What would you do if you were the head of corporate PR for Enron? Everything was wonderful until it turned into a nightmare. Everything you believed has been expose as a lie, a gigantic lie. Quitters never win, winners never quit. Right? How about the notion of getting out of a bad situation? How do you reconcile these two competing mantras? And what about your own personal PR and brand?

1. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
KEVIN M BRETT
APRIL 30, 2013

2. HEADING TO THE „SLAM?‟
“Fear of criminal prosecution trumps any fear
of public humiliation.” – Mark Palmer, Enron
managing director of Corporate
Communications
Ken Lay, 45 Years
Jeffrey Skilling, 24 Years
Andrew Fastow, 10 Years

3. ENRON MISSION STATEMENT
“We treat others as we would like to be treated
ourselves…We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful
treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness and arrogance
don‟t belong here.”

4. MORE THAN A CHARMING CEO, BRAND
AND DAZZLING RETURNS
“Thanks to the Enron implosion and the
subsequent rash of accounting and corporate-
governance scandals, the credibility of any
corporation is no longer assumed. It must be
earned.” – Matthew Boyle, Fortune Magazine

5. SOONER OR LATER
"Now more than ever, the communication person needs to be
an advocate for ethical behavior because the truth always
surfaces sooner or later. The longer you indulge in the
practice of maintaining a cosmetic shell, the harder it is to
recover when the shell eventually cracks.“ -- Len
Brooks, University of Toronto

6. DRINKING YOUR OWN BATH WATER?
“My job was to tell the truth, but if I don‟t know it, don‟t
represent it,” – Mark Palmer, former Enron managing director
of Corporate Communications
“Listen to the lawyers when you get into a crisis.”
“It shouldn‟t be the role of corporate communications to be
the examiner or the investigator of the company.”

7. “ASK WHY?”
Financial Performance?
Environmental Protection?
Value of Employees?
Lack of Sorrow About Layoffs?
Unwilling to Meet with Stakeholders?
Don‟t Care About CSR?
Guilty of Greenwashing?
Guilty of Pinkwashing?

8. ASK YOURSELF?
Winners never quit; quitters never
win…
When you are in a bad situation,
get out of it…