be said in your own life.
Speaker 2:Whether you're a woman seeking empowerment, a self-improvement enthusiast or someone who craves thought-provoking dialogue, join us, as we promise to bring you real, unfiltered conversations that encourage self-reflection and growth.
Speaker 1:So join us as we explore, question and grow together. It's time to say say it, sister, hey, hey, hey. Sisters, let me ask you a question. Can you open your phone or turn on your TV without seeing yet another news story about a scandal, a crisis, a cover-up? In a patriarchal world, the default to facing crisis is protection, defend and attack. We lean in, we listen, we learn. That is the woman's way. So we say, sisters, when you find yourself in a crisis, bring all your feminine power, wisdom and discernment with you.
Speaker 1:We are delighted to welcome Emma Streets. Not only is she a leader in the space of crisis and reputation management, but she is also one of the very few women in the industry. After two decades working in communications and PR, emma has expertise across a huge breadth of industries and channels, from social media to crisis and online reputation management. She now specialises in crisis and reputation at an independent UK agency. Her clients vary hugely, from multi-million corporations to the charity sector, healthcare and even individuals. Emma has spent more than a decade in integrated brand and specialist PR agencies, as well as consulting at board level in one of the UK's largest companies. So before we meet Emma, morning Karen. How are you sister?
Speaker 2:before we meet Emma morning Karen, how are you sister? Hi, my brain is buzzing today. I've got a lot going on in my head, but that's just normal for me. So, yeah, that's how I'm doing. I'm literally I feel like I just want to go out and conquer the world, and it's only 10 o'clock on a Monday, so I just need to calm down a bit. What about?
Speaker 1:you? I know I'm feeling exactly the same, um, and I said goodbye to my daughter yesterday as she flew off to Prague for, uh, maybe six months before I see her again. So I'm so proud of her, but equally, I'm like my baby, um. So, yeah, loads of different emotions and thoughts going through my head too, but, um so, but why don't you tell me a little bit about how you met Emma?
Speaker 2:ah yeah, I don't even know what year it was. I was coaching, so I was already into my coaching world, but I did a little bit of freelance work working with Emma. Um, somebody had said to Emma who she worked with she was head of the PR department in the company and said oh, why don't you?
Speaker 2:get Kazarin to come in and do, which is what people used to call me? Why don't you get Kazza in to come in and do, which is what people used to call me? Why don't you get Kazza in to come and do some, you know, help you out with some freelance work? And so I did. And I went in, went in and worked with Emma and the team and it was just really, really nice to work with a group of women who were still in the industry that I used to be in, and yet I felt like there was this like open space when I worked with Emma, like she was into the sort of same things that I was into, so we had this sort of like spirituality, yoga, reiki connection. And I do remember that I'd just come off a course, I think at the time, and I used to set a mindfulness bell and every 15 minutes this bell used to go off, it used to go ding and I used to say to myself bell, and every 15 minutes this bell used to go off, it used to go ding and I used to say to myself put my hand on my heart and say I am here.
Speaker 2:And I used to do this in the office and I said to her I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I'm doing a personal thing to remind me to stay present. It won't affect my work and she was like really, really cool with that. Um, so that's one of the memories that just came up as we were talking, and it was just nice to work on exciting things that were very, very different to the work that I was doing as a coach. Yeah, feel like I was part of something. Yeah, that was my take on it. How was it for you, emma?
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you know what that's so funny? Because I remember that exact same memory of you with the bell, because we were in a very kind of very sort of again we were quite young, you know young fast-paced agency environment in the PR industry. There was a lot of loud music. It was quite, you know, intense as a working atmosphere. It was great, but it was very kind of creative and dynamic and, yeah, every now and then the sort of hip-hop or whatever soundtrack would be punctuated by this very zen bell and I loved that.
Speaker 3:I was like, yes, this is, this is actually really benefiting me in my day-to-day life. So, yeah, I have a similar memory and likewise, I think Karen and I just connected, um, straight away, I think like say, we've got a lot in common. I remember going for lunch and I'd had a really busy day with you and with you you were just very calming and just talking about you know, we're talking about auras, I think, and things and things, and I was like gosh, I love this because I couldn't have this conversation with anyone else in my working environment at that time. And yeah, that was a long time ago, probably 10 years ago maybe.
Speaker 1:I've got to say, karen and I met last Thursday face to face and I kind of gave her that exact same feedback. But I love working with her because she's just got this serene energy that just really grounds me and calms me. But I know that you don't work at that agency anymore, so why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do now and, like that, I suppose, the big impact of your work?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. So now I guess my, yeah, my life is quite different. So I've worked in PR communications for a long time now 20 years and within that time span I've covered lots of different types of PR. I feel like there's lots of kind of subsections to the industry, also worked in social media, but now I specialize in essentially being the person that brands will call when they are having a challenge to their reputation.
Speaker 3:So that could be, you know, a crisis that's as traumatic as you know, a disaster, a major accident, an incident with their operations, um, through to a cyber incident, which is obviously still a huge issue, but on a slightly different plane, when you're talking about online versus in person.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, it's about having those conversations and the impact that I have, I think, is very different to the rest of my career in that I think you're kind of the person that's brought in when the company's in, you know, in a negative situation, and so you have to really instantly cut through to a very human level to be able to communicate with people effectively and really just to provide them advice and be a sounding board. I'd say. You know, obviously I'm brought in as an external consultant alongside my colleagues at the agency that I now work at to very much be part of the decision making team within a company. So you're straight away liaising directly with the CEO, the leadership team, the people director, often the legal team as well. So you're kind of speaking to people on a very um high level, but also you're having to open up and connect with people on a very human level very quickly. So I guess that's the kind of main impact um of that role.
Speaker 2:I mean that's a big shift from where you were when we met. You know, I also know you're a mum as well, so you've got you've got a daughter who's the same age as my daughter. So like a lot changed for you and and from going from like the cloud nines and the, you know, like the beauty and the fashion industry, into crisis management, like how did that even happen?
Speaker 3:Well, I think definitely. You know I have worked in those sorts of industries very kind of lifestyle consumer but then I've also worked in corporate communications for quite a long time in my career. So after I worked with Karen I kind of revisited the corporate side of my experience and it was really when I spent a lot of time I spent four and a half years working in-house for a major UK logistics company that crisis management and reputation management became very much part of my day-to-day focus. I think when you're working in corporate PR, in particular crisis PR you're always very aware of it. It's always talked about.
Speaker 3:People are kind of like, oh, is there a crisis? And everyone's always a bit in awe of it, I guess because it doesn't happen usually, very often, and it would normally be certainly like my bosses and my bosses' bosses in the past that would be dealing with those situations. So it's not something that you would necessarily dive into early on in your career. It's something that you kind of build up to and for me, working inside a brand and dealing with those situations just gave me a totally different perspective. And then when I decided to move back to external consultancy, I knew that I still wanted to stay within that same environment of dealing with issues and incidents like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm guessing that somehow you must have had a lot of deep skills inside you, because this asking uncomfortable questions I mean, as coaches we have to do that all the time. You know there's a point when you go, oh God, this may not land. But it's a really important thing that needs to be named. And so, being able to work with the uncomfortable, even traumatic, what prepared you for making that shift again and how do you like, how do you manage that? And how do you manage it with your clients as well, like, what do you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think you know what it would be remiss to say that walking into a crisis situation, um, you know, if you haven't experienced that in your personal life, for example, then it would be quite alien. I think, obviously, people that have, certainly in my case, experienced quite challenging times a lot when I was younger and had quite, you know, difficult scenarios that I lived through through my younger years, I think that definitely has prepared me for that and also probably you know, if we're being serious about it kind of made me quite accustomed to that sort of environment and living in that space. But I think being able to use that experience for a positive and actually know that you can then empathise with people in that situation, that's definitely something that I think has developed in me over time and certainly also, I would add, since becoming a mother. I definitely felt a huge perspective shift for me in terms of being able to really empathise and relate to people. Shift for me in terms of being able to really empathize and relate to people, but also knowing that I had to still look after me because I had someone depending on me and I had to still look after my own mental health and my physical health as well.
Speaker 3:So I would say you know a lot of people's reaction when I tell them what my job is is oh gosh, it sounds really stressful and it sounds really intense. And I think the difference is because it's not happening to me, it's happening to someone else. I'm giving them perspective, I'm able to provide, like I said, a sounding board and enable people to kind of reflect back on their decisions and support their decisions. So I think there's still scope don't get me wrong to pick up on some of the stress and and I have to be quite strict with myself in terms of being able to compartmentalize situations know when to you know, understand what's my stress, what's someone else's stress, that I've maybe accumulated over the, the day or even the working week, um, so that's something that's come really with kind of time and experience in in doing the role and it's definitely still not something that I get right.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm the first person to say that I still get. You know, in the context of my personal life, I'm still quite a stressed out person. So I wouldn't want anyone to have this illusion that you know, oh, I'm just this very calm, measured, logical person. Yes, I can be that person at work in a personal situation. Obviously I'm still a human and have that um stressful reaction all the time. So it's very different for me, kind of separating them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that because it's that you know like, yeah, the way that we are at work is often different to the way that we are at home. The way that we are with people in the office can be different, um, so there's different parts of ourselves that come out at different points in time, and I don't think anyone. I always feel very skeptical if somebody says oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I've got everything sorted out, but how long? Like you know, I am um, evolved, or all of those words that you hear a lot. You know people talking about. I'm always like, no, I don't believe you. I'm sorry, I don't believe you. That's not real life. We've all got things to work on. We've all got things that we still need to learn, otherwise I don't think we'd still be alive. You know, like that, that growth, um. But what I love about what you're saying is when you need to find that space of inner calm and peace, you can yeah, I think so, and you know what.
Speaker 3:It's not just about you as well. I think one of the interesting things and one of the things that I really love about my role is that I get to really collaborate with people on a different level. So certainly it's not just me. You know there's a small team of us where I work, but we still very much discuss issues live. So you know, I think it's not. You know you don't have the weight of decisions on your shoulders and no one does. You know, even CEOs, leaders of major companies, they still have people that they communicate with and seek that counsel out with to then make a decision. So I think it's very much about being able to share that and understanding and saying look, I just want to sentence check this, what do you think? And that's very, again, that's been very beneficial for me.
Speaker 3:It's also enabled me to connect with people, and I think it's great when you can connect with people on that level and have that really honest discussion, because often in these situations, when we're talking about crisis, you don't have the time. You know you can't wear a mask and if you've got, you know we're making decisions here sometimes within hours and minutes, rather than weeks and months, and I think that's the main difference in terms of the industry that I've worked in previously, where you know you can be having these meetings and you have like monthly meetings or quarterly meetings, and you're planning strategy months and months ahead, but sometimes, with crisis, you're literally thrown in or brought in at the last minute. You're dealing with people that you may never have met before and people that aren't your usual contact, for example, within a certain brand. So, yeah, you've got to really connect with people quickly, um, but it's very much a collective.
Speaker 1:It's not just one, one person can I share a story, um about a crisis that I faced, um in my workplace. So just to caveat this, I think, because I, um, I, we, uh grew up in the 90s where it seemed to be crisis after crisis and scandal after scandal, I think deniability and blame became the way that these issues were handled, and I think, as part of the Gen X and millennial journey, we became wildly sceptical of a lot of the corporates and the governments who were coming out with this stuff. And over 10 years ago now, probably 15 years ago, I was working for a major utility and they'd actually I think it was the Sunday Times had planted an undercover reporter as a field sales rep to really understand the practices that were going on. And this big Sunday Times expose came out and it dished the dirt on everything, even like the, the MD's affair with somebody and the bullying tactics and etc. Etc, et cetera that went on.
Speaker 1:Now, in that moment, obviously there was the shock, and then there was obviously fear and all of those kind of you know, survival instincts came in and it was absolutely about lie. How can we cover this up? How can we make ourselves look good? And so that was the immediate response. I don't know whether they had any crisis management teams coming in or whether it was just the legal team. However, what was really interesting was, as soon as they dealt with that initial crisis, the next thing they did was to create an internal team to say how did this happen? How did we allow this to happen?
Speaker 1:And again, the thing that I found most interesting about it was it was a team of women that were put in place as this crisis team to try and put things right. And in reflection, I now see that we needed a bit more of that feminine energy, that ability to really ask those difficult questions, to stand in the fire but also to be, I guess, listeners and curious people following their intuition. And I just wondered because I'm starting to see now a lot more companies are leading with saying I'm sorry or I got it wrong. Nothing like back in the Enron days. You know where it was complete denial. So what are you noticing? Are you seeing that there's a shift in the way that crises are being handled, and whether you're using your own feminine intuition and wisdom to navigate this. Sorry, that's a really long question and a story, but hopefully, you've picked that up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think I would say, obviously, pr is traditionally a female dominated industry in general. However, crisis as a specialism, is traditionally very much more male dominated, actually, than women, and I think there is a really interesting conversation about what women bring to that scenario and how they differ to men. I mean, you know, know, I do work with males and females and I think we're a great, we provide a great team. I think, you know, definitely using your intuition in these situations because, as I said, you don't have much time, so you have to be able to get the truth from people. I think transparency is 100%, much more important than it's ever been because of things like social media. It's really obvious, but people now expect to obviously see the real side of a brand and I think more people expect that now, certainly the younger demographics. So there's definitely a move away from that culture of covering things up and certainly, within my role, we just wouldn't be able to do our jobs. I think you know I'm very comfortable and I actually find it very empowering and liberating to walk in and ask difficult questions, because that's my job and I've been kind of given this license to kind of freely speak to these decision makers and people, and you know, really that's what clients I think want, and I think because they don't necessarily have that or they've not been used to that in the past, and I think it's very important to be able to to cut to the truth of an issue really quickly. So I can totally see why.
Speaker 3:I think sometimes, being a woman, it does give you a different dynamic in the room, but you also have to be often very much in your masculine.
Speaker 3:So I think you know often I mean, every crisis is different but if there is a common denominator, I think it's making sure that a company is being as honest as they can while still feeling authentic to themselves, and so to do that, you often have to have difficult conversations and also make decisions. I think a real risk can be if people want to satisfy too many people or feel like they have to be a certain way and it's like no, sometimes you have to be quite direct, and sometimes you do have to have difficult conversations internally as well as with external stakeholders. So I definitely think there is a lot to say about being transparent, being honest, but as someone who is effectively behind the scenes, you have to be able to get the full truth from people when they're in the middle of an incident, because you can't manage it effectively if you don't have the full story. And it's really as simple as that, and we'll be very direct about saying that to people that we work with and they fully understand that.
Speaker 2:They fully understand that and, yeah, I think it offers the opportunity for some really great conversations and really interesting discussions that you know they might be in a short term issue or crisis, but they take those lessons forward and then you often see people revisiting their strategy and their plans for the longer term, because it has to involve transparency and you often have to change things that have been done in the past to be able to move forward effectively yeah, I want to talk a little bit about mental health here, because in my experience of crisis management when I was in PR, I realised we had an incident with the Princess Trust and we'd done a lot of work with the charity and we had done something with Kelly Osborne as the face of um, this project that we were running and it was about raising money for the princess trust, and she was a self-esteem ambassador and she said she made a comment because she was on, she was on dancing with the stars at the time she'd lost a lot of weight and she said, um, when I have Saint-Tropez on my body, um, I feel 10 pounds thinner. She said skinnier, something like that. And so that comment was used as a negative story for young people to say that you know, um, she was promoting a certain body image, that kind of thing, and because it was the princess trust and Kelly Osbourne, you know it had, like it had a big sort of um impact in terms a story. If you've got someone saying that on the street, it's not going to make a big story. Nobody has died, there hasn't been, you know, an earthquake or something like that. So this is something that was like.
Speaker 2:You know a comment that young girl made, because of who she was. It became serious and we were having to have all these discussions and say, you know, we haven't. You know, that's her personal opinion. It's got nothing to do with us, but it's her personal opinion. So a comment was put out. You know that was basically saying um, that was you know something along those lines. This was her comment.
Speaker 2:But the story just blew up and it was like going all around the world and because we'd done this amazing image of Kelly Osbourne, that was the image that was used and it was across the board.
Speaker 2:And so you know, the biggest thing for me, the most interesting thing for me, was the impact of that on key people within the business, so that the CEO, the MD, sales director because it was like managing that level of things, because it was like we don't need to be putting any more comments out we made our comment.
Speaker 2:You have to let the story run, um, but what was really even more interesting about it is that the sales increased, so people went and bought more products and so for us, really the real, real, you know, traumatic element of it was really just managing people's stress levels and mental health during a week of you know traumatic element of it was really just managing people's stress levels and mental health during a week of you know of something that was quite major for the company. Um, and managing that level of things which is something that I hadn't really considered before, you know, and people not sleeping and you know, really, really stressed and wanting to comment and wanting to comment, it's like, actually, once you've made a comment, you need to just let the story run I think that's often the hardest part for people.
Speaker 3:I think often, you know, letting them feel comfortable with the fact that you don't necessarily have to keep saying the same thing, you don't have to keep repeating yourself. You know, if you, if you put out a good response, I think that can be quite difficult for people because I think people stress about not want. You know, actually, do we need to keep saying sorry? Do we need to keep doing this? And I think that that can be quite difficult because it's counterintuitive to what people want to do in that moment. So I think that's a really interesting point and often a lot of our advice is around look, you don't need to say anything further, just stand, you know, stand firm and hold your ground Once you've obviously apologised.
Speaker 3:I think in terms of the personal impact, then definitely, you know, again, it kind of goes without saying really, but with the impact of social media, everyone is able to view what people are thinking about them instantly and I think it can be really difficult sometimes to switch off from, you know, reading the comments and Googling things.
Speaker 3:And certainly I think it's it's a whole other dimension to being a leader within a business that people now face because they're so much more visible and it is, you know, it can be personal, and I think it's difficult to tell someone don't take things personally, because, knowing your boundaries, definitely, you know, I'm by no means an expert in the field of mental health or wellness or anything like that, and I think the companies that we work with and certainly the company that I work with has very well trained now people, departments and I think, generally companies are genuinely getting really good at understanding this and being able to offer the right support, and I think that's great getting really good at understanding this and being able to offer the right support and I think that's great.
Speaker 3:Um, but yeah, I think it does add this other dimension to what we do, in that, again, you're dealing with people, you're dealing with emotional people. Often these things come down to human decision and I think it's very easy for people to take things personally and blame themselves, when actually you know you've got to look to the widest network and support in these incidents, because everyone's human at the end of the day, and I think we've got this interesting dichotomy at the moment between technology and people talking about AI and you know how the world is getting so much more, less human, when actually you know, being more human is probably the way to combat that. And certainly within this context of crisis management, for me it's always got to come back to the people and what's the impact and just being very aware of that, the total, kind of 360 view of that, whether it's the client, whether it's your own team and then your end kind of audiences as well right, oh, just a very quick one.
Speaker 2:What tip can you give to a listener who is um struggling right now is in their own field of a crisis, something to get them back into their power?
Speaker 3:Gosh, ok, certainly disclaimer. I don't think to me. You know the kind of certainly not the personal kind of life, except I think in terms of taking lessons from crisis management, I'd say one of the key places that we start is just making sure that whatever we say is going back to what's authentic for that brand. So I would say it's about figuring out what are your values. So if it was a brand, we would look at their messages and say, like, what is true to them, what is true to you? So, once you understand your values, I think and I've personally done a very valuable piece of work on that in the last couple of years with another coach and that really helps cement for me what my values are and that helps keep me in alignment.
Speaker 3:So I think if you have difficult situations and it's easier said than done, but if you can look back to what your values are and then you're making decisions and moving from a place that's in alignment with you, but you know that's something that you have to keep checking back in on.
Speaker 3:So I would say, you know, stay true to you. Also, try and get perspective, because that's again what we effectively bring to the table in the context of crisis comms. So find someone that you can soundboard with and that you feel comfortable with doing so. And also, I'd say the last thing will be timing, so don't feel rushed into making decisions again. I think sometimes people feel like, because the world is so fast paced, for example, they have to react really quickly, and that's not necessarily always true, um, and I think it's more about thinking out your decisions and certain situations. Timing can make decisions for you as well. So I think don't discount that and just kind of slowing down, basically, and looking at what is is really true to you to try and come back to your own own values well, thank you, that's brilliant, but thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2:If anyone wants to know more about you or just check out your work and what you're doing, they can find you on linkedin under your name, emma streets. And yeah, um, here's to a wonderful year ahead for all of us, hopefully and um time to really tune into our intuition, our feminine wisdom and really find the right resources that we need to live our most empowered lives. Thank you, thank you so much so.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening, and we can't wait to welcome you next time.
Speaker 2:Until then, use your voice, journal, speak or sing out loud. However you do it. We hope you join us in saying it's a star.