BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

A complicated new problem and a potential windfall for plaintiff's lawyers is emerging in the already beleagured home building industry. But one big builder is scoring points for stepping up and doing the right thing.

Drywall is that paper and plaster composite that is ubiquitous in modern construction. Most of the interior walls that surround us at home and at work are made of the stuff. Drywall is usually hardly worth a second thought - that is until buyers of new homes, mostly in Florida, started having some very big problems.

Hundreds of homeowners suddenly began complaining about foul odors, corroding electrical wiring, and rapidly-rusting plumbing fixtures in their brand new houses. And it wasn' t just the houses themselves that were suffering. The people living in them complained of headaches, sinus irritation, and other unexplained health problems.

The culprit was eventually identified as drywall imported from China during the housing boom when domestic supplies ran short. Turns out the stuff contained a chemical, strontium sulfide, which gives off a noxious "rotten egg" odor when it gets wet. The fumes also react with hydrogen in the air and become sufficiently corrosive to burn through metal, not to mention nasal passages.

Once the source of the problem was identified, the plaintiff' s bar was on the case in short order. Everyone involved started pointing fingers at everyone else. It was the perfect recipe for long-lasting negative coverage.

Lennar Homes, one of the builders whose contractors used the toxic drywall, is on the receiving end of its share of lawsuits. It has filed its own suits against the contractors that put up the defective drywall, as well as the Chinese suppliers who sold it. But instead of trying to wash its hands of the problem and passing it off to lawyers and insurance companies, Lennar is promising to pay the cost of replacing the drywall and relocating residents while their homes are being repaired.

Lennar recognized early on that once they were confronted with a problem this serious, it was no longer in the home building business; it was in the safety and health business. The company realized that playing the blame game was a losing strategy. Lennar understood that the message it needed to send was that the health and safety of customers was more important than the eventual legal determination of who was at fault and who should pay.

Positioning itself as part of the solution rather than part of the problem is a strategic approach that could very well help Lennar turn a serious crisis situation into a sales advantage.