Overview:

All crises emit warning signals. And yet, organizations do not typically see the warnings in time to learn and adapt to prevent a crisis. Crisis management is the systematic approach an organization takes to an unexpected event, with the intent of minimizing any negative impact. Managing a crisis — whether it originates from a pandemic, natural disaster, data breach or other cause — requires having a coherent response plan in place, one that spells out how teams will coordinate their public-facing communications and actions.

crisis management process

Figure 1. crisis management process

Crisis management is a process designed to prevent or lessen the damage a crisis can inflict on an organization and its stakeholders.  As a process, crisis management is not just one thing.  Crisis management can be divided into three phases:  (1) pre-crisis, (2) crisis response, and (3) post-crisis.  The pre-crisis phase is concerned with prevention and preparation.  The crisis response phase is when management must actually respond to a crisis.  The post-crisis phase looks for ways to better prepare for the next crisis and fulfills commitments made during the crisis phase including follow-up information.  The tri-part view of crisis management serves as the organizing framework for this entry.

PRE-CRISIS PHASE

How

Prevention involves seeking to reduce known risks that could lead to a crisis.  This is part of an organization’s risk management program.  Preparation involves creating the crisis management plan, selecting, and training the crisis management team, and conducting exercises to test the crisis management plan and crisis management team.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT PLAN

A crisis management plan (CMP) is a reference tool, not a blueprint.  A CMP provides lists of key contact information, reminders of what typically should be done in a crisis, and forms to be used to document the crisis response.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT TEAM

the common members of the crisis team as public relations, legal, security, operations, finance, and human resources.  However, the composition will vary based on the nature of the crisis.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT TEAM

A key component of crisis team training is spokesperson training.  Organizational members must be prepared to talk to the news media during a crisis.  Media training should be provided before a crisis hits.

The Crisis Media Training Best Practices in Table 2 were drawn from these three books:

1.  Avoid the phrase “no comment” because people think it means the organization is guilty and trying to hide something

2.  Present information clearly by avoiding jargon or technical terms.

3.  Appear pleasant on camera by avoiding nervous habits that people interpret as deception.  A spokesperson needs to have strong eye contact, limited disfluencies such as “uhms” or “uhs” and avoid distracting nervous gestures such as fidgeting or pacing. 

4.  Brief all potential spokespersons on the latest crisis information and the key message points the organization is trying to convey to stakeholders.

PRE-DRAFT MESSAGES

Pre-draft select crisis management messages including content for dark websites and templates for crisis statements.  Have the legal department review and pre-approve these messages.

CRISIS RESPONSE

• The crisis response is what management does and says after the crisis hits.  Public relations plays a critical role in the crisis response by helping to develop the messages that are sent to various publics.  A great deal of research has examined the crisis response

POST-CRISIS PHASE

In the post-crisis phase, the organization is returning to business as usual.  The crisis is no longer the focal point of management’s attention but still requires some attention.  As noted earlier, reputation repair may be continued or initiated during this phase.

CONCLUSION

It is difficult to distill all that is known about crisis management into one, concise entry.  I have tried to identify the best practices and lessons created by crisis management researchers and analysts.  While crises begin as a negative/threat, effective crisis management can minimize the damage and in some case allow an organization to emerge stronger than before the crisis.  However, crises are not the ideal way to improve an organization.  But no organization is immune from a crisis so all must do their best to prepare for one.