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Preparing for the Inevitable with Hannah Thompson-Weeman
41 Plays7 days ago
Preparation, transparency and trust are leadership imperatives in an industry where scrutiny is constant, and reputations can shift overnight.
Hannah Thompson-Weeman, President and CEO of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, joins The Cultivating Leaders Podcast to unpack what it really takes to lead through crisis in food and agriculture. With deep roots in dairy and a career spent navigating high-stakes issues, activist pressure and reputational risk, Hannah brings a calm, strategic lens to moments leaders hope never come. Drawing on decades of industry experience, she explains why crisis preparedness starts long before something goes wrong and why culture, credibility and clarity matter more than any single response.
Hannah explores:
- The value of a crisis plan: crises don’t discriminate by role or size, and preparation allows leaders to respond with speed, confidence and intention rather than emotion.
- Building a reputation: how investing in employees, communities and transparency creates a “trust bank” leaders can draw from when challenges arise.
- Leading under pressure: the leadership qualities that matter most in a crisis include empowering teams and managing emotions that unintentionally amplify the problem.
This episode invites leaders to rethink crisis not as a communications moment, but as a reflection of culture, character and long-term leadership choices.
Want to hear more from Hannah? Check out her blog here!
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About The Cultivating Leaders Podcast
Real stories. Practical advice. Tangible growth. Join The Cultivating Leaders Podcast, brought to you by Agriculture Future of America, as we explore what it takes to lead in food, agriculture, and beyond. Whether you’re just starting out or leading at the highest level, this podcast is your go-to resource for leadership that matters. Listen now and start cultivating your leadership journey.
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Purpose
00:00:02
Speaker
If you are doing the right thing and you are taking care of your people and you are taking care of your community, even if, you know not to undermine my entire message because the plans are essential, but doing the right thing is is going to help you as much if not more than having plan.
00:00:19
Speaker
Welcome to the Cultivating Leaders podcast, where we get inside the minds of leaders to harvest great ideas and lessons that help you grow as a difference maker in food and agriculture.
Guest Introduction: Hannah Thompson-Weeman
00:00:29
Speaker
I'm your host and curiosity captain, Nicole Ersing.
00:00:32
Speaker
We are joined today by a communications guru and crisis response expert for a conversation around one tool every company hopes they never have to use, but should have handy in their toolbox.
00:00:43
Speaker
Hannah Thompson-Weeman is the president and CEO of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, a national nonprofit working to safeguard the future of animal agriculture.
The Mission of the Animal Agriculture Alliance
00:00:51
Speaker
She's an expert in communication strategy, crisis response, and industry engagement, helping producers and companies navigate some of the toughest conversations facing food and farming today.
00:01:02
Speaker
Hannah, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to dive in. Me too. I'm so glad you're here. What did we miss from your very quick bio? What is something that someone wouldn't know about you if they just looked you up on LinkedIn?
00:01:13
Speaker
ah Well, that's that's a good question. i feel like I'm not really that interesting. But one thing is that my, and if you're you're seeing me, and my literal and figurative background is in dairy. So being involved in the dairy industry is what brought me to a career in animal agriculture. so showing dairy back in the day was quite an active dairy cattle judge, especially after i graduated from Ohio State. did probably a dozen county fairs in and a couple summers there, which was a good time. So I work in all of animal agriculture now, but dairy really has my heart.
00:01:48
Speaker
love that. Always good to have agriculture roots background. So Hannah, I gave a little description of it, but can you explain what the Animal Ag Alliance is and the work that you all do?
00:01:59
Speaker
The Animal Agriculture Alliance is a five zero one c three nonprofit, and our mission is to safeguard the future of animal agriculture and its value to society by bridging the communication gap between farm and food communities. So I want you to think for a second about something that you have seen or read about agriculture, obviously for us specifically animal agriculture, but could certainly apply across the industry, in the media, on social media, maybe even said by a friend or family member that was just blatantly inaccurate.
00:02:28
Speaker
And um you're probably thinking of at least one example, if not a whole list. And that is why the Alliance is here. We're here to set the record straight and correct the narrative around animal agriculture, particularly that means modern large scale animal agriculture. And we're working on issues like animal welfare, responsible antibiotic use, sustainability and environmental impact, and human nutrition and the role of meat, poultry, dairy, eggs, and seafood in a healthy, balanced and sustainable diet.
Hannah's Background and Crisis Communication
00:02:57
Speaker
Probably what's most unique to the Alliance and really the juicy stuff is our monitoring of adversarial voices. Unfortunately, there are groups and individuals out there who just don't believe there is a way to ethically and responsibly raise animals for food. So the Alliance has a deep history. We've been around since 1987, and we keep a close eye on those animal rights and environmental activist organizations, their strategies and tactics, the players, the funding, so that we can inform the industry about how to navigate those challenges with farm security as well well as reputational management.
00:03:32
Speaker
I did not realize that the Animal Ag Alliance has been around since 1987. Wow. A lot of people don't. We say we're the best kept secret sometimes. And for for some reason is that you hope you don't have to use our resources or work with us. But we are glad we're here, glad to be here and have that deep history in the issues that we monitor.
00:03:53
Speaker
So Hannah, did you ever think like when you were a student at Ohio State that you would be working in crisis comms and crisis response and like reputational management? I came to this really my full time internship that I had between undergrad and grad school. I was an intern at CO Next, or formerly Charleston Orwig, now CO Next, and I was on the reputation management team, which meant I got right into it with writing crisis plans and helping some really major clients across the meat industry, particularly in animal agriculture, prepare for crisis situations. And that's really what lit my fire for this type of work. It led to me doing my graduate thesis on crisis planning in Ohio's dairy industry. And it really tied into obviously always being aware of animal rights activism. And especially when I was an undergrad at Ohio State was when there was an issue on the ballot. which was in kind of response to animal rights activist campaigns. It was creating the Animal Livestock Care Standards Board or Livestock Care Standards Board in Ohio that was meant to stave off ballot initiative campaigns from groups like HSUS. So I really had a bit on the outskirts of these kinds of issues and it was that internship that really dug me in and led to me doing my thesis in this work and wanting to focus on this portion of ad communications.
00:05:21
Speaker
So we're going to get into some fun things for any comms nerds listening. But if you are someone who is just in the agriculture business, why it does why does crisis communications matter to people who are leaders?
Crisis Planning & Management Strategies
00:05:35
Speaker
Crisis situations, unfortunately, can affect you regardless of where you sit in the industry and what your role is. From my perspective, what we mainly work on at the Alliance are issues that are driven by activist campaigns. So it might be an undercover video. It might be a quote unquote expose in the New York Times. But there are a lot of other crisis situations. It could be a food safety issue. It could be an employee worker health and safety issue. It could be a natural disaster, a supply chain disruption. You know, folks in the beef industry are following President Trump's tweets that who knows what what they're going to say when and what that's going to cause across the industry. So no matter where you sit, you are unfortunately, or fortunately, these can be great opportunities, going to be affected by some kind of crisis situation. and it's the job of us on the communication side to make sure that you are prepared in where you sit.
00:06:30
Speaker
Actually, just a few weeks ago, I sat on a panel at the American Ag Law Association. that was why attorneys need to know. And I asked the group You know, raise your hand for me if these words sound familiar about a crisis plan and a contact tree. And this room of attorneys was like, ah we don't we don't know what we're going to be having to do with this on the legal side. So we need to be involved. So you might not be the author or the keeper of the crisis plan, but you need to know what your role is, because crisis planning is all about allowing us to react more quickly. We all know this in the social media world, the expectations of consumers and customers is an instantaneous response. So we need to do the work in times of calm. That's going to allow us to be more nimble. And that means that you, regardless of where you sit in the industry, you need to know what your role in managing the situation is and be empowered to carry out.
00:07:21
Speaker
So how do you even begin to think about what like what are potential crises that the business could have? How do we begin to plan for those? Like, okay, we're in a time of calm right now Where do you even start?
00:07:35
Speaker
I encourage people to put their paranoid hat on to think about what do I absolutely not want to happen? What is the number one thing that I don't want to deal with? Basically, it's that question of what keeps you up at night?
00:07:48
Speaker
And you need to ask various people at various parts of your company that same question, because the answer is going to be different. One time when we were navigating an activist legal issue, I asked an attorney that was involved and I said, what's the worst that could happen?
00:08:03
Speaker
And he talked for about 30 minutes and I haven't slept the same since. So you have to ask people, okay what what should we be preparing for and what should we be preparing for in five years? So really think about what could impact you and what's impacted others in your industry. At the Alliance, again, our focus is a lot of activist issues. We get a lot of give a lot of presentations trying to do this exact thing of just raising awareness of, look, there's been an egg farm in Northern California that had 500 activists bust out to protest there. That is a doomsday scenario. That's a worst case scenario, but it was a reality for one farmer. So what are those things that are happening in other parts of the industry that, again, i hope it never happens. That's my hope for your crisis plan is that it's the best document that you've never used. But you have to think about what could be those scenarios that you can start preparing for.
00:08:56
Speaker
Have you ever worked a crisis that actually turned out like maybe it was a hot fire immediately, but had a positive outcome? One of the the challenging things about being in reputation management is that it's impossible to like run the scenarios and say, well, we did nothing and it went fine, or we did all this work and it went fine, but maybe it wouldn't have if we hadn't put in all that background work. So sometimes it's hard to know where things would have gone if you wouldn't have intervened.
00:09:24
Speaker
I think one example, and also kind of an important thought, and they're really kind of blurring these days, but there's the idea of an issue versus a crisis. where an issue might be a longstanding thing, it's big picture, it's affecting you, maybe let's say sustainability. So the environmental impact of animal agriculture is a longstanding issue. That's a conversation that's going to keep going on. Whereas a lawsuit because of allegations of how you're handling manure storage is an emergent, that's today, that's a crisis. But those things really are kind of blurring these days. So I would say one that kind of walked that line was our engagement around 2020 in the UN Food Systems Summit, where we heard from various folks across animal agriculture of, hey, the UN n is taking up this Food Systems Summit. It is going to have a lot of conversation about dietary guidelines. And there's a lot of initial concern based on the players involved that it is not going to be positive news for animal protein in the diet. So we and several of our members and international counterparts worked
00:10:28
Speaker
very fervently during this time. And it was, you know, 2020. the event ended up going virtual, which was helpful for our ability to engage. And every time there was a comment opportunity, we commented, we hosted our own event to feed into it. And we really made sure that the voice of animal agriculture was heard loud and clear.
00:10:48
Speaker
And it ended up that the outcome was you know not as concerning. It was very high level, ended up not being prescriptive. So that was definitely a win. And there's you know been some outcomes from the FAO since then, affirming the role of animal protein in a balanced and sustainable diet. So sometimes it's and it's from the outside, people can say, well, we spent all that time and it ended up not being a big deal. Well, it wasn't a big deal because we spent all of that time. So sometimes that's something that's important to be able to capture.
00:11:18
Speaker
So if you are someone who's listening to this and you maybe you own a business or you're in a leadership role ah in a business and you have now some doomsday scenarios that are in the back of your brain, what's the next step? And how do you how do you begin to plan for crisis while also managing like the other demands of the day-to-day of the business that you're in?
00:11:39
Speaker
It's definitely a challenge. And that's part of what the Alliance does across animal agriculture is tries to keep an eye on this stuff that we know isn't top of mind. You know, you're trying to run a business, you're trying to run a farm, you're trying to get a product to customers. So you can't always be at work thinking about what what might be coming next, but it is important to do. And that next step is really... creating the steps of a crisis plan, not just a crisis communications plan that's part of it, but also a crisis management plan. Basically, what information, what resources, what phone numbers do you want at your fingertips for each of these different scenarios? Because they might be different in a food safety versus natural disaster versus worker accident versus, you know, allegations in the local newspaper whatever that might be. But you need to map out your crisis management plan.
00:12:28
Speaker
So step one is who are the folks internally who need to be part of this? So that might be ah HR, that might be legal, that might be communications, that might be senior management, that might be a veterinarian if you're a farm. So who are the people for each scenario and what is their contact information? And they should really be part of the plan of mapping this out.
00:12:49
Speaker
So then who are your internal people? Who are your external people? So that might be law enforcement, that might be your industry associations, that might be regulatory agencies. So who externally might you need to reach out to? And this is also, you know, we've got to keep this phone tree up to date because the last thing you want, pick up a phone and realize, oh, that person's not in their job anymore. That person isn't available. This isn't the right phone number. So making sure we're keeping a hand on that. And then those management tools. So from a communications perspective, it's a framework of key messages. It's press release. It's a holding statement for your website. It's a social media response policy. It's, you know, who's going to answer your company hotline and what are they going to say? It's basically making sure we're all on the same page. What do we want industry partners to be saying?
00:13:37
Speaker
And then that kind of, again, emergency response kit that buys you that two hours in the case of something coming up that then you can adapt to the actual situation at hand.
00:13:49
Speaker
So switching into a little bit of a leadership side of it, what are the qualities of people who manage crises well? Let's say like something happens and then who are the people that either you're like, yes, they're going to get out of this on the other side, or what are the leadership skills that you need to manage these inevitable things that like none of us are immune to bad things happening in our business? What are the skills needed to build to be able to manage these well?
The Importance of Trust and Culture in Crisis Management
00:14:17
Speaker
Sometimes people get too caught up in what we're going to do after the crisis and we don't think about what we should be doing now that's going to help us. And that really comes down to having a positive culture, both within your employees and then in your industry, in your community. We talk about building our trust bank.
00:14:37
Speaker
So every time you have a positive interaction, whether it's sponsoring the local football team or doing a farm tour or giving an interview to the local media, you are making those deposits to your trust bank account.
00:14:48
Speaker
That way, if there is an issue or a crisis and you need to say, trust us, you know we are doing our best, we are doing the right thing, you have that positivity and goodwill built up to draw against that your neighbors, your community, the media, they're gonna give you more of a fair shake. They're gonna give you an opportunity to share your side. Whereas if you've done nothing,
00:15:08
Speaker
and you're starting at zero or even worse, if you've already got a not so great reputation for being a good neighbor, being a good partner in your community, you're going be overdrafting from the very get go. So I think the most important thing that leaders can do is make sure they are doing the right thing and investing in their culture, both internally and externally, because who's going to get asked about this crisis at the hair salon?
00:15:30
Speaker
Who's going to get cool pulled aside at their kids T-ball game and ask, hey, what what's your company doing? What did I see in the newspaper? It's going to be your employees. So you need to make sure that you are taking care of your people and that your people are brought into the culture of your company and that they're prepared to to speak when they're asked. So having those positive leadership qualities and investing in your culture, which isn't part of your bottom line, it's probably going to cost you money. It's probably going to cost you time, but it's going to pay off both in brand and loyalty. And then also if you need that credibility built up, I think also positive leadership skills is knowing when you may or may not be the right person to be the face of an issue. So the spokesperson of a crisis, it might not be the CEO.
00:16:14
Speaker
It might not be senior leadership. It might be different based on the situation. And you as a leader need to be able to recognize that. One example, last year, there was a activist group in Denver who put up a ballot measure for citizen vote that would have banned processing facilities in the city of Denver.
00:16:32
Speaker
It would have put a lamb processing facility that handles 20, 25 percent of U.S. lamb out of business. Now, the CEO of that plant is a wonderful guy. He spoke at our conference, not a dry eye at the house. He was the perfect spokesperson for industry, but probably not the most sympathetic and resonating spokesperson in his community. So instead, they put their employees out there. They had folks who were part of this community, employee owners of the facility, who would have been personally impacted. And that resonated so much more than kind of of a company CEO coming in and talking about it second hand. So having the confidence in your leadership to recognize that you might not be the right spokesperson in the right scenario. And then also having confidence in your people. I tell people to do all these crisis plans and scenarios and then send the two most senior people out of the room and do it again.
00:17:25
Speaker
Because this is going to happen when you are not available. It's going to happen on the Friday before the holidays. It's going to happen when you're on a transatlantic flight. And you need to make sure that your team is empowered, is confident, they know what to do, and they know that they can do it without you and when to call you in so that they're, again, comfortable taking those steps. Because the last thing you want is something to sit there because nobody knows what to do in your absence.
00:17:49
Speaker
So having the right people in the right roles and having them be empowered to take action. i don't know what I thought you were going to say, Hannah, but I did not expect it to be so focused on, like,
00:18:00
Speaker
Just good leadership is such a good crisis preparation tool and such an important one is what I heard you say. i hear that a lot when we talk about that trust bank concept. I think it really clicks for people because they might think of it as, well, this is just a warm and fuzzy you know thing to do. We want to support the the kids in our communities. We're going to sponsor the local team. But they don't think about it as, oh, no, this is actually business critical. This is actually you know part of our strategy and maybe it's not going to sell more products today, but if it helps us keep our stuff on the shelf or it builds us that loyalty that we're going to need, if there is a ballot measure or something that comes and affects us and now we have this avid community of supporters. Another example um I've been giving recently is I live on the Eastern shore of Maryland and in the midsize, small and scale city of Salisbury is the headquarters of Purdue Farms and Purdue Chicken. And they are so bought into this community. The business school at the university has their name on it. The local minor league baseball team has their name on it. They donate to the the hungry. And they are unfortunately been bearing the brunt over the last year plus of a very focused animal rights activist campaign.
00:19:13
Speaker
And some of those folks came here to Salisbury to protest. And the reaction of the local media and community was so much of, you know, I laughed, I pulled the screenshots of the headlines. Every media headline pointed out there was only three protesters, you know, ineffective protests, you know, activist attempt. It was very much that this community knows that company, knows that company is doing the right thing, knows that company is invested here. So they're not going to give those adversarial voices the time of day that they might if they had a negative reputation and the local media might be looking for something negative to say about them and might give those voices more airtime. So it is a business strategy. to be present in your community and be transparent about what you're doing.
00:19:57
Speaker
Absolutely. That's such a great example of how that works. Let's run a quick scenario. I'm someone who just got a call, like, I'm in crisis, I'm a leader, and I'm supposed, let's say I've even done some crisis planning.
00:20:10
Speaker
Any tips to work through the emotions of that? Because It can be scary. It can it really can deal with like people challenges, very realistic business impacts. How do you manage through the emotions in a crisis as a leader to then execute well in in those sticky and hard situations?
00:20:31
Speaker
I think that's where the preparation comes in. that ah you know An ounce of preparation is worth a pound of the the external reaction of going through these scenarios and walking yourself through of okay, I know what to do because I've thought about them this. I know who to call. I know what the next step is. I know who my team is. And there is ah a really big importance of having a team here, both internally and externally. Depending on the size of your company, you could or should have a reputation management or crisis partner, you know, some kind of external agency. You know, the Alliance takes those takes those calls a lot in animal agriculture, but we're a nonprofit team of five. So, you know, we'll talk you through it. We'll give you high level resources, but we're not going to. boots on the ground. We're not going to media train your CEO. We're not going to write your statement for you. So, you know, knowing who to call, i think having a sounding board and somebody to say, especially us, say it's ah an undercover video situation and you're being accused of mistreating your animals, which can be very emotional because we don't get into animal agriculture because we don't like animals. You know, we care about them. We've chosen it to dedicate our career to them. So having somebody that you can call, whether it's us or whoever that can tell you, You are not alone.
00:21:41
Speaker
We've seen this happen to company XYZ here's what they did and here's, you know, it it ended up and it doesn't mean that you're doing what they say that you're doing. It doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong. So having that person to call, I think is really important, whether it's somebody internally or externally, but it does get your your blood pressure going. You know, I've been on the receiving end of a couple exposes from media outlets because, again, there's people that we're monitoring and that have a very different viewpoint than us who get really fired up about what we do. so So, you know, I don't think it ever takes away that, oh, that's my name that they're talking about. That's me or that's my company or that's what we do. You know, that that feeling never goes away. But by having that prior preparation and knowing who to call to just talk through can really help you take that pause.
00:22:30
Speaker
Well, let's not overreact because that's something we haven't we haven't talked about, but also it's important to not overreact. you know Sometimes we might get really fired up or really emotional and say, oh, we need to take this really head on. We need to be out there. We need to really take this message. But sometimes that adds fuel to the fire. In reputation management, we talk about this idea of breaking into jail. where we start talking about something that nobody else is talking about, or it's only happening in this very small echo chamber of the world. Or if you're, you know, this major national company, it's an issue that's happening in one community. And maybe you need to divert resource to that one community, but you don't need to send a press release to the whole world. You don't need to put a statement on your whole company Facebook page. So tailoring the level of response and the channel of response to the issue so that we don't in turn make it louder. We tell people a lot,
00:23:23
Speaker
Facebook doesn't know that you're liking or or you're commenting or you're sharing because something made you mad. All they know is that you're engaging with content. So the more you engage with this stuff online, the more you push it up on the algorithm and that other people are going to see it. So make sure that you aren't in turn with all that emotion that you're feeling, making it a bigger spectacle than it would have been.
00:23:43
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, that can be so tempting, especially when it feels so personal. Yeah. and that's what we tell people is you can talk about the issue without repeating the negative. There was a very major activist campaign a few years ago targeting a very well-known dairy brand that had dairy farms affiliated with it. And it was, you know, content that really got people... fired up and wanted to respond, but you can talk about calf care on your farm or on farms in general without repeating, hey, this video came out and it's not accurate. Here's how we actually do this. You don't have to say that. You can just say, hey, we're getting lots of questions about this or hey, this is something we wanted to talk about.
00:24:24
Speaker
And if somebody's seen the negative content, they'll know that that's what you're addressing. But if they have it, they'll just say, oh, cool, I learned something today. So we can talk about those themes without repeating or linking to or amplifying the negative message. And we do that at the Alliance with our social media content. If we know there's a report coming out about antibiotic use, we'll make sure we're sharing content about that that week.
00:24:46
Speaker
That doesn't mean we're linking to that report. We just know people are going to be searching for it. It might be in the media. So we want to make sure content is easy to find. So you can get your key messages out there without repeating the negative. And that's another big recommendation for companies is you need to have your key messages and your story to tell locked down before a crisis comes up.
00:25:07
Speaker
So you need to know what your story is and what you're doing and sustainability, animal welfare for, again, for our members, it's probably different for different companies and members, but the things you're going to get questioned on, you need to have that story. That was a question that came up in the the attorney's conference that we were talking crisis at a few weeks ago. An attorney was like, well, What if it's you know pending litigation? and you know our our thing would be, we don't talk about pending litigation, period, end of sentence. like Well, you could say that. Or you know if it's an environmental thing, for example, you could say, well, we don't comment on pending litigation, but
00:25:42
Speaker
Here's our company stance on the environment, everything that we've done to invest in that area. So that kind of bridging effect of, well, we haven't seen the the video that you're referencing makes allegations about animal welfare. So we can't comment on that, but I can direct you to the section on our website that talks about our values. So you need to have your story about what you might get questioned on before those questions come up so that you can push people there.
00:26:10
Speaker
Absolutely. You do not want to be building that in the midst of a crisis. It is not a fun place to be or to even have the like, especially sometimes you need photos or there's different assets that you may need during those times. And to not have anything is a really it makes a crisis even more painful than it is already. And those are are stories that you you should be telling. You know, your company should be focusing on those things. You should have something very easy to say and you should be saying it loud and proud and not just when you're questioned on it.
00:26:40
Speaker
Sometimes in agriculture, we're too humble. you know We don't talk about enough the good work we're doing. And I think that's why there's this disconnect that we're trying to fill on things like animal welfare and sustainability, because there's other voices that are very loud to fill a version of that story that we would not agree with.
Learning from Other Industries
00:26:57
Speaker
And we haven't done enough to be transparent about what we're doing and why. So that's something your company should be doing and investing in, both from a reputation standpoint and then also to to build consumer confidence.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah. If I'm someone who's listening to this, Hannah, and I am in a business that maybe hasn't prioritized this, what advice would you have for me on building a business case to say, hey, we need to spend some time on this as a group? I think probably there are examples you can find of other analogous companies or industries. Unfortunately, it's probably not too long of a Google to find examples and find realistic tangible examples to share within your company of, hey, look, our peer went through this. And, you know, we certainly hope that never happens to us, but we're not a whole lot different. You know, this could happen, whether it's cybersecurity. There's been, unfortunately, some issues of that coming up in agriculture or some kind of reputational issue or, again,
00:27:54
Speaker
safety, workers, natural disaster, there's there's no shortage of examples to point to. So come up with what those examples are and share within your leadership team. It's also, again, hard to quantify, but start thinking about, okay, what if there was a recall?
00:28:11
Speaker
Or what if we lost the trust of our biggest customer and they dropped us as a supplier? What would the economic revenue impact of that be? What if we lost you know X percentage of sales because customers no longer trusted us? So again, it's hard to run those scenarios of A versus B, but you can come up with some examples of what the economic impact of a crisis would be to justify that internally. There are also a lot of resources to to help support this that don't have to to cost a whole heck of a lot. In animal agriculture, pretty much all the checkoffs have some kind of template crisis plan that's available and staff that work in this space. Your local extension, i've found a lot of state agricultural extension services have helpful template like crisis plans. is Probably our friend chat GPT could help you get started. fact check for sure. But I'm sure you could plug in, like, get me started on a crisis plan for my industry. So this doesn't have to be a huge thing. it doesn't have to be a huge lift. You could certainly start small and then you know build from there once you get internal buy-in.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah. Absolutely. Those are great ideas. ah So what about after a crisis? Like you've been through something sucky and the maybe the storm cloud has kind of passed, but obviously you're still reeling in it. How do you begin to rebuild trust or even think about how can we learn from this and change moving forward? What should I be thinking about after the storm has passed?
00:29:46
Speaker
Sometimes we forget about the debrief. We're just so glad that it it's over. It feels like it's over, that we just want to move on. And we don't take that time to sit back and say, okay, what worked? What didn't work? What good can come out of this? So I think that step is really important to rally the troops again, bring back that same group and say, okay, what worked? What didn't work? What did we not have that we wish we had this time?
00:30:12
Speaker
What do we have that wasn't as helpful that we can revisit? And what did we learn from this? So doing that debrief, updating
Post-Crisis Debriefing and Proactivity
00:30:20
Speaker
and editing your plan, and then also seeing, okay, how could we use this as an opportunity? Is there something that is changing or you're investing more in as a result of whatever came up that you could talk about as an example, as a safety lesson learned? You know, maybe there was a natural disaster and because of that, you're now going to be installing some system that helped you manage that and other plants. So what is there a positive story to tell publicly about how you took this as a lesson learned and how can you capture that? And then also, how can you share those lessons learned with others in the industry? Because a lot of these issues that we're talking about, food safety, worker health and safety, animal welfare and the animal ag side, from our perspective, those are pre-competitive issues.
00:31:07
Speaker
So that's one thing we haven't touched on either, is that we should never try to benefit off of somebody else's crisis. Even Chipotle, who probably hasn't been the biggest friend to animal agriculture in the past, when they were dealing with their food safety issues, you know, that was something that we had to tell some of our members. It's like, well, wait a minute, you know, they're they're selling meat, they're selling animal protein, maybe we don't like their messaging sometimes, but the last thing we should be doing is using food safety as a talking point, as a benefit for us. That is what our adversaries do, and that is not a page we need to take out of their playbook. So looking at the crisis as a pre-competitive notion and saying, okay, are there any lessons from this I can take back to our industry associations that they can help others?
00:31:50
Speaker
That's great advice and good reminder because sometimes we can get caught up in the like, we're winning. And it's like, are we? No, this is this is an entire industry that we represent. And a rising tide lifts all boats and consumers do not parse the industry that way. They don't think about the segmentations or, oh, that was a different company. All they hear is negativity about milk, for example. That was something that really added a lot of fuel to that fire. And that example I gave earlier is that it was a very large farm that was targeted. And if you're at all familiar with dairy, you would know, or you would know, there are a lot of economic pressures at play. So there was some small farm, large farm dynamic that got caught up in that where some smaller producers were sharing the content as, oh, this is why smaller farms are better than larger farms. But consumers don't
00:32:40
Speaker
view it that way They don't go to the store and pick up the milk and say, oh, well, this is from a small farm, so this is good. That other milk is not. They just think, oh, I heard something bad about milk on the news, so I'm going to choose a milk alternative.
00:32:52
Speaker
So we need to to recognize that and that, again, a rising tide lifts all boats and that something negative toward one segment of the industry could impact trust in all of us. So we shouldn't be opportunistic about a crisis situation.
00:33:06
Speaker
Absolutely. Doesn't look good on any of us. Yeah, it doesn't help. Hannah, it's very clear that you're super passionate about this. How, like, what is it about this work that drives you and feels your fire?
00:33:20
Speaker
What's really motivating for us at the Alliance, unfortunately, you know, we do live in this world of crisis. We live in this world of issues and negativity and monitoring activism. And sometimes it is not, again, not the most positive thing. And when I call or text somebody, it's never good news. It's never something positive.
00:33:39
Speaker
But it's the fact that we have been that call or that text that helped someone through this and that we are so where we sit. We've seen these situations before. we know what helps, what doesn't help. We can be helpful and give good advice. So there was an activist situation where somebody was live streaming on their Facebook and they were planning to go show up at the chief operating officer's house of a processing plant. And I saw that and I called them and they were able, they had their grandchildren at their house.
00:34:10
Speaker
And because of that heads up, they were able to get their family you know out of the situation and avoid this confrontation. So it's the small wins like that. There was another one where They were trying to go to a rural legislator's house in Iowa and I knew him. He had come to our conference before, so I had a cell phone number and I was able to call and it turns out they were at the wrong house. They were at his brother's house. but he was able to call his brother. And you know getting that advance notice really is is meaningful to people. And also them knowing that somebody has their back.
00:34:40
Speaker
It's not fun, whether it's a newspaper article or somebody showing up at your house. you know that's That's not fun for anybody. So knowing that there is someone who has your back and it supports you and knows that what they're saying about you isn't true is a really impactful place to be. So i think Sometimes it's like, well, I'm sure I could go do something more positive with my time. But the fact that we're here, you know who would be watching this if we weren't? Who would have this information? Who would be that listening ear for people or the, hey, this has happened before. you know Here was the outcome. Here's what you could do. you know Being that tangible advice giver and intelligence that we have is really motivating just to be able to help people navigate through what can be some really tough times.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Knowing that you're not alone in this and being able to be that person is a very cool place to sit in the industry. ah What's the number one lesson you've taken away working with activists?
00:35:39
Speaker
I think some of what we've talked about here in terms of making sure that we're sharing our perspective and not letting those voices carry the narrative because we give a lot of presentations about farm security. Well, we'll talk about locks and motion sensor lighting and your online persona. And sometimes people will say, well,
00:35:58
Speaker
That freaks me out. You know, I'm going to go underground. You know I'm not going to talk about what I do. I'm not going share about my farm on social media. But we always say, you know, no, I want you to take the opposite away from this. I want you to be more fired up than ever, because if we are not there, this is what people are going to hear, whether it's grocery shoppers, legislators, the media, you know, this negative level of things is... what's going to carry the day. so we have to be there. We have to be speaking up and we have to do it before the crisis comes out. you know, all comes back to that idea of preparation versus reaction. When I did my graduate thesis on crisis planning in Ohio dairy, I surveyed everybody who was licensed to handle ah fluid milk in the state of Ohio about their crisis plans.
00:36:40
Speaker
And I assumed it was going to be, you know, big company, robust plan, small company, no plan. I was totally wrong. It really came down to whether they had had a crisis scenario come out before or not.
00:36:51
Speaker
So even bigger companies that had never dealt with a recall or food safety or whatever, maybe said they didn't have a plan, whereas much smaller operations that had had an issue had invested much more in this and saw the value and said, you know, nobody should be without it. So it's that idea of prevention and sharing and having you know resources built up before the issue emerged is always what people say, you know if I could do it over again, you know i wish I had done more before the issue happened so that it wasn't so reactionary. One of our board members formerly who's retired now, he always used to say this at least once in every board meeting was our definition in animal agriculture of being proactive is reacting really quickly. which is, again, guilty, like especially with abuse management, like very true. you know, we're not truly being proactive. We're not truly starting to talk about things that nobody is talking about.
00:37:44
Speaker
And I think that's something that we should be doing more of, especially from a welfare welfare perspective is again, what could we be questioned on that we're not? Because sometimes our strategy is, well, if nobody's talking about it, we shouldn't bring it up. But really, you know if it's something we believe in, it's scientifically supported, it's got ah veterinary support, we should be talking about those practices. So the first time somebody hears about it isn't a ballot measure or an undercover video.
00:38:09
Speaker
So that importance of getting out ahead of these narratives has been a big lesson. Yeah, absolutely. appreciate you sharing that. One of the things that's in the back of my mind, so I grew up ah in the natural resources industry. So my dad is a wildland firefighter. And obviously, like we see on the news in the summertime when wildfire season hits. But ah what you don't see is the rest of the year that those people are working on wildfire prevention and educating people of like how to properly put out your campfire And anyone who remembers Smokey the Bear and like all of the work that's gone into that is is to prevent crisis. Now, obviously, they're training to be able to handle them too. But we're not the only industry that deals with this and has seen success in that prevention piece and how the prevention piece can actually be fun and build goodwill, even even though you know that eventually we're going to have wildfires no matter what. But that's the scenario that's running in the back of my head as you're talking about all of this.
00:39:09
Speaker
And that's also been really interesting to learn over my time at the Alliance is you talked earlier about not feeling like you're alone. Even within the industry, sometimes we feel like we're alone and then we feel like agriculture is so different and so unique in our challenges, but it's it's not. you know We meet so many people from other industries that feel like they're misunderstood by the consumer. So you know very close analogy, the pet industry. We've had you know pet breeding industry folks start coming to our conferences and talk about very similar challenges that we have. of Like, yes, there's there's some bad actors that adversaries want to highlight, but there's also a big industry here of people doing great things and people, you know, wanting to meet the need for purebred animals, you know, zoos, aquariums, you know, the the obvious ones. But then there's the plastics industry. There's you know the natural gas industry. just We come across these industries and you you wouldn't think you have anything in common, but then they start talking about how consumers are so disconnected and they don't understand the value that they're bringing and the science is so misunderstood. it's like, oh, well, we have very similar challenges.
00:40:14
Speaker
So it's interesting to to reach outside the industry sometimes too. Yeah, to know that we're not the only ones that dealing with this. It's normal. It's part of business, really.
Leadership Traits for Effective Crisis Management
00:40:22
Speaker
um Okay, Hannah, so we are going to move into our rapid fire segment. You try to do quick answers and I'll try not to ask follow-up questions. So ah what is one risk in agriculture that every leader should be prepared to handle?
00:40:36
Speaker
Talking about what you do and what you don't want to talk about out loud. What is one ag trend you're keeping an eye on right now? The use of ai artificial intelligence in this context, because there are so many different AIs in agriculture.
00:40:50
Speaker
New fear unlocked. Okay. um What is the best resource? We talked about some of these, but what's best resource for someone who wants to dive deeper?
00:41:01
Speaker
um The Alliance, if you're in animal agriculture, your national commodity group, if you're, i mean, anybody in agriculture, we can probably help you, but maybe your national commodity group, if you're not, or the national organization that represents whatever kind of company you're in.
00:41:15
Speaker
And what is the best tool resource that has helped you in your leadership journey? Other people. So either peers or my predecessor here at the Alliance, the folks on our board. I think that people who have been through similar situations are the best sounding boards and coaches.
00:41:35
Speaker
Okay, Hannah. So at AFA, we love hot takes. So unconventional or bold opinions. So what is an ah unconventional or bold opinion that you have about leadership or the future of agriculture?
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, well, to pick up on a couple of threads that we've shared and and what my you know risk challenge would be, i think that radical transparency would be my hot take. So again, if you do it at your company or on your farm and you believe in it and you think it's the right thing to do, even if you think people might question it, you should be talking about it. You should be unapologetic about what you do and why. And if you're not, then you should think about why that is. There shouldn't be anything on our farms that we wouldn't want live streamed on Facebook or on the front page of the New York Times.
00:42:20
Speaker
There are too many adversarial groups looking for things to use against us that we as an industry can't give any ammunition to those type of organizations. And I know that's animal rights and animal ag. It's biotechnology folks and the crops. It's, you know, just people not liking big companies in general is a big trend. But we need to make sure that we are doing the right thing and we're doing it every single time, no matter who's watching. And then we're talking about it.
00:42:47
Speaker
Because, again, that that expectation of transparency is so high that if there is something that you think about, oh man, like if that got out, that would be bad for us.
00:42:57
Speaker
you probably, again, shouldn't be doing it if you can't explain it, if you can't stand behind it. Now, some things, again, might make people uneasy or might need some context. But if you believe it, if you unequivocally know it's the right thing to do, then you should stand behind it and talk about it so that the first time people hear about it isn't from a negative perspective.
00:43:18
Speaker
Be like everything that you just described is what we all learn about like character as
Closing & Contact Information
00:43:22
Speaker
kids. Like don't do anything in private that you wouldn't want to do in public, which just ties all of this back to leadership and what is good character and integrity and people leadership.
00:43:32
Speaker
And I think that just really ties into crisis again. if you are doing the right thing and you are taking care of your people and you are taking care of your community, even if not to undermine my entire message because the plans are essential, but doing the right thing is is going to help you as much, if not more, than having the plan. Because if if that is your culture, then you're going to end up you know maybe not navigating the crisis as efficiently, you know maybe needing to scramble. But ultimately, if you keep that core of your culture of doing the right thing for your people, for your customers, for your community, you're going to get through it. Whereas if that's not what you're committed to, if that's questionable, if that's not demonstrated, you're going to have a much harder run.
00:44:15
Speaker
That is such great advice to land this conversation on, Hannah. I am so appreciative of you, of sharing your knowledge and skills. And just this is such a fun conversation that I know that even as I have worked in crisis comms in my past life, I have learned some things. So at AFA, we love to build bridges. Hannah, where can people find out more about you you or the work that the Animal Ag Alliance is doing?
00:44:39
Speaker
You can find me on LinkedIn, obviously Hannah Thompson-Weeman. The Alliance is active across social media, Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn. You can find us there. We're also www.animalagalliance.org. And we'd love to be in touch. We've got a public newsletter there as well as, again, our social platforms where we're sharing that information.
00:45:01
Speaker
Well, thanks again, Hannah. Really appreciate you joining the Cultivating Leaders podcast. Thanks for listening to the Cultivating Leaders podcast brought to you by Agriculture Future of America. you've been here before, you know we value feedback as a gift. Please leave us a review and let us know how we're doing.