The term “crisis” generally conjures up images in most people’s minds of a big incident or a major disaster along the lines of the BP Deep Horizon oil leak, that requires carefully planned responses which are both operational and communication based. Crises however can take many forms and may not necessarily be a major event.
Essentially a crisis is anything that has the potential to damage a firm’s, or individual’s, reputation and impact on their business.
I recently took part in a panel event for the Guernsey Institute of Directors looking at responses to crisis situations: how to plan for them, how to avoid them and how to deal with them if they arise. James Falla, business editor of the daily Guernsey Press, was there to present the media’s view of how they approach a crisis and Malcolm Hart, MD of Guernsey airline Aurigny, presented some views on how to deal with crises from an operational perspective. Naturally, my contribution was all about communication in a crisis – the big things but also the little things. Little things like ignoring a broken guitar, employees misbehaving, or someone at your business lazily hiding behind small print.
Little issues can build into a crisis if left unchecked. For the most part potential crises can be defused with some good old fashioned communication and, indeed, new fashioned communication using the internet to “talk” to those hard to reach customers and commentators.
My talk (you can see the slides here) also took in what to do if the media arrived on your doorstep. It was interesting to hear that the journalist in the room and I shared the same principles but for quite different, but not opposing, reasons. We both agreed you need to “tell it all, tell it fast, tell the truth” – to use the old PR maxim.
All the speakers agreed that communication in times of crises was paramount. Hiding isn’t going to help; stonewalling will make things worse; and launching a new marketing competition in the middle of one is probably the worst thing you could do.
Communicating clearly, and rationally, and showing a bit of humanity will ensure your business comes out the other side of your crisis in good shape.