Seven Dimensions of Crisis Communication Management

SEVEN DIMENSIONS OF CRISIS COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT: A STRATEGIC ANALYSIS AND PLANNING MODEL The most challenging part of crisis communication management is reacting - with the right response - quickly.

This is because behavior always precedes communication. Non-behavior or inappropriate behavior leads to spin, not communication. In emergencies, it's the non-action and the resulting spin that cause embarrassment, humiliation, prolonged visibility, and unnecessary litigation.Helping management understand the impact of inappropriate or poorly thought out crisis response is one of the most important strategic services the public relations practitioner can provide. To have a strategic discussion requires a tool that has value without insulting the executive's intelligence, has impact without belaboring the obvious, inspires action without over-simplifying, and illustrates options and choices without teaching unnecessary, ill-advised lessons in public relations.

Examining the dimensions of a crisis, which executives can clearly recognize and relate to, helps the public relations counselor provide truly meaningful, strategic advice. It is this kind of analytical approach that helps senior management avoid career-defining moments, unless the moments are deserved. True crises have several critical dimensions in common, any one of which, if handled poorly, can disrupt or perhaps destroy best efforts at managing any remaining opportunities to resolve the situation and recover, rehabilitate, or retain reputation.Failure to respond and communicate in ways that meet community standards and expectations will result in a series of negative outcomes.

This article focuses on seven critical dimensions of crisis communication management: 1. Operations; 2. Victims; 3. Trust/credibility; 4.

Behavior; 5. Professional expectations; 6. Ethics; and 7. Lessons learned Applying the Dimensions Using this scenario, let's do an analysis using each of the seven critical dimensions. Each requires affirmative management decision making as a part of the process of surviving the situation.You will see some duplication in recommendations or observations, mostly because bad news is repeated in different ways and in different places unless it is dealt with conclusively, promptly.

I. The operations dimension Regaining public confidence following a damaging situation first requires operating decisions that alleviate the community's anguish; restore confidence in the brand, organization, individual, or activity; and rebuild relationships - especially with the victims - while at the same time reducing media coverage of the story because the organization, which created the situation, is actually doing what the community expects.Over the years I've developed a series of standard operating behaviors that seem to meet the criteria for re-establishing community support. The reality is that for truly serious situations, the perpetrators will need to take each of the seven actions before public confidence will return. The optimum order in which they need to be taken is shown here. It is not possible to skip a step.

In fact, the faster these actions are taken, in the correct order, the more quickly there will be less anger from victims, fewer bad feelings from employees, less litigation, and less media coverage.Companies that behave appropriately and solve problems promptly are neither newsworthy nor sueable. To resolve the crisis situation completely each one of these operational actions will be taken. II. The victim management dimension When organizational action creates involuntary adverse circumstances for people or institutions, victims are created.

Victims have a special mentality and their perception and behavior is altered in ways that are fundamentally predictable. Victims designate themselves. They also determine when they are no longer victims. The perpetrator needs to recognize victim expectations and respond affirmatively.Otherwise there may be very negative consequences.

For example, victims may resist reasonable solutions, use the media to communicate heart-wrenching stories, or begin high-profile litigation. Closure becomes very difficult. Disgruntled former employees and well-meaning current employees often come forward to verify victim allegations. Victims don't usually hear much beyond their own pain.

Say less but make it important and worth hearing. III. The trust and credibility dimension Credibility is conferred by others based on an organization's past behavior.When bad things happen, past behavior is used to predict future actions. When past behaviors have been good and helpful, and current and future behaviors don't match those expectations, there's a loss of credibility. Trust is the absence of fear.

Fear results from unexpected injury caused by circumstances or by someone or something that was previously trusted. Fear is the most powerful human emotion to remediate. When there is physical injury or death, it may be impossible to do more than attempt to reduce the fear. Left unattended, fear turns to frustration, anger, then to retribution.Here are seven trust-building, fear-reducing, credibility-fixing behaviors: * Provide advance information.

* Ask for input. * Listen carefully. * Demonstrate that you've heard, i. e.

, change your plans. * Stay in touch. * Speak in plain language. * Bring victims/involuntary participants into the decision-making process.

IV. The behavior dimension Post-crisis analysis involving hundreds of companies, industries, and negative circumstances reveals a pattern of unhelpful behaviors that work against rebuilding or preserving reputation, trust, and credibility.The greater the negative nature of the incident and the greater the number of victims, the more opportunities there are for trust-busting behaviors to occur. Good crisis plans are structured to work directly against, anticipate, and eliminate negative behavior patterns. Negative behaviors to plan against: 1.

Arrogance, no concern. 2. Minimize victim needs. 3. Blame shifting. 4.

Broaden situation unnecessarily (or for PR reasons). 5. Inappropriate language. 6.

Inconsistency. 7. Inflammatory statements. 8.

Little or no preparation. 9. Minimize the impact. 10.

Missed opportunities to communicate with government, the public, and victims. 11. No admission of responsibility. 12. Victim confusion. V.

The professional expectation dimension What is often omitted in analyses of crisis situations is a comparison of the behaviors and actions of public relations professionals against the standards set by their industry. Increasingly in litigation, juries look to industry standards and practices to help determine a factual basis for damages and compensation. Community expectations as reflected in codes of conduct and codes of ethics are useful analytical and response tools.This section looks at the BurgerMax situation from the perspective of the Public Relations Society of America's (PRSA) Code of Professional Standards and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Code of Ethics for Professional Communicators.

VI. The ethical dimension There is a moral dimension to crisis management. Business organizations and institutions are excepted to have consciences and to act in ways that reinforce this public expectation. That's why whenever there are victims, someone has to be held accountable.

Victims make moral ethical assessments essential.This assessment process consists of answers to a series of questions, or at least being prepared to answer these questions publicly and promptly. When an issue involves integrity and moral or ethical dilemmas, get to the moral reasoning and questioning quickly. When the public's deepest values are offended, extraordinarily fast action is required. Ethical issues demand the moral courage to ask difficult, tough, direct questions immediately and a commitment - the strength of heart - powerful enough to take the most appropriate action promptly. Acting on matters of rinciple will counter the negative impact of a situation the public, employees, and other audiences find morally troublesome.

Moral issues require individuals to illustrate their personal belief systems through their behavior. VII. The lessons-learned dimension In situations similar to the BurgerMax episode, it's ideal for the organization to plan to learn as it executes its crisis response and remedial actions. Institutional memories are short. Besides, managers detest dealing with crises, especially once the urgent issues have been identified.It's a critical part of any crisis response process that a lessons learned approach be in place so that the institution can learn to remember the mistakes, the miscues, the successes, and the victories in real time - meaning contemporaneously with problem resolution.

The public, especially the American public, expects organizations to talk about and describe the lessons they learned from mistakes, errors, accidents, or negligent acts. Speaking publicly about lessons learned is a major corporate step toward obtaining public and employee forgiveness.Successfully managing future crises often depends on the intentionally created institutional memory the public relations counselor brings to the managing executive's attention. Most crises cannot be avoided. The lessons learned approach teaches the organization how to forecast, mitigate, or perhaps even significantly reduce the likelihood of a similar situation occurring or reoccurring.

The Lessons Learned/Case Study Outline below lists important elements in every critical study of a crisis situation.While most of the information contained in a case study will also be in the public domain, corporate counsel may want to supervise case study development since the organization's legal position could be affected should the information and its interpretation go to litigants through the discovery process. Lessons learned/case study outline: * Ethics/compliance/standards of conduct * Events timeline * Lessons learned * Open questions * Operations issues * Recovery issues * Relevant patterns from similar previous events * Response timeline * Special action(s) * Strategy gaps/failures * Surprises: negative/positive Unintended consequences * Visibility timeline * Variations from approved procedures The Bottom Line: Act Fast The repeated use of the word "promptly" in this article should clearly convey the strategic importance of acting quickly. It is often better to act quickly and make mistakes than to fail to act until it's too late or the action becomes a meaningless gesture.

In fact, solving problems and "winning" in crisis situations is a function of speed, of decision making, of action, of reaction, of collaboration, of swiftly applied common sense. Timidity and hesitation are the parents of defeat.Another word I've used often is "victims. " It can be safely said that if there are no victims, there is no crisis.

Only people, animals, and living systems can be victims. Now, a few words about common sense in crisis management. It's far more complicated than it seems, but let's look at it briefly for clarification. Common sense in crisis management has five critical components: * Preauthorization: The single most important aspect of crisis planning and crisis strategy development making decisions ahead of time so that the speed of implementation is the only issue facing managers on the scene when a crisis occurs.And, implementation speed will not become an issue if there has been adequate preparation and simulation. * Conclusive action: Most crises occur with incredible speed and leave enormous problems behind to resolve.

Good crisis planning involves recognizing that no action an organization can take will have the response magnitude that the crisis itself had. Therefore, effective responses to crisis are incremental in nature. Plan to emphasize positive, conclusive increments in the response process.Each of these increments ends with certainty a portion of the crisis and limits its collateral damage. * Unassailable behavior: Too often surprise begets embarrassment, which begets fear, which begets foolish behaviors, denial, and stalling.

Executives who do or say foolish, challengeable things before, during, or after a crisis slow reputation rehabilitation. What is done should be done promptly and carefully. What is said should be brief, important, and worth being heard and repeated. There are no secrets in crisis situations. Everything comes out eventually. Humane words and deeds from the start: One of the great shortcomings in most managers is that they appear cold, arrogant, unfeeling, and corporately driven when bad things happen and there are victims.

These behaviors are the source of employee anger and frustration; litigation; shareholder action; angry neighbors; and bad, embarrassing media coverage. Say you are sorry. Apologize continually. Help the victims no matter what. Treat everyone as though they were a member of your family.

* Personalization: Deal directly with victims and with those indirectly affected - customers, vendors, and employees.This approach reduces the power of opponents, the self-selected outsiders, and the media. Control your own destiny. Act personally at the highest appropriate level. This puts responsibility for a solution and the opportunity for reputational rehabilitation where it belongs - with the organization that caused the problem. Above all, avoid the infamous excuses that are dead giveaways that more serious issues lie below the surface of the crisis at hand, excuses like: * "It's too soon to act.

" * "It's only competitor criticism. " "It's caving into people or ideas we don't respect. " * "Our peers expect us to fight this. " * "It's just an isolated incident. " * "The standards are unreasonable or unachievable. " * "We need more time.

" * "Let's not over-react. " * "If we say something, people will find out. " * "We obey the law. " * "We can't take responsibility; we'll be sued.

" * "It will trigger copycats. " Using this approach will, to some degree, box executives in by closing off some of their favorite escape routes from making critical, strategic, timely risis management decisions. Understand the difference between crisis communication management and crisis management. Help management understand that bad news never improves with age. Fix it now. Ultimately, management needs a competent, conclusive, straightforward, grand strategy that makes sense in a management context while addressing the various critical dimensions any crisis causes.

The elements of such a grand strategy in priority order are to: * Deal with the problem causing the crisis; * Assist the victims and those directly affected; Communicate with and enlist the support of employees. * Inform those indirectly affected; and * Affirmatively manage the media and other self-appointed outsiders. The key challenge remains accomplishing most of the strategy on as many levels as possible as quickly as possible. Act with speed and honor. Help victims return to normalcy.

Clarify what has been learned. Make restitution promptly. Behave as though your mother was watching and you have to explain your decisions and actions to her over dinner tonight.