Crisis Management Guides

The ‘how tos’ of managing a crisis.

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating a Plan 4

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , .

So, Who Owns the Crisis?

First, an apology for the depths of ennui that I plumbed in yesterday’s post. *rse. I’d forgotten how mind-numbing the whole preparation deal can be – but, just because it’s teeth-grindingly tedious, doesn’t mean it’s not important. Go away and do it. You’ll be happier when you have. Honest. You can make it more interesting by identifying the things that I’ve forgotten, thereby adding to the wow factor of your preparation experience. OK, that’s nonsense. Just get on with it!

I’m going to divide this section into two and, to the undoubted and unbounded relief of those who are sticking with this out of some misguided sense of duty (thank you so much), I’m going to keep it brief.

First, let’s talk about who actually owns the crisis management plan – the preparation of parts of which you are so deeply embroiled in right now. Well, on the one hand, it should be the top bod. Mr Pinnacle. Your MD or CEO. He, or indeed, she, is ultimately responsible for the direction, development and performance of your business and therefore should take responsibility for the business when things get a bit out of shape. On the other hand, as we all know, these people operate on a slightly different plane to the rest of us and simply do not (mostly) have the focus, or the patience to deal with the detail that’s necessary to get this right. And, although they may not seem it, these people are professional optimists – they cannot allow themselves to believe that anything can go wrong with the business that they are stewarding (it would drive them nuts).

So, in brief, you need to find someone senior enough to be able to lead and enrol other senior people in the business and yet paranoid and detail-oriented enough to be concerned about  getting it right. There are normally two candidates – your Head of Legal Affairs, or your Company Secretary. If you’ve got one person doing both roles then, in the vernacular, bingo!

(Apologies to all those of my blog snorkellers who work in companies that have Health and Safety departments or officers. You’ve already got plans, and quite scarily-committed people looking after them. With hi-vis jackets, no doubt.)

Which brings me to the second part of this post – who actually owns the crisis when it’s happening. Clearly – and everything I’m posting here is not meant to be definitive, it requires the fertilizer of your thoughts for it to bloom – it’s going to depend on what sort of crisis you’ve got – whether, in fact, it’s just an issuette, or whether it’s something that is going to have a long-term, company-wide impact. And therefore, in amongst your preparation, you’re going to need an escalation plan – a sort of chart which shows who needs to know what and when.

You see, in this case, the ultimate owner of the crisis IS the MD or CEO – ‘cos he or she is the one who’ll be doing five years in Pentonville if the company’s found to be negligent – but (for all the reasons stated above) she (or he) is not going to want to be bothered by a small glitch on the production line. While it’s not entirely your job to decide how far up the food chain the news of your issue/crisis needs to be escalated, you can be certain that senior people are not going to be terribly forgiving if they read it in the paper before you’ve told them about it. Or worse – if they’ve been stupid enough to give their ‘phone numbers to the media – they get a call about it before you’ve briefed them.

Finally for this post, your escalation plan – which, as I hope I’ve already made clear, will, like the rest of your prep, be formulated with the help of others from around your business who are likely to be involved in the event of a crisis – should show ‘levels of engagement’. Simply put, this describes the teams that come together to co-ordinate the management of the crisis.

Normally called Gold, Silver and Bronze – something to do with the military or the emergency services, I think – they are basically a junior team, dealing with things on the ground, a middle-ranking team, directing things on the ground and making longer-term decisions, and the senior team, formulating strategy, handing down approvals and shaping the future. To be clear – dependent on what your crisis is, you may never need to call your middle and senior teams together – simply keeping them informed may be enough. But you need to be clear on how those decisions are made.

Next time, on ‘I’m an Idiot, Make me a Crisis Management Plan’ – I’ll summarise where we’ve got to. And then it’s on to the fun stuff………..

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating A Plan 3

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Preparing to Deal With a Crisis

Today, dear and faithful blog snorkellers, we’re going to look at the homework you need to do in preparation for dealing with a crisis, whenever it happens.

First, however, some home truths. You, the corporate communicator, do not own a crisis. Communication is key to the crisis management process – but so is the safety of your employees, customers and the community, operating within the law, making sure your business still does business, guaranteeing your suppliers and staff are paid and ensuring your records and data are safe.

The comms team protects corporate reputation and maintains stakeholder confidence, and is central to all aspects of the crisis management process – but we do not lead it, we do not own it and we are not the single most important thing.

Not so long ago, in a crisis simulation exercise, I felt that an operations person had been slow in providing my team with information fundamental to the external comms strategy.

In the heat of the moment, and in front of his colleagues, I said I didn’t care how busy he was maintaining his part of the business and that it was none of my concern. I was solely interested in the reputation and trust that would allow the business to function in the future, and that his duty was to help me achieve my goals. Needless to say, backs went up, and the situation has a couple of ugly moments.

I still believe I was right – but I had made the mistake of forgetting that comms works in tandem with all the other strands of crisis management. I’ll come back to the issue of who owns the crisis and how it might work in another post, but in the meantime, remember that, in all your preparation (as outlined below) you should involve others. It’ll make it easier later.

In preparation, these are the things you should consider:

Scenario planning – what are the issues that could affect your company, and how would your company be affected if one (or more) of them became reality? Make a bullet-point list of all of them.

Reserve statements and Q&A – bear in mind that when a crisis strikes, you will not have all the facts and you will not have had time to assess the situation. You may, however (dependent on the nature of the crisis), be expected to communicate immediately, without access to a spokesperson, or any form of approval process. Create a holding statement, or statements, if necessary leaving gaps for names and places, and get approval in advance. All the holding statement needs to do is acknowledge that something is happening, accept that information needs to be gathered and promise to issue further details within a specified timeframe. Looking at your scenario list, you should also be able to make a start on a generic Q&A document, which can be approved in advance. This will need updating on a regular basis.

Equipment and location – what will you need to run a communications centre? Computers, telephones, fax machines, whiteboards, headed paper, plain paper, envelopes, plastic folders, pens, staplers, desks, chairs – make a list. Bear in mind that your office may not be accessible – where would you go, and does that location have all the things you need?

Spokespeople and contact details – if you’re unlucky enough to face a crisis with immediate media interest, your reserve statements will only hold for so long – probably about half an hour – before you need to give a more detailed briefing. At this point, the media will want to hear from someone who isn’t part of the comms team – preferably a senior executive. You should create a bank of senior spokespeople, media trained and familiar with the crisis comms plan, on a rota and ready to be contacted at any time during their ‘on-call’ period. The comms team, the spokespeople and all those involved in the crisis management process should have a copy of the rota and a full contact list, containing the entire team’s contact details.

Holding and waiting areas – in that case of a full-blown crisis (especially one involving destruction of property or loss of life) the media are likely to be there before the emergency services, closely followed by the general public. You cannot afford to have either group simply milling around – they will inevitably stray into areas that may be unsafe, or restricted and they will ask questions that people may not be able to answer. You will need to provide areas where both groups can wait – if possible separately. Again, remember that your buildings may not be accessible – is there an alternative?

This is simply a starter. You will probably think of other things that you need to have, or need to do. Also bear in mind that, in the case of crisis involving death and/or destruction, you’ll be working with the emergency services, who have a tendency to take over. Be prepared, but also be flexible.

Next time, we’ll look at who owns the crisis in more detail, and who should be involved.

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating A Plan 2

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides and tagged , , , , .

What’s a Crisis, Then?

Here’s a definition, that’s as good as any for our purposes – crisis (n.) an unstable period, esp one of extreme trouble or danger in politics, economics, etc.  As far as business is concerned, the effects of a good crisis on a business can include (but are not limited to) collapse of share price, destruction of reputation, loss of stakeholder confidence, legal action, job losses and possible custodial sentences for ‘responsible’ executives. Scary shit, as I’m sure you’d agree.

In answer to the inevitable question (et tu, dear blog snorkeller?) ‘who the living hell is this guy and what gives him the right to get all preachy on my arse?’, I’ll give you a few examples of crises that I, personally, have dealt with. It’s not a comprehensive list, and it doesn’t contain an example of every type of crisis, but it’s a nice lead in to what comes next.

  • The recall of a batch of product (food and drink category) that was shipped to retail outlets before the contamination was discovered
  • The employee who drank himself to death at a company ‘fun day’
  • The employee who fried himself in an electricity sub-station
  • The employee who stood where he shouldn’t and fell fifteen feet on to the concrete floor below
  • An unexpected and vitriolic local resident and media reaction to a casino planning application
  • The frightening tabloid media homophobic reaction to an (inadvertent) gay advertisement
  • The understandable tabloid media reaction to an iconoclastic (anti-religious?) advertisement
  • The media furore over a glamour model stabbing her boyfriend (to death) in a restaurant
  • The House of Commons early-day motion against the re-naming of a pub in Newcastle
  • The banning of the St George’s cross in a chain of British pubs during the Euro 2004 football tournament
  • The 12-month pay-freeze imposed on a company because the chairman misheard a journalist’s question
  • The failure of a £2.8bn bid for one company by another company

The point, which I hope has been suitably made, is that crises come at you from any angle. You will never be able to anticipate everything, no matter how hard you try, but some simple thought processes can help you prepare.

Often, real crises start from small niggly issues. As a corporate communications professional, it’s your job to be aware of the small niggly issues and, if you cannot see any immediately, then go out and find some. Every company – or client – has small niggly issues. You will not win any friends this way – trust me – and you will be seen as, variously, negative, cynical, and ‘not a team player’. The trick is to maintain your joie de vivre and your place at the heart of corporate culture while still being on the lookout for the small niggly issues.

A great example is Starbucks. Up until earlier this year (2009) Starbucks stores had a tap running into their sinks 24/7. It was to wash glasses and cups. It was to save time.

It was wasting water – at a time when the Green lobby was at its height. When questioned on it, however, Starbucks had no real answer – which translated into acres of negative media coverage. Simply put, no-one had looked out for the niggly issues, no-one was viewing the business from a slightly negative, ‘what-if’ perspective and – even if they were – no-one had the power or influence to tell the ops guys to turn the taps off. And they got busted.

No matter what your business is, it has potential to go wrong. And even if you think it doesn’t, then do not discount the influence of external factors and their ability to make your business go wrong – economic factors, medical factors, geographical factors, human/employee factors (think recession, pandemic, earthquake, terrorism) – anything that can affect your business probably will, sooner or later.

Here I’m going to name-check social media – this is a new danger. Social media allows for the proliferation of rumour, scuttlebutt and (ooooooh) employee dissatisfaction almost instantaneously and totally globally. Obviously, bigger and more established companies and brands are more at risk – because they’re more visible – but all companies, organisations and newsworthy individuals should have some form of monitoring process in place.

In summary, here’s the key points:

  • A crisis can come from anywhere
  • Look at your business – where could a crisis come from
  • Don’t stint yourself – it’s your job to be paranoid
  • You are the guardian of corporate reputation, and that’s what’s at stake
  • Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer – questioning practice is also avoidance of issues
  • Bring people on board – heads of department, key players – instil paranoia in them too
  • Monitor all channels for the beginnings of issues
  • Make a list of all the things that could happen – no matter how outrageous
  • Prepare yourself mentally for what might happen if things go wrong

Next time, we’ll talk about being prepared for the worst to happen.

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating A Plan 1

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides and tagged , , , , , , , .

2009 Research by Burson Marsteller (a PR company) into European companies’ level of crisis-preparedness revealed that while 60% of companies polled had encountered some sort of crisis, 53% didn’t have a plan in place to deal with a crisis when it happens to them. Just so the full horror of this has time to sink in – I’ll repeat it in slightly different terms.

Over half of European companies, it would seem, are wholly unprepared for the ‘phone call at 3.00am that tells you your factory’s on fire, or one of your planes just came down. The Monday morning call from the Department of Health to say that hospitals up and down the country are stuffed to the gunwales with patients, poisoned by your range of ready meals. The sight of two of your workforce plummeting past the window, having been issued with badly-maintained harnesses. Your CEO shooting himself in the foot, describing your product range as ‘off the record, real shit, know what I mean’, or your CEO simply shooting himself, having realised that the whole fraud game is up.

Do I need to go on? Everyone knows that a good crisis – or sometimes just a minor issue – can destroy a company, brand, organisation, or person’s reputation overnight if it’s not handled in the right way. Think of the examples. Hoover and the flights debacle, Ratners, Nestle and the baby milk, Coke and Dasani, Thierry Henry, Goldman Sachs, Britney Spears, Enron, Exxon Mobil – the list is, quite literally, endless.

And still, over half of European companies do not have a crisis plan in place. Without labouring the point, a crisis can happen at any time, and it’s one of those strange serendipity things that at any time is exactly when crises do happen. There’s no warning and it will be the middle of the night – that much is guaranteed. It is tantamount to malpractice for any communicator daring to describe himself or herself as professional to ply their trade in, or on behalf of, a company that doesn’t have a plan in place. Think about that for a moment.

Of course, it’s easier said than done. If you’ve not created a plan before it might, understandably, seem a bit daunting – and it’s not made any easier by the fact that there are a million conflicting opinions on what a plan should look like and what it should contain.

It’s also all to easy to put off, or ignore. Hey – your company, or your client’s company has never had a crisis – why’s it going to start now? Anyway, how difficult can it be? And just think of the cost, time and effort involved in putting a plan together! All perfectly good arguments – until such time as you are bitch-slapped by the big, wet, metaphorical haddock of crisis. At which point you are going to be really, really, abjectly sorry. Trust me.

In a perfect world, one would expect the industry bodies, or the industry’s ‘bible’ (copyright PRWeek 2009), to provide a handy cut-and-out-keep guide for the benefit of their members and readers – something to get you started. But it’s not a perfect world, and they don’t. In fact, as far as I can see, during the lazy and brief trawl of t’internet I conducted earlier today, there’s not much out there that doesn’t have a price attached to it.

So, for the good of mankind, I’m going to do a partwork here, just for you, my faithful blog snorkellers. Over the next few days – could be weeks, depends how deeply I dive into my subject – I shall, I hope, give you enough information on the key aspects of crisis management for you to develop your own skeleton plan. I shall deal with what constitutes a crisis, when issues become crises, who is responsible for the various facets of a crisis, preparing for a crisis, communicating during a crisis, business continuity and getting back to normal after a crisis. And, most likely, one or two spin-off topics.

So – tomorrow, in Creating A Plan 2, I’ll deal with What Is A Crisis.

Crisis Management – Yes, Stupid, You Need A Plan

Posted on by in Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , .

Following on from news of Burson Marsteller’s research in to European companies’  level of crisis-preparedness – I wrote about it recently – which revealed (in addition to such gems as ‘crises may affect share price’) that while 60% of companies polled had encountered some sort of crisis, 53% didn’t have a plan – PRWeek sees fit to inform its readership that “Crisis Comms Is (a) Hot Topic”. (What is this? Some sort of uncontrolled outbreak of the Galloping Bleedin’ Obviousnesses?)

Now, in fairness (because, when all’s said and done, I’m a reasonably fair bloke) PRWeek is reporting that ‘more than 60 communicators from large international corporations across the EMEA region were set to meet in London to discuss the findings” (of the Burson-Marsteller report).  Which I find both terrifying and very difficult to believe in equal measure – what are 60 communicators going to do with the loosely-structured, scaremongering collection of motherhood statements that is the B-M report? Will they agree with the statistics – ie 36 of their number have experienced a crisis, while 32 of them don’t have a plan in place? And will the 28 who do then jeer and point at the others?

I suspect, given that the keynote speaker at this – judging by the breathless PRWeek copy (“Senior comms executives were set to convene this week to thrash out crisis comms strategies in the wake of new research” – oh, please) – hastily-arranged gathering, is the owner of a security and risk management advisory firm, that this is more of a paid-for training session cum conference. But, hey, call me an old cynic.

Two things then. All you 60 communicators set to gather in London – what are you doing? If you haven’t got a crisis plan – and you don’t know where to start –  don’t spend your money on coming to London to listen to a lecture. Get in touch with the CIPR or the PRCA and ask for their recommendations on a crisis management consultant, and then go and have a conversation. Quick-smart, choppy-chop.

Thing two. PRWeek. Instead of reporting this horseshit in a breathless fashion, could we please, please have a three page feature on creating a robust crisis management plan – some case histories maybe? You could even shadow one of the 32 of the 60 who don’t have a plan as he or she goes through the process of getting one together. Just a thought.