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Owning Your Mistakes

An Analysis of CrossFit’s Strategic Crisis Communication Theory

Emma Barnhouse

URCI - 22

9TH ANNIVERSARY

U.P.U.

9.10.2021

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Add photo, justification

“Beginning of the end for CrossFit?” Introduction, research questions

Images: retrieved from Outside Magazine, 2022

9TH ANNIVERSARY

U.P.U.

9.10.2021

In 2020, we watch what has become the beginning of a very long road for the CrossFit organization. Some have said that it is the beginning of the end for the workout programmers, and many gyms have disaffiliated as a result of the crisis. CrossFit lost nearly 4 billion dollars of partnerships and sponsorships because of this media crisis, and many former subscribers or competitors (including myself) have quit the regimine altogether.

The research I am presenting today is based off Timothy Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory (published in 2007) and an analysis of an incident that occurred for this company in 2020. Though we understand that organizations should present one voice and a unified message to stakeholders, the justification for my research today is about the future of applying such principles to the actions and strategies of companies in crisis. This is the beginning of a new study in public relations and takes a deep dive into the dangers of social media in the corporate office.

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Research Questions

Research Question 1: What crisis response strategies did CrossFit use?

Research Question 2: Were CrossFit’s crisis response strategies effective?

9TH ANNIVERSARY

U.P.U.

9.10.2021

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Theoretical Foundation

01

Crisis Response Strategies

03

Crisis Narrative

02

Effectiveness

04

Overview of attribution theory and SCCT model

How the organization responded to specific issues

Timeline of the specific crisis

The overall perception of how the organization handled the issue

Today we will begin with the Theoretical foundation, or an overview of the Situational Crisis Communication Model by Timothy Coombs, and the included attribution theory.

Next we will discuss the crisis narrative. This will include the social media posts that caused the event and the culturally relevant issues that ignited the crisis.

Third, I will talk about the crisis response strategies used by the organization and how they attempted to resolve this issues. This will include a timeline of their responses and several quotes about the incident that will be imperative to the conclusion of my research.

Finally, I will discuss the effectiveness of Crossfit’s strategies and how the future of Public Relations must learn from this to more adequately understand the field.

Let’s get started.

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Theoretical Foundation

01

Overview of Timothy Coombs’ model of Situational Crisis Communication Theory.

Images: retrieved from CrossFit LLC, 2022

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Situational Crisis Communication Theory

Attribution Theory

Type of Crisis

Clusters

Postures

Contextual Modifiers

who is to blame

operational crises & paracrises

accident, victim, premeditated

denial, diminishment, rebuilding, bolstering

history of crisis and reputation

Timothy Coombs, 2007

Images: retrieved from CrossFit LLC, 2022

To begin, let’s address the attribution theory. AT is concerned entirely with who stakeholders believe is to blame for the situation. Is it the CEO? The board? Is it out of the control of the organization entirely? This will be a huge part of the crisis-clustering process later on.

Next, stakeholders must understand what kind of crisis the organization is experiencing. Operational crises are “disruptions or disasters, workplace violence, the unexpected loss of key leadership, malevolence, technical-error accidents or product harm, human-error accidents or product harm, misdeed, scandals, or other special circumstances” (Coombs, 2019, p. 183). Paracrises are faux pas, rumors, challenges, and collateral damage (Coombs, 2019, p. 183). Once the crisis type is determined, the crisis is assigned a cluster type that categorizes the organization according to the stakeholder attribution of responsibility.

Organizations in the victim cluster are absolved from responsibility because they are not the cause of the crisis. Those in the accident cluster have low attribution due to their lack of control in the situation. Usually, this type of crisis is preventable but unintentional. The preventable cluster hosts the organizations who are to blame for the crisis, as it was produced by willful behaviors.

Postures and Contextual modifiers are concerned with the compounding of different elements in the crisis and is focused more upon organizational action. Postures include denial, diminishment, rebuilding, or bolstering postures. These can be used together within reason, but rebuilding and denial, or bolstering may be used with all postures. All strategies for how an organization can and will respond fall under these four categories.

Contextual modifiers help explain strategies used or perceptions held based on history and prior reputation. If an organization has a history of crises, they should be attributed more blame by stakeholders, therefore moving them to a different cluster. This would take us back to the cluster portion of the model and allow stakeholders to attribute more or less blame to the organization, resulting in a different perspective from the public.

Crisis Narrative

02

Timeline of the specific crisis, the people involved, and the mediums through which the message is communicated

Images: retrieved from Twitter, 2022

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Who

Greg Glassman

Former CEO of CrossFit LLC

The Issue

Glassman tweets “It’s FLOYD-19”

June 9, 2020

The day of George Floyd’s funeral

What

The Crisis Narrative

When

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Crisis Response Strategies

03

What strategies did CrossFit employ to correct the issue?

Answering Research Question #1

Images: retrieved from CrossFit LLC, 2021

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Greg Glassman

Excusing, Justifying

“ [My comment] was a mistake, not racist but a mistake. I was trying to stick it to the [Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation] for their invalidated models resulting in needless, economy-wrecking, life-wrecking lockdown, and when I saw they were announcing modelling a solution to our racial crisis, I was incredulous, angry.”

Images: retrieved from CrossFit LLC, 2021

On June 9, mere hours after the initial tweet, Glassman responds on twitter to the outrage of the internet and CrossFit Community with this quote:

[My comment] was a mistake, not racist but a mistake. I was trying to stick it to the [Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation] for their invalidated models resulting in needless, economy-wrecking, life-wrecking lockdown, and when I saw they were announcing modelling a solution to our racial crisis, I was incredulous, angry. (1)

In this statement—the first one made by anyone in the company following the crisis—Glassman uses excusing shifts the blame from himself and blames global circumstances and stakeholders’ misunderstanding for the crisis. He also justifies his response by outlining the contextual modifiers. Spoiler alert, it did not do for him what he thought it would.

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Dave Castro

Excusing, Victimage, Ingratiation

“Our community is hurt, though. Our shared bond brings together millions of people with differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences. Friction is inevitable. Common ground, mutual respect, and fellowship must also be inevitable.”

Images: retrieved from Morning Chalk Up, 2021

Next, Dave castro takes to the blog page two days later to say

CrossFit is a community — one that is global, diverse, and tough. Every person in our community shares a common bond. We are all dedicated to a visionary, transformative approach to health and fitness. Our individual passions for that approach have forged an enduring community. Our community is hurt, though. Our shared bond brings together millions of people with differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences. Friction is inevitable. Common ground, mutual respect, and fellowship must also be inevitable. I’m honored to take on the role of CEO of CrossFit, Inc. I hope to do right by affiliates, trainers, athletes, and other members of the CrossFit community around the world and never lose sight of the mission Greg established for us all. (2)

THis is following Glassman’s personal choice to resign and displays a few things. He uses ingratiation to thank stakeholders for the good they have done for CrossFit and their “enduring community” keeps the brand operating. Then, he reminds stakeholders about the goals of the organization and uses the excusing strategy to say that this kind of “friction” is inevitable in communities. This is a tactic used to minimize the damage caused in the crisis, but he also validates that people were hurt and takes responsibility for what was said, but never fully apologizes. He continuously tries to become the victim of this crisis.

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CrossFit LLC

Victimage, Apology

“The CrossFit community [needs] peace. Change is needed. We all need healing. Exhaustion and a long history of silent grievances have been laid bare on social media. We cannot change what has happened, but we ask for forgiveness while we thoroughly examine ourselves.”

Images: retrieved from CrossFit LLC, 2022

Finally, CrossFit publishes a response and clarifies by saying

The CrossFit community [needs] peace. Change is needed. We all need healing. Exhaustion and a long history of silent grievances have been laid bare on social media. We cannot change what has happened, but we ask for forgiveness while we thoroughly examine ourselves. (1)

The Black community is hurting around the globe. The community called upon us to speak, and we improperly answered. That was a mistake. We heard you and got in our own way while trying to figure out how to convey our message truthfully without following a trend, shaming, or creating division. (7)

This statement fully addresses the hurt felt by the community that trusted Glassman, and acknowledges the deeper hurt felt by a community that was grieving more than just the loss of their sport. The blog page explained Glassman’s comments and their victimage, following with another apology. The page then reminds readers of the community and ideals of CrossFit and their goal to publish the truth.

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Effectiveness

04

How did audiences accept each of the organization’s responses? Lessons learned about future crisis management.

Answering Research Question #2

Images: retrieved from Google, 2022

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The Timeline

May 25, 2020

June 9, 2020

June 11, 2020

George Floyd murdered

Glassman tweets “FLOYD-19”

George Floyd’s funeral

Glassman steps down, Castro makes statement

CrossFit makes statement

Images: retrieved from Morning Chalk Up, 2022

Let’s review the timeline of what has happened. It is so concentrated that it can often be hard to think about how deep the impact was on stakeholders, who were seeing such disappointing statements follow so closely behind one another.

May 25, 2020 - george Floyd is murdered

June 9, 2020 - GF is buried and the CDC annouces the shut down of all affiliates as a safety precaution

June 9, 2020 - Glassman’s infamous tweet “FLOYD-19” is posted

June 9, 2020 - Glassman makes a clarifying statement

June 11, 2020 - Glassman resigns

June 11, 2020 - Castro becomes CEO and makes a statement claiming the victim and reminding of community values

June 11, 2020 - CrossFit makes a statement denouncing what was said and apologizing for the incident.

Next, let’s fill in the gaps about what the public thought

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Effectiveness

Glassman’s response

Castro’s response

CrossFit’s response

People are upset
Dropping affiliation

People less angry, not pleased with response
Still dropping affiliation

People pleased with deserved apology.

People were generally upset at the tweet, but in 24 hours, tens of thousands of athletes boycott the company, several of their sponsorships terminate their contracts (including Reebok, Nike, FitAid, and Yeti) and CrossFit loses an estimated 4 billion dollars. The organization fell somewhere between the victim cluster and the accidental cluster of the SCCT model (Coombs, 2019, p. 175) and did their best to remind stakeholders of their work in the past and the goals for the company.

Castro makes his statement, and people feel depreciated. “[Glassman’s] response to the current movement to end systemic racism and police brutality is completely unacceptable and does not align with our values or beliefs.” (Hurndon, Griffin, Fischer, 2020). At this point, 500 gyms have dropped affiliation of CF’s then 7000 operating boxes in the US. The number continues to grow more steadily after his statement, indicatind stakeholder disapproval.

Following his resignation, stakeholders still needed to hear the organization take ownership of the situation and assure them that future measures would ensure a more understanding and open-minded environment (The Morning Chalk Up, 2020). The statement from Castro did a little to settle the minds of the wary, but the final statement from CrossFit was what stakeholders had been waiting for all along.

CrossFit still has not gained many of these original members back, and competing training programs (namely HWPO) are started by former CF athletes to show that there is a different way to correct action, and they are displeased with the reputation the organisation has created.

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Current Situation

August 7, 2020

February 3, 2022

January 5, 2022

February 4, 2022

February 16, 2022

Eric Roza named new CEO

Eric Roza

retirement

Dave Castro fired from CrossFit LLC

First board member leaves for HWPO

Research sent to CrossFit, no response.

Clearly not effective, but could be scapegoats or protecting themselves, but leaves holes

To demonstrate the effectiveness of the organization’s response, let’s look at the current timeline. Just after the incident, Eric Roza is brought on as the CEO of the org and maintains a fairly neutral year of operation. My research was done in the fall of 2021, and early this year we began to see the fallout of the losses experienced nearly two years ago.

On January 5, Dave Castro is fired from the company and employees are informed via email sent from Roza. People are confused as to why and the company still maintains exclusivity on this information.

Just less than a month after firing Castro, Roza steps down as CEO, though still currently sits on the board of directors. He claims his battle with depression has no small part in the decision, though never elaborates on the full reason. Stakeholders are, yet again, left in the dark on why.

The next day, Matt O’Keefe, long time board member and affiliate participant, leave and joins the competing programming HWPO. This seems to have nothing to do with the others leaving and never makes reference to the incidents that occured earlier in our timeline, but leaves people feeling uneasy.

To try and collect more information on my research, on February 16 of this year I reached out to CrossFit and was met with no response. While I understand they are under no obligation to entertain this research, it is important to note that this is a continuation oof their silence on issues facing their organization.

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Lessons Learned

Reputation matters

The medium makes a difference

When you are to blame — apologize!

Images: retrieved from CrossFit LLC, 2022; Google, 2022

To finish…

How do finings develop the field? As an organization is developing its crisis response, they need to engage in environment scanning and test their response and its effectiveness among the audience.

Organizations must speak with one voice and the competition between the two parties (Glassman and Crossfit) makes the situation messy. Competing narratives

You cannot have incompatible goals, and media is the way that people are fighting for the first word. When you are seen as the face of the organization there is no such thing as

In order to protect their reputation, organizations must be more assertive when committing with corrective action. When Glassman resigns on his own accord, the public perception of the organization is tainted. If corrective action is assertive and maintains a high power distance, the responsibility will leave with those culpable and could save the organization.

Competing goals = competing narratives, which makes it hard to understand the truth of what happened.

NEW: the strategy must be a single voice. We have known that goals should be united and the narrative should be the same but, moving into the future, organizations must bring this understanding into their crisis response strategies and their use of corrective action and scapegoating. The organization must be in charge of the narrative and build in clauses that protect against this fragmentation.

Organizations must speak with one voice and the competition between the two parties (Glassman and Crossfit) makes the situation messy.

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References

161385360554578, 2020; About Affiliation, n.d.;

Backlash over Floyd Tweet Forces out CrossFit CEO, n.d.;

CrossFit and Sexual Harassment: The Inside Story - The New York Times, n.d.;

CrossFit CEO Greg Glassman Quits after George Floyd Remarks - BBC News, n.d.;

CrossFit CEO Retires after Comments Making Light of George Floyd’s Death - The Washington Post, n.d.;

CrossFit Games Net Worth and Earnings (October 2021), 2020;

CrossFit on Twitter, n.d.; Cutting Ties, 2020; Greg Glassman Retires, n.d.;

Meet Greg Glassman, the Former CrossFit CEO Whose Comments about George Floyd Torpedoed the Company’s Relationships with Brands, Athletes, and Gyms, n.d.;

“Sunday Strategist,” 2020; Why Didn’t CrossFit Just Say Something?, n.d.-a;

Why Didn’t CrossFit Just Say Something?, n.d.-b;

Bundy et al., 2017;

Coombs, 2011;

Jarvela, 2011;

Nick H, 2020;

PhD, 2020;

Rosman, 2020a, 2020b;

Salinas, 2020a, 2020b;

Schad, n.d.;

Sisco, 2012;

Slocum et al., 2011