6 Steps to Bullet Proof Your Crisis Communications Strategy
The lesson from United Airlines has brought one point home, that even the most respected corporations can get it wrong when crisis strikes . A crisis being any event that can bring harm to your organization.
Following are some time-tested strategies that can help a corporation stop the bleeding and repair the damage.
1 . Pre-Crisis Brainstorming
There is a saying in the military “ The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war”, the same goes for a crisis situation. Waiting for a crisis to strike is organizational suicide. Do this exercise instead, brainstorm at least 10 ideas that can potentially harm your organization. Review the past crisis data history and study your competitors if you want to. These scenarios can help pre-prepare for a crisis situation, which can be related to Corporate reputation loss, financial viability or life damage within an organization.
2.Internal Audience List
Who are the internal players in your organization that effects the communication strategy? Often times top companies will have a template list e.g Executive leadership will be the first to be notified when a crisis strikes. Other types of internal audiences include department head (operations), Communications Team(PR, Corporate), Legal staff (to deal with any external penetrations).Having a crisis audience list will increase the response time which can be a crucial make or break component.
3.Distributive Chain Of Command
Even though United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz had the communicator of the year award from PRWeek , his company missed the basics.
The reason was hierarchy! Chief Communications Officer Tony Cervone was under the authority of the HR Department and couldn't act without prior consent. In a crisis situation, the first question to ask is “Who is the leader”. All communications must then go through this leader. This is known as Situational Chain of command. In a crisis situation bureaucracy is the death of communication, reshuffle before engaging!
- Channel Inventory
In Panic mode communicators often forget how to carry out a channel inventory audit. After the crisis has been identified and a leader has been nominated with a crisis command center, the next step is to find where is the information flowing from. The channels can range from social media, TV, radio, messaging to newspapers. Identify the most live channels of communication and develop a plan to access them.
- Engagement Strategy
Once you have your channel plan in place, it is time to follow the classic crisis management plan.
a) Craft an Opening statement — It has to take responsibility(Apologize), be credible and not too overloaded with information
b) Brainstorm worst case scenario — This will help you prepare for the onslaught by the press and help you avoid the worst.
c) Craft Regular Answers — The Communication has to feed the audience in timely intervals with updates along the crisis control lines. You also need to log in your responses for post-crisis review.
d) Rehearse- Often times companies will hold mock press conferences to get their best communicator in front of the frenzy. Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse! you can never be prepared enough.
- Post Crisis Evaluation
A post-crisis evaluation report is a vital document that helps to assess the impact of the crisis on the company. The following are some vital questions to be addressed in the report
How has the crisis impacted any new reality in the organization? e.g are there blind spots in the company arsenal?
How was the crisis identified? Could it have been more timely?
Identify the heroes and top-tier performers who went out of their way to help during the crisis (bolsters company culture)
Assess the damage done to company assets i.e stocks, corporate reputation, product credibility etc.
Mistakes are made by stellar corporations and the most disciplined of executives.While a crisis might be unavoidable, but with intelligent strategy it can not only be controlled but also made to strengthen the core of a company. In a crisis situation, a company is the most vulnerable and honest with its values.