Bad News Rhetoric

BUS 284

What can WE do for our company in a situation like this?

Rhetoric Question for the Class

• How does a company show "Professional Ethos" with clients/customers? What does this phrase mean to you and have you seen this at work?
• What does it mean if a company's message or statement was "kairotic"; what does the kairos of the message mean to determine whether it is well-received?

Appeals in Rhetoric...

BP Oil Spill (2010)

Written Skills

In a Consulting Memo written for the company you should address: 

• Details of the Problem; acknowledge, disclose
• Create empathy towards situation
• Establish GoodWill (practical and expressed)
  • company policy change
  • refunds/replacements
  • community outreach
  • changes in service

Communication Skills

What is a Buffer Statement? As a Company you should...

• STATE THE PROBLEM USING ALL RESEARCH/SOURCES

• ESTABLISH EMPATHY TOWARDS THOSE AFFECTED

• SHOW COMPANY/CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS - PROMISES

• HELP TO EASE THE SEVERITY OF THE ISSUE

Models for Bad News Delivery Planning and Writing

How will you respond to a Bad News situation?

• How recent is the situation? Is it internal or external with the company? Company and Clients? Company and the General Public? Other corporations? 
• What information has leaked to the news media and social media outlets? How can we lessen the impact through efforts online and through other communication?
• How can we go before the public effectively and use all forms of rhetoric to lessen the impact of this incident?

Bad News Company Representatives Activity (in groups)

• In preparing for writing corporate-level consulting memos and delivering a practice Bad News Message as major projects for Module 2, we will be working in groups to handle a situation represented by five specific companies that you have been hired to represent. 

• As a team of 3 or 4, you will have to designate team roles (based on skills) and work together to provide an effective bad news delivery campaign. These team roles include: 
  • Leading Research Analysts (1-2 members)
  • Visual data representative (1-2 members)
  • Chief Spokesperson (1-2 members)

Whole Foods Apology (Oral and Written)

• WHOLE FOODS CONSULTING MEMO - ACTIVITY IN PAIRS

  • Based on your original posts, get with a nearby partner and have them read your post and discuss what stood out about the Whole Foods incident and video apology. Did your partner pick up similar or different things in the apology?

  • Together, read through the Whole Foods Consulting Memo (in our Canvas Resources) and identify the main features of this kind of report: what features appear to establish professional ethos? What phrases and examples indicate that buffer statements, empathy, goodwill and other effective bad news rhetoric is used?

​WE WILL DISCUSS TOGETHER AS A CLASS.

Brainstorming Consulting Memos as a Written Report

• Using our major activity from Monday, the Bad News Representative Activity, review the material that you worked on as a team and think about how you would organize this content into distinct sections of an opening rough draft (use the Whole Foods memo as a guide, and the Documents you worked on as a team for Monday). Underneath the post you made for today’s Whole Foods response use this space to propose a rough draft template that fits the company you worked for.

• In your Reply (to your post) you could highlight the major sections that might go into a consulting memo for this company (e.g. will you organize content based on rhetorical appeals, ethos, pathos, logos, kairos? Will you organize solely on effective/ineffective bad news rhetoric used? Will you design unique titles for your section headers to promote reader curiosity? Use this space for yourself/peers to see how you would organize content in a written corporate apology. What have these resources helped you learn about writing bad news rhetoric in written form?