Crisis Communications Articles
Gerard has a collection or articles that you are free to reprint in publications as needed. Please contact Gerard at gerard@braudcommunications.com to secure permission for reprinting. Subject line: Crisis Communications Article.
What's in a Name?
The Dangers in Crisis Communications
by Gerard Braud
In the wake of the tragic Virginia Tech shootings, it is time to ask a few serious and potentially life saving questions about crisis communications and the plans that either exist, or don't exist, where we work.
Part of the problem lies in definitions, what we call various plans and what they actually do. Many organizations have a document called a “Crisis Plan.” Hence, they think they have what they need. This is often a big mistake.
Your organization likely needs 4 things to survive a crisis.
- An Emergency Operations Plan (Often labeled as a “Crisis Plan”) – This plan coordinates police, fire, EMS and rescue. Most do not contain any instructions for communicating with employees, media and other critical audiences.
- A Crisis Communications Plan – This plan tells you what to say, when to say it and what tools to use. It must be a plan that is thorough, yet simple enough that anyone can execute it. It should direct you to do what is on page 1, check it off, then move to page 2 and so on.
- You must have a variety of communications tools, including texting, e-mails, web postings, reverse 911 and more. You must also know how you will communicate in the event of a power failure. None of these will serve you if your plan does not dictate that messages be distributed in the first hour of the crisis.
- A Business Continuity Plan – This plan tells you how you’ll get the business up and running again after a crisis. It keeps the money coming in.
Virginia Tech had a document called a “Crisis Communications Plan” that failed them. Sadly, for two years I’ve been giving away copies of a similar plan, warning people that such a plan was a recipe for disaster. The plan had no calling tree. It set no deadline to disseminate critical information to critical audiences within the first hour of the crisis. You can download a free PDF of the VT plan on the free resources page of http://www.schoolcrisisplan.com/
So let’s look at two other things –
• Reviewing your plan, if you have a plan, and
• What to do if you don’t have a plan.
For those with a plan
If you have a plan, please check the definitions as outlined above. Make sure a clear communications element is present.
For a plan to be successful, you must communicate with key audiences within the first hour. The plan must dictate this. Otherwise, executives will huddle and strategize for hours on end, failing to communicate in a timely manner. Also, high adrenaline and high emotions on the day of the crisis cloud sound decisions that should be made on a calm sunny day and tested during a crisis drill.
At Virginia Tech it was 2 hours and 11 minutes before the first e-mail went out. This was 10 minutes after the shooter killed his next 29 victims. Imagine how this day might have been different if communications had gone out by 8:15 a.m. instead of 10:26 a.m.
Executives also like to write, rewrite and edit statements for hours, delaying timely communications. In the plans I write, I create a template for every conceivable scenario so most of the writing is already done. You simply add the who, what, when, where, why and how and you are ready to hit send. The key is to have these templates approved by executives and legal on a clear sunny day, so they do not delay your communications on the day of the crisis. It takes a long time to write each of these – usually about 5 hours to write them, get them approved and revised.
Starting from Scratch
If you don’t have a plan, get ready for an uphill battle. Some alarming statistics from IABC back me up on this. A survey after Hurricane Katrina indicated that only 67% of the communicators interviewed had a formal crisis communications plan. I would submit to you that based on my definitions above, the number that truly have a “communications plan”, vs. a mislabeled “crisis plan” or an ineffective Virginia Tech style “crisis communications plan,” would mean that this number could be substantially smaller.
Of organizations that actually had a crisis, 42% say they still don’t have a formal crisis communications plan. And 54% say they don’t have a plan because they lack the support of senior managers.
As I was being interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and other media following the Virginia Tech shooting, most reporters asked me if I expected a deluge of calls from universities wanting me to write their crisis communications plans. (The reporters had seen from my website that I was already hosting a moderately priced workshop in which organizations could complete a full crisis communications plan in 2 days.) My answer to reporters was no, I expect no fluctuation in my business. What we see in the IABC study is the same as what I see in my business. While I am certainly not the only person in the world who writes crisis communications plans, since April 16, only one university has committed to me that they want to write a crisis communications plan. Three others have made inquiries, but as of yet, have not been able to sell their administrations on the need for a crisis communications plan. (After Sept. 11th, only one new organization asked me to help them write their crisis communications plan. After Florida was hit by 4 hurricanes in 2004, only one organization asked for my help. After Hurricane Katrina, I received no new inquiries.)
If you don’t have a plan, be prepared to build a strong business case for your executives. You must scare the pants off of them. Your business case must show them a serious loss of revenue or financial impact for failing to have a crisis communications plan.
As communicators we have the ability to save lives. Strong communications before a crisis and strong communications during a crisis has the ability to move people out of harms way.
Bio
Gerard Braud (Jared Bro) is an IABC member based in New Orleans, who specializes in crisis communications, media training, employee communications and video production. He has written crisis communications plans for the Internal Revenue Service, the Library of Congress, hospitals, universities, corporations and non-profit organizations. He has also created a one-of-a-kind program that streamlines the crisis communications plan process, allowing organizations to write a working crisis communications plan in only 2-days. He can be reached at gerard@braudcommunications.com of at 985-624-9976
© 2007 Diversified Media, LLC
This article may be reprinted, provided you obtain permission from Gerard Braud. The article must contain Gerard’s contact information at the conclusion of the article.
| Navigate through the articles | |
Testimonials
|
|
