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end of information coming in from your team “It Can’t Happen To Us”
members, ensuring the right type of informati- When a healthy organization’s CEO or CFO
on is being provided so you can proceed with looks at the cost of preparing a crisis commu-
determining the appropriate response. nications plan, either a heavy investment of
Assessing the crisis situation is, therefore, in-house time or retention of an outside pro-
the first crisis communications step you ca- fessional for a substantial fee, it is tempting
n’t take in advance. If you haven’t prepared for them to fantasize “it can’t happen to us” or
in advance, your reaction will be delayed by “if it happens to us, we can handle it relatively
the time it takes your in-house staff or quickly easily.”
hired consultants to run through steps 1 to 7. Hopefully, that type of ostrich emulation
Furthermore, a hastily created crisis communi- is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Yet
cations strategy and team are never as efficient I know when all is said and done, thousands
as those planned and rehearsed in advance. of organizations hit by natural and man-made
disasters will have suffered far more damage
9. Finalize and Adapt Key Messages than would have occurred with a fully deve-
With holding statements available as a star- loped crisis communications plan in place.
ting point, the Crisis Communications Team This has also been painfully true for scores of
must continue developing the crisis-specific clients I have served over the past 30+ years.
messages required for any given situation. The Even the best crisis management professional
team already knows, categorically, what type is playing catch up – with more damage occur-
of information its stakeholders are looking for. ring all the time – when the organization has
What should those stakeholders know about no crisis communications infrastructure alrea-
this crisis? Keep it simple. Have no more than dy in place.
three main messages that go to all stakehol-
ders and, as necessary, some audience-speci- The Last Word – For Now
fic messages for individual groups of stakehol- I would like to believe organizations
ders. You’ll need to adapt your messaging to worldwide are finally “getting it” about crisis
different forms of media as well. For example, preparedness, whether we’re talking about
crisis messaging on Twitter often relies on sha- crisis communications, disaster response or
ring links to an outside page where a longer business continuity.
message is displayed, a must because of the Certainly, client demand for advance prepa-
platform’s 140 character limit. ration has increased dramatically in the past
decade, at least for my consultancy. But I fear
10. Post-Crisis Analysis there is, in fact, little change in what I have
After the cowpies are no longer interacting said in the past – that 95 percent of American
with the air-circulating device, the question organizations remain either completely un-
must be asked, “What did we learn from this?” prepared or significantly under-prepared for
A formal analysis of what was done ri- crises. And my colleagues overseas report little
ght, what was done wrong, what could be better, and sometimes worse, statistics.
done better next time and how to improve Choose to be part of the prepared minority.
various elements of crisis preparedness is Your stakeholders will appre-
another must-do activity for any Crisis Com- ciate it! Interested on talking
munications Team. I have developed a for- to a crisis management expert
mal process for accomplishing this, but even now? Click this link for ways
a solid in-house brainstorming session can to get in touch! https://www.
do the job. bernsteincrisismanagement.com
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