You hate to think about the unthinkable.  But as a leader in your organization, that’s exactly what you must do. 

A cyber attack on your electronic records.  A malpractice incident.  A biohazard spill. The sudden death of an executive.   A workplace shooting. A fire.

Any of these situations could happen without notice.  What would you do?  How you manage the unfolding story of a crisis plays a key role in how quickly your organization will recover.  And the absolute worst time to learn crisis management is during a crisis. 

During a crisis, emotions will be high for all.  This is the time for leaders to step up and demonstrate empathy, compassion, decisiveness….and to carefully follow the steps outlined in their organization’s crisis communications plan.  And if you don’t have a crisis plan, now is the time to put one in place.

The Rumor Mill

Rumor and gossip are plentiful during a crisis, especially in the absence of a sound communications strategy. A comprehensive plan will cover various situations, but here are just a few missteps to avoid.

Sugarcoating.  You’ll be tempted to put a positive spin on everything.  This strategy is engrained in us.  Whether it’s a report to the community or the board of directors, it’s common to highlight the positive and gloss over the negatives.  But during a crisis, sugarcoating will backfire.  People will see right through it, making them suspicious and damaging your credibility when your reputation matters most.

Secrets.  The quickest way to fuel the fire of gossip and rumor is secrecy.  If you can’t comment on a certain issue, then explain why.  Give information that you can talk about.  Keep everyone informed of the process.  During the heat of a crisis, people expect access to everything.

“No Comment.”  What do you think of when you hear this?  Human nature is to think “they’re hiding something.”  Once you’ve created that perception, you’ve immediately drawn even more scrutiny and attention to your organization.  Reporters who hear “no comment” don’t stop their pursuit of the story.  They’ll find other ways to get to the facts, and this time the reporting will most certainly be critical to your organization’s handling of the situation.

Multiple official voices.   The media love controversy.  Always be honest and truthful, but don’t give them conflicting stories by various spokespersons.  Define the official spokespersons and limit to a very small group.  Make sure spokespersons are informed, ready and consistent with their message.  Emphasize to others that they are not authorized to speak to the media or to represent the organization without permission.

Getting Started

Keep it simple.  A crisis communications plan should not tell you how to behave in a crisis, but it should tell you what to do in a crisis and when.  A crisis plan should not be a complicated rulebook that sits on a shelf and collects dust. Rather it should be a system that walks you through each hour of the crisis, telling you what you should say, who you should say it to, and when to say it. It also will outline the actual communication tools, from traditional methods such as memos and newsletters to new media techniques such as pod casts and dedicated websites.  When writing your plan, consider these critical components:

Vulnerability audit. This is when you spend time interviewing people within your organization to ask them what might go wrong and why. Your interviews should range from top executives, to managers, to service line employees. You should be prepared to ask them a few simple open ended questions, including, "What do you think might go wrong here, that would result in a crisis?" You'll want to consider likely crises and worst case scenarios and delve into the bizarre possibilities.

When considering the scenarios, you should also consider that a crisis isn't always a fire or explosion, but may be something internal, often referred to as a smoldering crisis. The Institute for Crisis Management says a smoldering crisis is twice as likely to happen as a sudden crisis.

You'll want to make an extensive list of the scenarios that have been identified, and then rank their probability of occurring. You'll want to deal with the Top 10 most likely to occur first, and then proceed down the list accordingly.

Create the template. The template that will become the heart of the plan. This is the part of the plan that coordinates notification of key leaders during a crisis, notification of the media, employees, customers, the community and other key stakeholders specific to your organization.

This heart of the plan should contain a pre-written, pre-approved first critical statement template that will encompass the words you'll communicate to all of your audiences during the first critical hour of any crisis that goes public.  It should also prepare you for news conferences and what you'll say in the subsequent hours of the crisis.

Outline messages and communications strategy.  You should go down your list of possible crisis scenarios and literally write out what you anticipate you would say to your critical audiences in the event that each of these events happens. A portion of the plan should allow you to add the who, what, when, where, why and how, followed by a complete script that you or a spokesperson can say verbatim during the crisis. These are usually used in the second hour of the crisis.

I suggest having everything pre-written and approved by legal and corporate leaders well in advance of the crisis, so you can communicate quickly and effectively on the day of the crisis. These should include statements for events ranging from weather emergencies to workplace violence to fires and explosions.

Test the plan. If you don't test your plan, then it may likely be a crisis waiting to happen. A test lets all parties become familiar with what's in the plan and make sure it works as planned. Even the best plans have a flaw here and there that can be exposed and corrected during a drill. Some flaws turn out to be in the personalities of leaders or responders. The drill also lets you test the quality of your spokespeople. Video tape their performance for evaluation, and be sure to schedule media training if it is needed.

Many companies, in particular health care organizations, have emergency response plans for coordinating police, fire, rescue and EMS during a crisis. Often the security director or risk manager will schedule regular emergency drills. However, many fail to include communications in their drill, resulting in responders and managers being overwhelmed when the media is demanding interviews during an actual crisis, and while employees and their families begin making demands for information.

The drill can be a tabletop or real time drill. It should have live role-players portraying members of the media who show up on-site with cameras, plus an off-site team that works to overload switchboards with phone calls.