It is not the event, it is the interpretation

Anyone who works in the corporate world knows that, in this environment, the word “problem” usually comes with a certain gravity. There is almost an implicit script: urgent meetings, formal communication, a search for those responsible and a climate of tension that often sets in even before the real nature of the event is understood. This reflex reveals a trait of traditional management: the tendency to treat any adverse occurrence as a crisis. The problem is that not every negative event is, in fact, a crisis.

A recent episode involving Nestlé illustrates this point well. More than 400,000 units of KitKat were stolen during transport between Italy and Poland. In absolute terms, it is a significant volume. In business terms, however, the impact was limited. There was no risk to consumers, nor any relevant disruption of supply. Even so, the case had a valuable asset: attention.

In situations like this, many companies follow a predictable protocol. Formal statements, neutral language, an emphasis on processes and investigations. Nestlé chose another path. Instead of treating the episode as an institutional crisis, it treated it as a communication event. It poked fun at its own slogan by suggesting that the thieves had taken “have a break” too seriously. In doing so, the company shifted the framing of the story.

The result was immediate. Other brands joined the conversation, the case gained traction on social media and ended up also making waves in the press, as shown in a report by Época Negócios. What could have been treated as a logistics incident came to operate as a brand asset.

A superficial reading of this episode leads to a common conclusion: lightness and good humor would be powerful management tools. However, this interpretation, although appealing, is incomplete. The central point is not the use of humor, but the ability to correctly interpret the context in which events unfold.

Nestlé was able to adopt this tone only because it correctly understood the nature of the event. There was no operational crisis or relevant reputational risk there. There was, above all, an episode with high potential for attention and low potential for harm. This type of situation opens room for reinterpretation. And it is this ability that distinguishes effective responses from automatic reactions.

The contrast with other cases helps clarify the limits of this approach. When the KFC chain ran out of chicken in the United Kingdom, after a logistics failure in distribution, the problem was real: closed stores, dissatisfied customers and an evident operational disruption. Even so, the company used humor in its communication, as in the ad in which it rearranged the letters of the brand to read “FCK.” The difference is that it did so after explicitly acknowledging the mistake. The light tone did not replace responsibility: it came after it.

This point is decisive. Humor is not a response to the problem, but a choice of framing. It does not solve operational failures or mitigate real risks. It acts only on the perception of the event. When applied without substance, it sounds like evasion and erodes credibility. But if it is backed by a correct diagnosis, it can become a powerful amplifier of the message.

This distinction matters far beyond communication. It touches a broader aspect of management: the way organizations interpret and react to deviations. In environments where every problem is treated as a serious exception, the tendency is for internal noise to be amplified. Much of the energy is directed toward dramatization, not necessarily toward resolution. On the other hand, more mature management systems operate with a different logic, in which problems are expected, exposed and dealt with methodically.

This is where the analogy with lean thinking can be useful. One of its fundamental principles is to make problems visible in order to address them at the root cause, with method and discipline. There is no lightness in this process, in the trivial sense of the term: there is rigor, depth and consistency. And it is precisely these elements that eliminate the need for dramatization, as emotional noise loses its strength and function.

What the Nestlé case reveals, therefore, is not that companies should be lighter. It shows that companies need to be more precise in reading what they face. Different events require different responses. A logistics incident with no relevant impact should not be treated as a reputational crisis. Likewise, a structural failure cannot be seen as an opportunity for creative communication.

In an environment where attention is abundant and perception moves quickly, this distinction becomes even more important. Not everything that seems big is relevant. And not everything that is relevant presents itself obviously. In the end, crises are not defined only by what happens, but by the framing they receive. And that framing begins before communication. It begins with the capacity for discernment.