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Also by Eric Dezenhall:

Wiseguys and the White House, January 2025
Hardcover / e-Book
Damage Control, April 2007
Hardcover

DAMAGE CONTROL
By: Eric Dezenhall

Why Everything You Know About Crisis Management Is Wrong

Portfolio Hardcover
April 2007
On Sale: April 19, 2007
224 pages
ISBN: 1591841542
EAN: 9781591841548
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction | Self-Help

Contrarian, in-your-face advice from two masters of crisis management

Much of the conventional wisdom about damage control and crisis PR is self-serving, self- congratulatory, self-deceiving—and flat out wrong. And no one knows it better than Eric Dezenhall and John Weber, who have helped countless companies, politicians, and celebrities get out of various kinds of trouble.

If you’re facing a lawsuit, a sex scandal, a defective product, or allegations of insider trading, other PR experts will tell you to stay positive, get your message out, and everything will be just fine. But happy talk doesn’t help much during a real crisis, and it’s easy to lose sight of your real priorities. In a trial, for instance, you might want the whole world to think you’re a wonderful person, but all that matters is whether twelve jurors think you’re guilty.

Dezenhall and Weber are especially dismayed by flacks who compare every problem to the famous Tylenol/cyanide episode of 1982—supposedly proof that making nice, admitting fault, and taking immediate corrective action is all you need to do. In reality, Tylenol’s situation was nothing like the typical corporate crisis.

The authors share many powerful lessons, including:
• the difference between a nuisance, a problem, and a crisis
• when you can’t get them to like you, get them not to attack you
• it’s not about facts; it’s about symbols
• the best case studies are the ones you’ll never hear about
• good deeds won’t position you out of the line of fire

Damage Control will reveal what works, what doesn’t, and how to really survive a career- threatening situation. It will be the definitive book on this subject for years to come.

Media Buzz

Campbell Brown - June 4, 2010
Talk of the Nation - February 4, 2010
Talk of the Nation - September 6, 2007
Talk of the Nation - July 25, 2007
The O'Reilly Factor - May 16, 2007
Morning Edition - May 10, 2007