Corporate Communication - Crisis Communication and Management

The last post was all about issues and how to manage them. It also spoke about how an issue, if not taken care off then and there, can turn to be a crisis situation. It only felt right to follow the last post with the topic of today, which is crisis communication and management. 

Photo credit: Google images

Crisis communication has always excited me and writing a post about it only makes it better. So the agenda for today is to discuss Crisis communication and management. *I can already tell this will be fun*

Theoretically speaking,

In a world where information about the organization is available at its publics' disposal and they are aware of the issues and risk which, are linked with the organization, crisis communication and management is the saving grace. People now can share views and voice their opinions against the corporation, tarnishing their image. Crisis communication and management is an answer to these worries. The principal objective of crisis communication and management is to try and have control over the events and the activities of the organization, so as to avoid losing the interest of the stakeholders as well as to conform to the social, safely and environmental standards.

Photo credit: Google images

The two main aspects of crisis communication and management are to prepare for the crisis that may occur and to effectively respond to the crisis situation. Some crisis can be prepared for in advance, like in the case of natural calamities or terrorist attacks while, some just appear and have to be taken care of.

To understand this with a simple example

Imagine you are at home alone, your parents and sister have gone away for the weekend. You call your friends over and throw a party. In a case like this the most common thing to happen is the mess in the house and probably a few broken things. This is our crisis situation.

What do you do? There are two things you can do, one, before the party starts, you make sure that all valuable and fragile objects are moved to a safe place and warn your friends that there can be no mess whatsoever or probably keep making sure everything is in place time and again. The second thing you can do is, tell your friends that the mess has to be cleared before your parents are back and do so. In each of the cases the situation is under control.

This would qualify as a situation where you aware of the crisis and respond effectively in order to make sure that your stakeholders (parents) have retained their trust in you.

Another situation would be, where in your parents have gone out for the weekend and you are home alone. Like an obedient child who doesn’t cause a mess, you sit at home, put on a movie and enjoy popcorn. Suddenly out of nowhere the doorbell rings. You open the door only to see your gang of friends barge into your house and scream ‘party!!!!!!!’ now there is an unannounced party in your home *hmph*.

At as luck could have it, your parents come home a few hours earlier than what was expected. CRISIS!!!!! You know you are practically dead now.

How would you manage that? This is typically a situation where in organizations are not prepared and have to take charge of the situation and bring it under control.

In cases of crisis management one thing that must be remembered is that, people lose trust. Trust is invaluable, be it from an organizational point of view of from a personal point of view. The best thing that should be done is to be honest in such situations because lying or manipulations only make it worse.

Think of it like this, you know the truth, yet your best friend is lying to you, manipulating the situation, blaming it on someone else or worse, she just denies the whole thing, would you like it? What are the chances you’d want to punch her in the face? :/

Similarly, imagine if she confessed and said sorry? Would you forgive her? You are more likely to forgive her. The idea that she is honest enough to tell you the truth and expects her fault is enough for you to regain trust in her.

                                 

Photo credit: Google images

The public has to be constantly communicated with and given authentic information time and again. In this whole scenario, people shouldn’t forget to communicate with its employees, because at the end of the day, each of your employees is an ambassador of the organization. If you don’t communicate with your employees, you are the one at loss because you will not only lose the respect and trust of the employees but also a lot of mis-communication will take place, since most people turn to the employees for information (and they aren’t aware! -_-)

A crisis situation has the capability to ruin and tarnish the image and reputation of the organization. It is very important that the organization tackles this situation for its own well-being. It is crucial that the organization recognizes the problem and adopts a plan that is best suited for its reputation and maintains the trust and the interest of its stakeholders.

“It is better to be safe than sorry”
– Anonymous