lauantai 21. marraskuuta 2009

Crisis communication

Today I'm going to write something about crisis communication. I was searching information about the PR in Hungary in the internet. After surfing a while I found a slideshow about the subject which was apparently made for a PR conference.

In the slideshow (from the year 2004) I found a claim that crisis communication is the most trendy field in Hungarian PR-market. After surfing a little bit more I found a handy article about the crisis communication which I would like to share with you. The article by Kim Harrison is from the "Cutting edge PR" website (http://www.cuttingedgepr.com/articles/senior-management-notice-crisis-plan.asp), which provides ideas and information to boost someones PR career.

The article called "How to get senior management to take notice of your crisis communication plan" says that whether you are inhouse or a consultant, crises are relevant to you as a communicator because crises are largely about the perceptions of stakeholders. Operational managers can deal with operational emergencies, but crises happen when emergency incidents impact on stakeholders, whose actions can affect the ability of your organization to survive. That’s where you come in – to communicate with key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, shareholders, government regulators and suppliers.

It’s not easy to get senior management to actively support crisis communication plans. Most of them don’t want to know about crises. They know the chance of being caught up in a crisis is tiny and they don’t want to take time away from their daily work priorities to deal with something that just might happen one day, and then again, it might not. And crisis preparation costs money in staff time, in equipment and other resources.

What’s more, many executives perceive crises and emergencies only in terms of an operational response. They look at communication only as an afterthought to the real work. This is an extremely frustrating attitude to encounter. Those executives will need to be convinced of the impact on your organization’s operations and therefore profitability before they take full notice of your communication plan.

A great crisis communication plan is only as good as the extent to which it is implemented. Here are some ideas to get senior management to respect your crisis communication plan and support its implementation:

Be an ambassador of communication. Every person in your organization involved in emergency management should know your first name and face. Meet the emergency-procedures planners informally and talk to them about how better communication with key stakeholders would help them achieve their crisis management goals.

Inform senior managers of clear objectives for communication in a crisis. When many emergency response planners think of ‘communication’ they tend to think of two-way radios or other forms of telecommunication. It might be better to use terms like ‘stakeholder information’ or ‘public communication’ in a crisis.

Tell senior managers how the overall response and recovery operation is more effective by investing in crisis communication activities. In fact, poor crisis communication could destroy the organization.

Always ensure you have fully completed your allotted tasks in the preparation of a crisis communication plan that you bring to discuss at committee meetings. Other people can tell if you have rushed your preparation or if you have neglected parts of it, so they will lose respect if you have failed to honor your commitments.

Since most executives are busy with their day-to-day activities, they tend to put off the time needing to be spent on emergency and crisis response activities. You can take the initiative and systematically arrange meetings with key managers to discuss the importance and the broad content of their communication role in a crisis

There are many high-profile examples you can cite of good and bad examples of crisis communication to back your case. Document each example concisely and circulate the documents in a regularly spaced series, ie a month or two apart, to management to drive your message home to them.

Any concerns about management not understanding the importance of crisis communication must be addressed in the pre-crisis planning phase. You need to be proactive and meet with the emergency response planners now. Show them your competence and expertise. Be energetic. Set your own time aside for thinking through and documenting for your reference any action points.

What do you think after reading this? Are these tips worth noticing in a crisis communication situation?

2 kommenttia:

  1. I found those advices quite practical. They can help in making the management more committed to and understanding of the crisis communication planning. Personally I believe in the power of good examples, especially if they show some concrete estimates or calculations about the financial impact of the existence/inexistence of viable crisis communication plannig on companies. When things are presented in the form of financial gains or losses, not on abstract level, managers will listen better. (Unfortunately concrete estimates or calculations are sometimes hard to make, though.)

    There should be also realistic crisis scenarios created for the organization: what could happen to us? They make the need for careful crisis communication planning more concrete and actual.

    VastaaPoista
  2. Crisis communication has been a "trendy# topic for a while already. Can you point something interesting out in connection with crisis communication and PR in Eastern Europe?

    VastaaPoista