The Delta Media P.R. Clinic

Crisis Communications: Avoid the Four Biggest Mistakes

By Ken Anderson

In times of crisis, the need for information is high, the risk of misinformation is high, the risk to relationships is high and the impact of early decisions is high. Getting your communications right in time of crisis is essential.

The world does not change
Consider this: in a crisis, your communications goals remain. Just because you are facing a crisis, doesn’t mean that the world has changed overnight.

Abandoning all of your communications strategies, plans and habits is a big mistake. Because something has gone very wrong, doesn’t mean that you should desert your other plans.

In fact, you have the very same target audiences to address, the same strengths to leverage, weaknesses to overcome and opportunities to exploit.

It’s just that the list of threats just got a little longer.

Four types of crises to consider
Where most organizations get themselves into trouble is in their failure to anticipate the various types of crises that could affect them and their stakeholders.

There are four basic types of crises:

• Leadership
• Operations
• Finance
• Confidence

Each type has its own consequences and each requires its own planning and style of response.

If the Burmese government’s response to the cyclone, and the LiveEnt, Nortel and Enron crises have taught us anything, it’s that a crisis of leadership can be almost as devastating as what triggered the crisis in the first place.

If you or one of your executives is accused or even just perceived to have done something unethical, illegal or unwise, the whisper campaigns can quickly spill over into the public arena and undermine all that you have accomplished.

Operational crises, including everything from the regulatory shutdown of a nuclear reactor producing medical isotopes to a supply chain problem, can dog you for weeks, months or even decades. In fact, operational crises are often some of the easiest potential crises for you to anticipate during your crises audit.

Whether you are dealing with public funds or struggling to meet your payroll, the threat to your reputation and productivity posed by a financial crisis can be costly in a multitude of ways. Thankfully, there are often signs of an impending financial crisis. You just need to consider what might trigger such a crisis in your organization.

One of the most difficult crises to contend with is often the crisis of confidence. Whether the trigger is someone spiking your product as was the case in the classic Tylenol affair or a revelation of creative bookkeeping that causes your share price to tumble overnight, you need to know how to respond and to respond quickly, decisively and confidently to restore faith in not only your organization but also in the people who run it.

The third mistake involves failing to prepare. Just because the world hasn’t changed doesn’t mean that you don’t need to react quickly when there’s crisis. To the contrary, in order to respond quickly and effectively, you need to have a plan.
To get ahead of the issue, you also need practice and the best time to do that is before the crises hits!

The final and often fatal mistake in a crisis is the failure to respond. In fact, many crises can be averted even before they escalate into true crisis.

And, you might as well keep digging if you bury your head in the sand and wait for the crises to blow over. Nature – and media abhor a vacuum. During a crisis, media demand is at its peak and if you aren’t responding, the rumour mill will kick into high gear and your critics will seize the high ground.

Every minute counts. Indeed, the temperature of the crisis can rise quickly simply because you are slow to respond.

Get ahead of the curve. In a crisis, you want to establish your organization as the leading information source and keep the information flowing at regular intervals.

Proactivity has added benefits
Properly handled, a crisis can actually reinforce your relationships with key audiences. Put crisis communications planning on your corporate radar by getting senior stakeholders in your organization actively involved.

In fact, your organization’s decision to invest in crisis communications planning can pay huge dividends in terms of team-building and more effective internal communications even before the crisis hits.

If you don’t know where to begin, IABC has a wealth of resources available to get you started, including Dan Millar and Larry Smith’s Crisis Management and Communication: How to Gain and Maintain Control.

Just make sure your crisis communication plan is more than merely a paper exercise!

This article was recently featured in the Ottawa newsletter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Ken Anderson is Senior Counsel and Director of Training with Delta Media in Ottawa.

return to "P.R. Clinic"