What Is Crisis Management? How to Know You’re Facing One
A crisis doesn’t have to be a five-alarm fire to threaten your reputation. Here’s how to tell the difference — and what to do next.
By Bruce Hennes, President, AKCG – Hennes Division
Let’s begin with a basic question: Something happens at work that’s out of the ordinary — something that gives you pause. How do you know whether you may be facing a crisis? What’s the difference between a crisis and the kinds of issues that come up periodically, the ones you already know how to handle? Most events or problems that crop up at one of your locations, campuses or facilities don’t require an alert to corporate. You have policies, procedures and experience for those.
What Is Crisis Management?
A crisis does not need to be major to have a major impact. At AKCG, we define a crisis as any event — large or small — that has the ability to affect the goodwill an organization has earned.
So, what are the common elements of a crisis? Not the physical manifestation. Not “the building’s on fire.” That’s clearly a crisis. But what tells you a situation could be a crisis, or a serious issue others in the organization need to know about?
Situations requiring a crisis management response are most often an event or development that has the potential to significantly threaten — or actually cause substantial damage or harm to — your organization, your staff, your facilities, your business processes, your financial condition and/or your reputation. Effective crisis management considers the potential consequences of an event, not just the event itself.
Crisis vs. Issue: Where to Draw the Line
I like this definition of a crisis from James E. Lukaszewski, a noted crisis consultant, lecturer and author:
“We define crises as show-stopping, people-stopping, product-stopping and/or reputation-defining situations that create victims and/or explosive visibility. Anything less falls more into the category of a problem or issue that, while disruptive, has far less potential to create explosive, unplanned visibility.”
So the first question to ask yourself is simple: Could this lead to explosive, unplanned visibility for my organization?
7 Questions to Determine If You’re Facing a Crisis
Here are some simple questions you can arm yourself with to help decide:
- Will residents, clients, students or customers be affected? If so, how — and do they need to hear this from us before someone else tells them?
- Have emergency first responders been called to the scene? That’s a very public event that will draw attention.
- Are the media likely to be interested in this? Have we seen references to it on social media? Are people talking about it there, and what are they saying?
- Will neighbors or the broader community be affected by this?
- Has there been a severe injury or death of a team member, resident, student or visitor?
- Are we facing an extensive or prolonged shutdown of operations?
- Will our reputation or brand be threatened as a result of this?
If the answer to one or more of these questions is yes — what now?
What to Do When the Answer Is Yes
Organizations that are best prepared for a crisis have a clearly designed process, often a flow chart, to determine who needs to know about a crisis and what they need to know.
Most people understand the importance of the operational step: how you fix or manage the crisis itself. Many organizations have operational emergency plans — what do you do when the lights go out? Far fewer organizations have a complementary crisis communication plan. That gap matters, because communication, done well, is what helps an organization survive a crisis and come out the other side with its reputation intact, or even enhanced.
Why Communication Comes First in Crisis Management
Communication is often the last thing an organization thinks about during a crisis. But it’s the first thing your employees, residents, community partners and other stakeholders use to learn about you and what you’re doing about it.
The Inside-Out Approach to Crisis Communication
That’s why we recommend what we call an inside-out approach to crisis communication. Start with the insiders who most need to know — employees, residents and community partners (or, for an independent school, faculty, staff, parents, students, alumni and donors).
The media may be the squeakiest wheel when a crisis strikes, but your most important audiences should get the grease.
Conclusion How AKCG Helps Organizations Manage a Crisis Before It Escalates
Knowing how to define a crisis is the first step. Having a plan, trained spokespeople and on-call counsel ready before you need them is what actually protects your organization when the moment arrives.
For more than 35 years, Bruce Hennes has advised organizations, including senior living providers, healthcare systems, universities, school districts and Fortune 500 companies, through their highest-stakes moments. Today, as President of the Hennes Division at AKCG – Public Relations Counselors, he brings that same experience to AKCG’s crisis preparedness and response services.
If your organization doesn’t yet have a crisis communication plan, or hasn’t reviewed one recently, contact AKCG to schedule a discovery call.
