In our last two newsletters, we discussed the importance of acting before a crisis by creating a crisis plan to implement should a crisis strike, and by creating "goodwill capital" in the media about your company or organization.The latter is basic public relations work, increasing positive awareness of your organization. Crisis management is about protecting your brand.
 
Part of crisis planning is organizing your resources, so that when a crisis hits, you know where to go for what you need. 

Organizing procedures and methods of communication for use during a crisis is always best done ahead of time as part of the crisis planning.  Ask what constitutes a crisis? When does action begin? How do we locate the crisis management team? How much time does the team have to act? Who else do we bring in? The latter question can be answered with adjunct team members from your organization, based on their expertise. If your crisis is environmental, bring in your environmental experts Financial? Bring in the bean counters. Make them an adjunct part of the crisis team during its formation. Create a directory with every person on the team, including adjunct members and alternates, and list every conceivable way reaching them quickly when a crisis hits.

Resources are also important. If the crisis du jour is a product liability case, learning who knows about the product should not be your biggest problem. Fact sheets and other information should be easily, instantly accessible. Members of your crisis team must be knowledgeable about the location and accessibility of all pertinent company records, and be authorized to obtain them on a  moment's notice.

Establish procedural or "to-do" checklists. No matter how experienced a pilot may be, the true professionals remain meticulous in going through pre-flight checklists before lifting an aircraft from the ground.

Online crisis management should be seriously considered. Secure, password protected websites can provide authorized team members instant access to a shared communication platform where information can be shared, planning guidelines accessed and other information provided, no matter where they are when the crisis hits.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Practicing real-time exercises can be a great way to acclimate your team to dealing with a crisis under crunch conditions. Media training, which goes hand-in-hand with this, is also a good idea for learning the finder points of dealing with the news media. Again, veteran trainers count, especially those with extensive news media experience. On-camera training is beneficial, with instant playback, critique and coaching.

Media contact, from news releases to news conferences, creating fact sheets, providing photos, video and making other material available should also be organized ahead of a crisis.  

Much more goes into crisis planning than outlined here. Whether you hire a public relations professional to help oversee these and many other aspects, or do it yourself, remember a cardinal rule: keep the media in touch and informed. If you don't give them your story, someone else will.

Next: Top PR Concerns in a Crisis

For a complete copy of this article email: info@deangroup.com

Dennis Dean is an Emmy-winning former journalist, public relations consultant and media trainer. He can be reached at dennis@deangroup.com or 262-238-8740.