Build a spokesperson point of view without inventing certainty

After NotPetya, Maersk gave a cost range and later stayed within it. A five-step method for spokespeople to separate what is known, estimated and unknown, and stay credible.

Spokespeople are often asked questions nobody can answer yet.

How much will this cost? When will it be fixed? What happens next?

The temptation is to sound certain. A stronger approach is to share what you know, what you estimate and what you do not know, and to update as facts change. Maersk’s public account of the NotPetya cyber-attack offers a useful model.

What happened to Maersk

A.P. Møller – Maersk, the Danish shipping and logistics group, was hit by a cyber-attack in the last week of June 2017. The malware became known as NotPetya.

In its interim report for the second quarter, published on 16 August 2017, chief executive Søren Skou said the attack mainly affected Maersk Line, APM Terminals and Damco.

He said business volumes were negatively affected for a couple of weeks in July, and that the company expected the attack to hurt results by $200-300 million.

That statement is a good example of honest uncertainty. It named the affected businesses, the period and an estimate given as a range.

The fuller account

In January 2018, Maersk chairman Jim Hagemann Snabe described the recovery in more detail at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Register reported that he said the company had to rebuild 4,000 servers, 45,000 PCs and 2,500 applications in about ten days.

According to the report, Snabe said staff reverted to manual processes, with only a 20% drop in volumes. He called the attack a “very significant wake-up call” and urged businesses to stop being naive about security.

The Register noted that Maersk’s estimate of the cost, between $250 million and $300 million, was consistent with what it had told investors in August 2017.

What Maersk’s communication did well

This is our reading of the public record, not Maersk’s own assessment.

It gave a range, not a point. “$200-300m” admitted uncertainty while still giving investors something to work with.

It stayed consistent. The later figure fell within the earlier range. Consistency makes later statements more credible.

It added detail over time. The first statement was brief. The fuller story came months later, once facts were established.

It turned a failure into a lesson. Snabe’s remarks focused on what other businesses should learn. That made Maersk a credible voice on resilience rather than only a victim.

Build your spokesperson point of view

A point of view for a spokesperson is a short set of positions they can explain and defend. It should stay accurate even when the facts are incomplete.

Step 1: separate three kinds of statement

Before any interview, sort what the spokesperson might say into three groups:

• Known: facts confirmed by records or several sources.
• Estimated: figures based on reasonable assumptions, which should be given as ranges.
• Unknown: questions you cannot answer yet.

Each group needs its own language. “We know”, “we currently estimate” and “we do not yet know” are all honest answers.

Step 2: write the positions

Draft three to five positions. Each should be one sentence the spokesperson believes and can support.

For Maersk, positions might have been: the attack disrupted operations, the cost is significant but bounded, staff kept the business running, and every company should take security more seriously. These are our illustrations, not quotes.

Step 3: attach evidence

Under each position, list the evidence and its type. Mark anything that is an estimate and explain the basis in a sentence.

If a position has no evidence, either find some or remove it. Opinion is acceptable only when it is clearly presented as opinion.

Step 4: rehearse the hard questions

List the questions the spokesperson most fears. Practise answers that use the three kinds of statement.

A good answer to “how much will this cost?” might be: “We currently estimate between X and Y. We’ll update that when the review is complete.”

Never invent a precise number to sound authoritative.

Step 5: plan the updates

Decide when and how you will update each estimate. Record what was said publicly, so later statements stay consistent.

A worked example

Hypothetical: a Dutch engineering firm’s chief executive is asked about the effect of a new EU regulation on clients. Instead of predicting exact costs, she says what the regulation requires, estimates a range from three client projects and names the open questions.

She commits to publishing an update after the first compliance deadline. Journalists quote her estimate with its stated basis. The details are illustrative.

Common spokesperson traps

Filling silence with a number. When a journalist pauses, spokespeople often volunteer a figure they have not checked. Rehearse saying “we’ll confirm that” instead.

Speaking beyond their expertise. A finance director can explain costs; an engineer can explain the fix. Match questions to the person who actually knows.

Changing the story between audiences. Investors, customers and journalists may need different levels of detail, but the facts and estimates must be the same. Maersk’s investor estimate and its chairman’s later figure matched.

Treating “no comment” as safe. It often reads as concealment. “We don’t know yet, and here’s when we will” is almost always better.

When certainty is a risk

Precise claims are memorable, and journalists repeat them. If they turn out to be wrong, the correction can become a bigger story than the original.

A spokesperson who is consistently honest about uncertainty builds a different kind of authority. Over time, they become someone journalists return to because their estimates hold up.

Keep the record

Store every public statement, estimate and source in one place. When the next question comes, the spokesperson can see what was said before and build on it rather than contradict it.