It’s always the same story everywhere you go when it comes to crisis management: “It will never happen to us; we do not have crises in our organisation, or we will let our lawyers handle it.”
Of course, none of the above can ever be depended upon. The fact of the matter is that a crisis will happen. It is a “when” issue, not an “if” issue. Every organisation has some exposure of one form or another, and your lawyers can’t help you when it comes to protecting the most valuable asset in your organisation: your reputation.
But you can’t spend your entire waking life worrying about what might happen. What you do, however, need to worry about is devising a process or plan that will help you guide your response to the crisis.
Whatever the nature of the crisis, whether it involves your physical assets burning down to the ground or your product causing harm to your stakeholders, the response will need to deal with certain common issues.
The reason the communications practitioners have been given nicknames like spin-doctors is because there are still, in this day and age, people who believe that the public is stupid.
The days of blatant propaganda, whether by the state or private organisations, are long gone.
With propaganda, the modus operandi is “whatever happened, just tell them whatever you geniuses think is plausible” and all will be well.
Then there is my favourite response to crises by other “geniuses” in our industry, which is just bury your heads in the sand and in time it will go away.
Hogwash!
If your crisis ever makes it into the newspapers … remember one golden rule: newspapers don’t die. Whenever they write about your organisation, they will always refer to that incident.
There is a certain “businessman” who was convicted of fraud and was infamously released due to a terminal medical condition, who used to hobnob with high-ranking politicians. The case is several years old now and yet even today, when the media mention his name, whatever the context, he’s always the convicted fraudster.
So what is the proper response to a crisis? Well, don’t run away from it; rather, acknowledge what happened. Then solve the problem. Not the communication problem, but the actual problem that led to the crisis in the first place. So, if a bad quality assurance process led to a defective product making its way into the market, you fix the quality assurance process.
Remember, communications does not solve problems; it allows for an environment where problems can be solved, to prevail.
Be available to engage with affected stakeholders. Not just through the newspapers, but face-to-face interactions as well. Demonstrate your concern for all those affected – and don’t just talk about it, walk the talk. If there were errors made, acknowledge the mistakes; you are far more likely to be forgiven if you tell the truth, than if you paint yourself into a corner with excuses and avoidance.
Please, it’s for your own good: treat your stakeholders with respect, because they are not idiots. Your advisers may come up with some cocktail of lies that seem reasonable and plausible to you, but if it isn’t the truth, someone will know, they will tell and you entire reputation will be worth naught by the following morning.
In the end, the way out of a crisis is quite simply something you should already know.
Tell the truth!