As seen on Forbes
By Kathleen Lucente
Waking up to a 2 a.m. phone call is every CEO’s worst nightmare. Nothing good happens in situations like these, and it usually involves a chief communications officer or head of operations calling to say you have a crisis on your hands. Reporters smell a scoop, employees are confused and customers are asking questions.
It’s the worst possible time for a CEO to be scrambling.
When I hear senior managers say they’ll get a plan together when they need it, I know they’re speaking from a place of profound inexperience. An experienced leader knows how crucial it is to maintain control and how hard it is to do so in the midst of a crisis.
By the time a crisis hits, whether a product needs an emergency recall, a natural disaster affects the headquarters, a disgruntled employee publishes a tell-all or a customer says something damning in an interview, it’s already too late to build and implement a comprehensive plan of action.
Before entering a new calendar year, every company and executive team should develop, revisit and test a crisis plan. Below are some crisis elements executives should be thinking about.
1. Anticipate every impactful issue.
Hold a meeting with your senior team to consider every feasible problem that could arise for your business. What if a product fails unexpectedly? What if a high-ranking employee is sued for sexual harassment? What if an executive is fired? What if a tornado or hurricane demolishes an office building? Every one of these questions — along with every other one you and your team can imagine — should have a cohesive plan of action attached to it.
2. Build a team and establish roles.
A crisis team should, by default, include the CEO, COO, HR director, PR/communications director, internal and external legal counsel, department directors and senior-level vice presidents. This will be your core team that establishes a war room, meets regularly and decides on what messages are distributed externally and in-house.
It’s critical to meet early and often and to set the expectation that communication will be frequent and clear. Normalize your crisis posture, processes and behaviors until the crisis moves to a more manageable stage. This is especially true for your communications team, which may require your attention on a minute-to-minute basis as a situation unfolds. In scenarios like this, the entire crisis team should be available to support them.
3. Establish a spokesperson.
Enlist someone familiar with the media who can answer tough questions where every word counts, even down to the person’s tone of voice. This should be someone who speaks with authority, communicates clearly and is able to exude a sense of calm even in the most trying of interviews. It should be someone known for authenticity and credibility and who can speak to the issue at hand.
Your spokesperson may need additional media training even if he or she is experienced in speaking with the press. That’s fine. Being authentic instead of robotic is crucial.
4. Develop a holding statement.
Compose a few sentences to send to employees, the press and customers as soon as a crisis strikes, even before you have all the details. Establish that you realize something has or is about to happen and that you’re taking all the necessary steps to acquire information and make decisions. In doing so, you also establish the communication method and channels people can count on for updates.
A typical holding statement might look something like: “We have activated our crisis team to determine the extent of the situation. The safety of our employees and the public is our top priority. We will be updating staff through email every two hours, more frequently if warranted, and will be posting information as we acquire it through our social media channels and website.”
5. Act swiftly to minimize the damage.
It’s essential that people see you’re acting quickly and with empathy, even if you really need to buy a little time to gather the facts. Above all, make sure you communicate only the facts. Employees, press and customers need to hear from you. If you wait too long, the narrative will be written without you, and you will become even more reactive.
6. Put others first.
Show compassion for those affected. Your communications team should collaborate with legal to explore how you can apologize or demonstrate concern without admitting liability. Too often, spokespeople are hamstrung and can’t communicate effectively because their external counsel and internal teams don’t agree on an approach. It’s vital to test possible responses by walking through a test crisis with your partners beforehand to see how all parties respond and behave.
Most importantly, push your team and spokesperson to be transparent. The truth will always be revealed anyway. Once, I was working with a company whose external legal counsel insisted that since the company’s role in a crisis was small, its leaders shouldn’t say anything. That decision cost the company every ounce of goodwill it had. The press mistrusted the organization for not revealing its involvement, and the fallout had a larger impact than it needed to had the company just been transparent.
7. Establish real-time monitoring.
Never underestimate the importance of social media. In some cases, monitoring these channels can alert you to an issue brewing in advance and, if it erupts, you can monitor and respond in real time. Twitter and Facebook are go-to sources for many journalists as well as the public, and both can either destroy your reputation or save it.
8. Schedule a post-mortem.
There’s nothing like a true crisis to test your communications plan. What went right? What went wrong? Where do you need to make adjustments or add members to your core team? Always plan to examine the fallout while it’s still fresh, so you can learn from your successes as well as your mistakes.
These eight steps may seem matter-of-fact or even self-explanatory when you’re not in a stressful situation. But having each planned out ahead of time could mean the difference between stopping a crisis or making it worse.Waking up to a 2 a.m. phone call is every CEO’s worst nightmare. Nothing good happens in situations like these, and it usually involves a chief communications officer or head of operations calling to say you have a crisis on your hands. Reporters smell a scoop, employees are confused and customers are asking questions.
It’s the worst possible time for a CEO to be scrambling.
When I hear senior managers say they’ll get a plan together when they need it, I know they’re speaking from a place of profound inexperience. An experienced leader knows how crucial it is to maintain control and how hard it is to do so in the midst of a crisis.
By the time a crisis hits, whether a product needs an emergency recall, a natural disaster affects the headquarters, a disgruntled employee publishes a tell-all or a customer says something damning in an interview, it’s already too late to build and implement a comprehensive plan of action.
Before entering a new calendar year, every company and executive team should develop, revisit and test a crisis plan. Below are some crisis elements executives should be thinking about.
