Crisis Communications Made Simple (Sort of)

As crisis communications practitioners working with a wide variety of corporations and agencies to plan for, train for and respond to crises, we sometimes find ourselves nearly bogged down in inertia and cultural obstacles, often making communication with key stakeholders more of a challenge than it needs to be.

Between the legal approvals, internal sign-offs and other important considerations communicators run the risk of slowing or diluting the process to a point of near ineffectiveness. Clearly, of course, approvals are necessary, especially approvals from legal counsel in the earliest hours of an incident when information is hard to come by and words should be chosen very carefully. We would never think of running out into media “traffic” without obtaining needed sign-off’s to protect both us and our clients.

In the past 60 days we have helped handle the widest variety of client crises and reputational dilemmas:

- oil spills
- vessel piracy act in the Gulf of Aden
- vessel sinking off Texas
- vessel incident near Singapore
- US Food and Drug Administration raid
- allegations of wrong doing against a prominent doctor
- allegations of environmental wrong doing by a large construction company
- litigation against one of the world’s largest technology companies
- media reports on litigation regarding defective Chinese drywall

Successfully communicating, and being prepared to communicate about each of these incidents has roots in what we call the Fundamentals of Good Crisis Communication, basic goals and objectives that define successful communication in a way that stakeholders—the media, public, employees, investors, environmental groups, etc can appreciate and applaud.

Those fundamentals are listed below for consideration and comment.

- Timely / prompt
- Cooperative
- Honest
- Confident
- Authoritative
- Fact based
- Action oriented
- Credible
- Compassionate / understanding

In summary, the best of planning and preparation go all for naught if what you’re saying and when and how you say it fails to meet many of the criteria above and if the words you speak don’t bring maximum value to shaping or reshaping stakeholder opinion.