Manage a reputation crisis by confirming the truth before you speak, staying transparent enough that your actions never read as a cover-up, and moving to stay ahead of the news cycle, rather than what legal caution prefers.
The failure is rarely the messaging
Often, advice treats a reputation management issue as a messaging problem. Get the statement right, control the narrative. That’s flawed, and for evidence, watch politicians manufacture policy on-the-run, to fit a message that suits the news cycle.
Organisations rarely fail because a statement was badly worded. They fail because the plan was wrong, and so the messages didn’t resonate or were too late. What was the Aim? The Objectives? The Implementation?
Own it before anyone asks
At about 5am on 2 May 2025, a truck operated by NJ Ashton spilled scrap metal along about 25 kilometres of the M1 Pacific Motorway north of Sydney. Up to 380 vehicles were left with punctured tyres. [1]
General manager Daniel Falconer didn’t wait for an investigation, or for the lawyers. Shortly after the spill, the company posted a statement online: [2]
“We’re taking full responsibility for what’s happened and are very sorry.”
It sent every qualified mechanic it had to help get drivers back on the road. It set up a website for affected motorists and said all reasonable costs were covered by its insurer. [3] The damage bill was estimated at between $1 million and $2 million. Then the company hosted a free community barbecue at Peats Ridge, one of the worst-hit communities, so anyone affected could come and talk to them face to face. [4]
No crisis manual would have suggested sausages.
What happened is interesting. Instead of the pile-on you’d expect when hundreds of people have lost a morning and a set of tyres, the public backed the company. NJ Ashton’s Facebook notice for the barbecue said it wanted to apologise face to face and to thank the community for its grace. The post drew almost 900 reactions, more than 120 comments, and 255 shares. [5] The comments read like testimonials. People who’d never need a haulage company said they’d want to work for it. A transport veteran of 45 years said he’d never seen anything like it. One commenter summed it up as,
“How to turn a complete disaster into a fantastic bit of public relations.”
Accountability recruits supporters.
It worked because NJ Ashton passed all three tests early. It told the truth before anyone had to prove it. It was transparent about how people would be paid. And everything traceable pointed towards them being trustworthy.
Never waste a crisis! The maxim can be true.
The Author – Peter Wilkinson
Partial truth is the most expensive kind
PwC Australia took another route.
In early May 2023, a Senate committee published internal PwC emails. They showed confidential government tax briefings had been shared inside the firm and used to chase work. On Friday 5 May, chief executive Tom Seymour confirmed he was one of the partners who’d received them. By Monday he’d stepped down. [6]
That should have been the bottom. It wasn’t.
Truth came in instalments, and traceability did the rest.
Each step was a disclosure PwC could have made at the start. Each one arrived as a new headline instead.
Later that month, nine partners were stood down. [7] In June, PwC sold its government consulting business to private equity firm Allegro Funds for $1. [8] A Senate committee titled its interim report “A calculated breach of trust.” [9] In July, the firm named eight partners who would leave. [10]
The cost shows in the accounts. Revenue fell a reported 26 per cent the following year, a figure that includes the business it had sold. [11]
Disclosure by instalment can become the second crisis.
Trust has three parts
The formula I developed was to make this easy to remember: Trust = Truth + Transparency + Traceability.
Truth is what you know, transparency is what you show, and traceability is what AI won’t hide.
Every reputation issue tests all three. Get the first wrong, and the other two become damage control. Fail on the second, and you have a cover-up. Ignore the third and someone else will manufacture what is remembered.
A crisis plan needs an aim, objectives, and implementation
You don’t learn to reef a sail in a squall. The plan has to exist, and be rehearsed, before the weather turns.
The plan we start with fits on a page. Over 24 years, I’ve refined it down to three headings.
Aim. One sentence: the outcome you want. If the honest answer is “The minimum we can get away with”, write it down and look at it. I think PwC chose that aim in effect, without ever saying it aloud. An aim might read this way: “We aim to be trusted, earned by making our customers and employees proud of us.”
Objectives. One for each stakeholder, because each is owed something different: the people harmed, staff, clients, the board, regulators, and media. The facts don’t change from one audience to the next. The words might.
Implementation. Implementation has two layers.
Strategy is fixed to the circumstances: what happened, who was harmed, and the position you’ll hold. It doesn’t shift every time the story does.
Tactics change as new facts surface, a regulator moves, or the public reacts. Who speaks, in what order, on which channel, and what they’ll commit to.
NJ Ashton’s strategy never changed: own it completely. Its tactics moved with the story, from a statement online, to mechanics on the motorway, to an insurance claims line, to a sausage sizzle.
Reputation is the long game
Good crisis communications buys an organisation time. Reputation management is what it does with that time: visible, repeated actions that move people from distrust back to neutral, and eventually to trust.
NJ Ashton earned its trust in a morning. PwC has spent seven months losing it, and the lessons learned are still coming in.
Sources
[1] SBS News, “Mayhem on NSW motorway after metal shards puncture hundreds of vehicles’ tyres”, 2 May 2025. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/motorway-nsw-metal-shards-puncture-tyres/3scr8exx9
[2] Big Rigs, “Transport company issues apology following scrap metal incident on M1”, 2 May 2025. https://bigrigs.com.au/2025/05/02/transport-company-issues-apology-following-scrap-metal-incident-on-m1/
[3] ABC News, “Motorists describe traffic chaos as cars stranded on M1”, 2 May 2025. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-02/motorists-stranded-metal-shards-flat-tyres-m1-central-coast/105243270
[4] Australian Truck Radio, “Transport company at centre of M1 scrap metal spill to host community bbq”, May 2025. https://www.australiantruckradio.com.au/transport-company-at-centre-of-m1-scrap-metal-spill-to-host-community-bbq/
[5] N.J. Ashton Marulan, Facebook, “Community notice: NJ Ashton free sausage sizzle and coffee”, 7 May 2025. https://www.facebook.com/njashtongroup1/posts
[6] Forbes Australia, “PwC Australia Chief Tom Seymour resigns amid tax leak scandal”, 9 May 2023. https://www.forbes.com.au/news/leadership/pwc-australia-chief-tom-seymour-resigns-amid-tax-leak-scandal/
[7] 1News, Andrew Macfarlane, “Nine Australian PwC senior partners stood down over tax scandal”, 29 May 2023. https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/05/29/nine-australian-pwc-senior-partners-stood-down-over-tax-scandal
[8] ABC News, “PwC to announce major overhaul alongside findings of investigation into tax leak scandal”, 27 September 2023. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-27/pwc-to-announce-major-overhaul-following-tax-leak-scandal/102904234
[9] Parliament of Australia, Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee, “PwC: A calculated breach of trust”, interim report, June 2023. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/ Finance_and_Public_Administration/Consultingservices/First_PwC_Report
[10] Business Insurance (Reuters), “PwC Australia fires eight partners after tax scandal”, 3 July 2023. https://www.businessinsurance.com/pwc-australia-fires-eight-partners-after-tax-scandal/
[11] Accounting Times, “PwC takes 26% revenue hit from tax leaks scandal”, 25 September 2024. https://www.accountingtimes.com.au/profession/pwc-takes-26-revenue-hit-from-tax-leaks-scandal
