What do we do? WHAT DO WE DO?
Your day has started like any other, everything is ticking along nicely, then boom – a crisis lands and you panic. It is a natural reaction to a less-than-ideal situation. Here we look at some key strategies that should be implemented when undertaking crisis management.
A crisis by nature is unexpected. But the fact remains that it has arisen, and it needs to be dealt with. In some cases it may have been unavoidable but hindsight is useless in the early stages of a crisis. When the crisis has been dealt with you can look back and see what can be learnt from it.
So, let us look at some key pointers when dealing with a crisis:
- The first thing you need to do is stay calm and quickly take stock of how the land currently lies
- Engage with the relevant team members who may be able to assist with the crisis. Keep this circle as tight as possible – remember the saying “too many cooks spoil the broth”? The same can be applied to a crisis. Lots of people means lots of opinions which can slow down reactions
- Once you have a complete picture of the crisis in-hand you need to contact your communications team and provide a full brief
- Your comms team will quickly review all eventualities and recommend the best route/s forward – this may be an internal communication, staff meetings, press release out to the media or a combination of options
- Be honest! Crises are typically classed as negative for a company or brand but we would always recommend tackling it head on with whole truths – never spin or lie
- Never go out with a knee-jerk reaction, it will come back to haunt you. Crises need to be handled swiftly with a level head
- Once the crisis has been dealt with you can look at how it occurred and what you can learn from it to ensure something similar does not happen again in the future
If you want to make sure you have crisis support in place then please drop us a line. We have managed all manner of different crises over the years – there is not much we have not seen!
