Katherine Heaviside, Epoch 5What are the chances your organization will have a crisis this year that could destroy your reputation or even put you out of business? Easy answer: one in five. Not good odds and they are getting worse. And an almost sure-to-failure strategy is hoping that a crisis will “blow over” and either few people will notice or it will be a one day story in the newspaper. But crisis communications planning can actually help minimize the impact.
Today, there are more crisis hotspots. Data breaches, sexual harassment, environmental problems, class action lawsuits, labor issues and management malfeasance are just a few of the most likely. What might have been only a minor issue in the past is now a crisis that can inflict deep wounds, because of a less forgiving public and more blame, more lawyers and more lawsuits, more critical media and more electronic media. But the real game changer is that a crisis can live forever on the Internet.
If there is any good news in this, it is that most crises that seriously damage your business are not the ones that strike suddenly, such as fire, flood or equipment failure. The majority of crises either can be predicted or smolder for some time before they become public. This means we can prepare a blueprint now for how to handle a future crisis.
Most large organizations have crisis communications plans in place, but for many smaller ones, more time is put into planning the company picnic than handling a crisis that could put them out of business. A crisis plan is really just a roadmap for decision making. It starts with constructing a crisis inventory based on the type of crisis, its probability, severity, scope and duration. Without a plan, valuable hours will be lost while deciding what to say or, even worse, releasing wrong information. React slowly to a crisis and you will get run over by a firestorm of negative stories in the newspaper, social media, TV and radio. As a TV executive told me when I complained about a factually inaccurate news story, “We are not in the news business; we are in the news entertainment business.”
So who puts together this plan? The ideal team consists of the owner or president, a senior manager, a technical advisor (in some cases an engineer or environmental consultant), legal counsel and an administrator (which could be the inside public relations person), led by an outside crisis management consultant.
Some of the decisions the team makes are far easier before the crisis hits than in the frenzy that usually occurs after the fact. For example, take a data breach: What will be released to the media? Who will respond when the media calls? Will credit protection be offered, and by what credit protection agency? Will a phone bank be retained, and who will write the script and train them? How will social media, the website, letters and advertising be handled or prepared and by whom? And, most importantly, what will be done to rebuild after the crisis?
The answer to these questions can be guided and implemented by the crisis management consultant, who has experience with developing strategies that will reach all of the people who matter to your business, including tenants, clients or customers, employees, vendors, public officials and, yes, even your competition. How to reach each of these stakeholders and who reaches out to them are determinations that can easily be decided ahead of time. These decisions are often affected by the importance of the contact or demographics. Important tenants, customers or public officials need to get personal calls from senior management. Others may receive letters, emails, texts or even twitter contact, and sometimes in several languages.
Both traditional and non-traditional print and electronic media are not likely to be much interested in the positive sides of an organization during the crisis, but it’s important to give reporters information that can, at least, balance their stories. It’s the crisis consultant’s job to make the case for inclusion in the story. If there is an accident, can you outline your organization’s safety training program or point to a positive history of safety? Again, preparing this information ahead of time can play a significant role.
If a crisis is handled well, your organization can become even more respected or be seen as the victim of an unjust or unfortunate incident. Handling a crisis poorly with slow, inadequate or defensive communications can quickly make you the villain. Like most things in life and management, the difference between success and failure is all in the planning.
My associates and I have managed client crises including data breaches, management misconduct, community protests, class action lawsuits, sexual harassment charges and labor strikes. I have directed crisis communications programs for many well-known organizations and acted as strategist and spokesperson on high-profile controversies.
Katherine Heaviside is the president of Epoch 5 Public Relations, Huntington, N.Y.