Stage One: Audit and Mitigate Reputational Risks
If the first time you think about a crisis is the moment a journalist calls for comment, chances are you are too late and also, more than likely, far too stressed to act calmly and rationally.
So this is what you should do now:
- Carry out a reputational risk audit to identify key risks. In simpler terms, write down all the things that could go wrong for your business. I use the 4.45am test: if they are the sort of issues that keep you awake at night, they need to be on the list
- Grade risks by severity and likelihood.
- Take steps to mitigate the most serious and likely risks: Most “PR disasters” are actually failings in business processes, and if they are bad enough, damage will be done no matter how well you communicate about them.
- But always remember that there is a strong likelihood that it will be something you’ve never envisaged that goes wrong – that’s how crises work, therefore you also need to be prepared for the unexpected.
So look at the following:
- What your organisation can do to lessen the chance of events happening
- How it will react in the event of the risk being realised.
Stage Two: Communications Protocols
Ensure that clear communications protocols are in place which everybody knows about. Don’t let executives or trustees go missing in action when you really need them to step up to the plate. You can only achieve this by covering off the following:
- Who speaks for the organisation and just as important, who does not. Is this a single individual who deals with everything or will different people speak on behalf of different areas of the organisation?
- Have these people been properly media trained by professionals with crisis experience? If not, make sure they are. By the time a crisis breaks it will be too late.
- Sanctions that apply for unauthorised press comment (you can’t have random members of staff talking about major issues either to the media or on social media – it leads to confusion, mixed messaging and falsehoods being published, especially given few will be in full possession of the facts).
- Process for signing off comment in case of crisis (i.e. board or management sub-committee or fully delegated powers to an individual). You can’t afford to have delays when a crisis breaks, delay and you lose the trust of the media and the story gets out of control on social media.
- Means for calling instant meetings for relevant people both within and outside working hours.
- Protocols around mobile phones (i.e. that they are switched on). You’d be amazed how often a crisis will spiral out of control because you just can’t get hold of key people.
- Have a robust crisis communication plan for social media. Do those managing the crisis know all the relevant passwords? Do you have a rules around social media usage and protocols for dealing with difficult situations, how do you monitor social media and who is posting on your behalf? Is your organisation geared up to deal with a social media crisis at all?
- Testing of all the above, with simulations if required.
Stage Three: Execution
The following must be in place:
- Agreed, achievable and measurable communications objectives from the outset (you need to agree on what you are trying to achieve, what is reasonable, what success looks like: you are unlikely to come out of a real crisis with your reputation completely undamaged so unless you’re just going to fire your comms team at the end of the process because you’re reputation has been damaged, you need to look at realistic outcomes).
- Available media-trained spokesperson(s).
- Appropriate resources in-house and supplemented if necessary, not neglecting social media.
- Appropriate response times (i.e. rapid, building trust, respecting 24/7 news agenda.
- Clear un-muddled approach working to a plan, if necessary sending people home who are not coping. People who panic spread fear and get in the way. You don’t know who and where they are until the pressure ramps up. Staying cool, calm, measured and rational is critical to getting through.
Remember - we all make mistakes. It's part of being human. The key is to behave with integrity and transparency when things go wrong. If you don't the consequences will be far, far worse
