Articles
Crisis management
by Jim Pritchitt
While it would be nice to think that good management will prevent a crisis, unfortunately this isn’t always so.
If an organisation doesn’t handle issues well, or believes “it will never happen to us”, it is likely to handle a crisis badly, and make the situation worse than it could have been.
A company unprepared for a crisis is often unwilling to admit it has one until forced to do so by others - by the media, government, regulators, or its customers. When this happens, the crisis is conducted under the glare of the public spotlight with the organisation often unprepared and already not in control.
In this situation, the public quickly sees it cannot believe the business to do the right thing, and the affected brands will suffer, perhaps irreparably. Reality becomes less important than perception.
The worst case scenario is that the company doesn’t survive.
Therefore the most important thing is to be prepared – have a contingency plan and conduct a series of “what ifs”.
It’s a complicated area where organisations should take professional advice and there are many aspects to consider including the organisation involved and the type of crisis (for instance, did the organisation cause it or was it because of external activity?).
Useful crisis management hints include:
- Remember that you aren’t the only source of information, particularly for the media. Politicians, disgruntled ex-employees, competitors and even neighbours will all talk about your company or your product. Whether they are well informed is irrelevant.
- Be as open, helpful and honest as possible. If you are caught out in a lie then your credibility will suffer, affecting the acceptance and influence of future statements.
- Send out information. Don’t wait for the media to contact you. A brief statement of facts will do, but whatever you say, try to say it before anyone else does.
- Let people know that you are acting responsibly, for example by working with the health department, the police, the regulators or whoever is appropriate.
- Don’t prolong the issue. There comes a time when the story starts to lose its impact. Don’t keep it alive by feeding out more information.
- Keep a full record of the crisis from start to end, for both historical and legal reasons, so that if ever (heaven forbid) such a problem should arise again, you can use past experience.
