Major legionnaire's outbreak; high cancer incidence claimed around nuclear power station; accountancy body accidentally shreds final year students' completed exam scripts.
These are just three national issues on which Ken Newton honed his crisis management expertise. Here he shares seven steps to staying cool in a crisis.
1 Readiness
The old scouting adage, 'be prepared', is the probably the best overall advice to help any organisation weather the storm of a crisis. Identify what could possibly go wrong and put procedures in place to deal with a crisis should one happen.
Keep a crisis management file and make sure the people who may need to use it know about it and where it can be accessed immediately. Who would be in your core crisis management team and how and where will they convene quickly and make decisions if the balloon goes up?
2 Rehearsal
If your operation could foreseebly become involved in a major incident, test your procedures by having a dry run through of a realistic scenario. An east coast client of ours periodically works with the fire and rescue service on major incident scenario drills.
Training in interview skills for those likely to be in the front line of media attention is vital. Many a reputation has been dented because mere competence was put before confidence and compassion in media interviews under pressure.
3 Restriction
A single point of contact for fielding media calls in a crisis is essential to ensure consistency of response from a trained professional who understands and deals confidently with the media. Ensure all staff and partner bodies know they are not to speak off the record or speculate to the media about what happened in the incident.
4 Response
In the early stages following an incident, when details are sketchy, immediately prepare a media holding statement which confirms the basics. "No comment" in response to early media queries is a definite no-no - it sounds like a cover-up. Far better to say, "It's too soon to say exactly what happened, but we will give a fuller statement once the facts become clearer."
Remember to express compassion and concern in situations where upset, injuries or fatalities occur, even when it is not clear that your orgnisation is at fault. A genuine, human response wins every time over a read-out, stilted statement.
5 Reassurance
Give reassurance as quickly as possible that everything possible is being done to tackle the crisis on the ground. If it can be said, stress that this is an isolated incident and point to your track record in health and safety, quality assurance or whatever other area of the business may be in question, using endorsements by objective third parties where possible. If necessary, set up a hotline for concerned relatives or customers.
6 Realisation
Realise that digital media have the power to make or break reputations. Quite recently the communications team of a major international retailer was caught on the hop when journalists called to ask about huge technical problems in half their UK stores. The team did not monitor twitter and were not aware of the crisis; the journalists did and were.
Your website and twitter account can be used to get accurate information out there quickly, if necessary. Make sure you know how to update your website or tweet 24/7 as others may be speculating on your incident online as you struggle to set the record straight.
7 Rebuilding
A crisis can be an opportunity to shine and impress customers, the media and other stakeholders depending on your response and steps you take to remedy the situation.
Reputational reconstruction takes time after a major crisis, as BP is witnessing after the Gulf of Mexico spill. As well as positioning how they handled the issue post crisis, recovering companies need to be intentional, but not too obvious, about drip feeding positive stories and engaging stakeholders proactively on other issues that will help to win back trust.
