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WHAT’S A NICE COMPANY LIKE YOURS DOING IN A HEADLINE
LIKE THIS?
By Larry Barton
One of the greatest frustrations
a crisis manager faces is when great decisions are made during a crisis,
but a senior manager screams: "All of this is fine, but why doesn’t anyone
know about it!?" Crisis communication is an art, and every member of your
response team should be a contributing artist.
This article examines three
building blocks of effective communication:
• Who are my stakeholders
and who is the audience?
• What is my message?
• What are the tools available to get the message out and updated in a
timely way?
The author, with experience helping
hundreds of companies respond to murders, explosions, product recalls
and related disasters, proposes the following approach for dealing with
communication during disasters.
WHO ARE THE STAKEHOLDERS?
THE AUDIENCE?
First, a superb crisis manager must know his/her
audience and stakeholders. The audience for large-scale disasters with
numerous fatalities would be very large – all people watching the news.
The stakeholders, on the other hand, include owners/stockholders, employees,
customers/distributors, neighbors and local elected officials. Without
neglecting the audience, the stakeholders must receive priority. For example,
which government officials are important to your organization and who
should speak to them if you experience a crisis? Which neighborhood activists
really matter, and who within your company has a good rapport with key
opinion leaders?
Among the key considerations
in choosing a spokesperson:
Experience, poise, articulate speaking style,
sensitivity to victims and families, understanding of the dynamics of
a crisis environment, and a determination to reassure people in the midst
of havoc. This type of stakeholder/messenger strategy is critical when
police, fire, federal officials and vocal neighbors all convene on a scene.
When Mitsubishi Motors realized
that having a native Japanese male address charges of sexual harassment
by American males against American females would not be culturally sensitive,
they immediately engaged Lynn Martin, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce,
to speak on their behalf.
These questions address the
stakeholder issue:
1. Where are the stakeholders?
What is their language, literacy level and culture? How could this influence
what you say and do?
2. Can you reach them by calling
a meeting of interested parties in your company auditorium, or will you
issue a media alert via PR Newswire (an agency that distributes company
material for a fee)? If you are situated in a rural area, is a direct
mailing more appropriate? What about timing?
3. Would a press conference reach
the intended stakeholders, or would it bypass those who have a specific
interest in this crisis?
4. Can you communicate with key
stakeholders immediately, or would a crisis communications program take
several days or longer? (Recalling a product, for instance, requires drafting
a letter that must be reviewed by senior management, corporate attorneys,
and possibly the chairperson of your Board of Directors.) Consulting with
regulators may not be required but is usually a good idea, and the entire
process can take several days or more.
5. Do you have accurate information
on the correct names and addresses of stakeholders, including key investors,
key customers (especially sole source customers!) and business partners?
6. Who will be your secondary spokesperson
should your lead individual be on vacation, ill or not readily available?
When injuries and loss of life are involved, the media will not wait several
hours for a spokesperson to travel back to the site from another part
of the country – access and timing matter.
7. How quickly can your organization
communicate with key groups on your website? The author has developed
more than a dozen "shadow" crisis websites for large companies. These
sites will never be used except if a crisis occurs—but the site is now
ready with key facts, photos, resources and statements. It is much easier
to "fill in the blanks" once an incident occurs than find reporters, employees
and family members enraged when your website is silent.
WHAT IS THE MESSAGE?
To be effective, your communication during a crisis
should have a clearly articulated goal for each group/stakeholder. For
example, you want stockholders to have confidence in the future stock
price and consumers to have a positive, lasting image of the company.
In developing your message
during a crisis, consider these questions:
1. Will your communication
help bring the crisis closer to closure, or could it complicate the problem?
What can you say, in just a few key sentences, that addresses what happened,
how it happened, and what you are doing to insure it never happens again?
2. How can you anticipate questions
in advance? Ask key employees to participate in a mock press conference
and throw every possible difficult question at you. From this exercise,
create and refine your answers and your message.
3. Your audience not only reaches
you by word, but by foot. For example, in the days immediately following
a lethal leak at the Union Carbide Bhopal plant in which more than 7,000
eventually were impacted, the company faced thousands of inquiries about
the safety of plants that produced similar chemicals in the United States.
The company agreed to allow members of Congress, regulators, and neighbors
of plants to tour facilities as a means of overcoming any notion that
the company had something to hide. Rapid deployment of resources at your
other facilities can help alleviate fears before they emerge.
4. Will your message be brief,
or does the complexity of the crisis require a carefully composed and
organized, detailed message?
5. Should the message be delivered
in person or by way of videoconference, the Internet or other channel?
What assumptions will people make about your organization given the channel
you select?
6. Should the crisis invite further
dialogue between the parties? Should the message have a tone that indicates
the crisis has been or is about to be solved, thus discouraging future
communication?
TOOLS THAT WORK!
The author recommends the following proven tools
for crisis communication:
• Notify telephone operators of
any emerging incident and pertinent details they can convey to callers;
provide explicit instructions to them on where certain callers (e.g.,
hostile consumers, members of the press) are to be routed.
• Consider hiring a telecom service to supplement operators if the incident
is large enough in scope, and consider how to publicize a toll-free number
for inquiries.
• Ask security personnel to monitor the site to insure that any visitors
or protestors are managed properly. • Engage the IT department to monitor
key Internet chat rooms and investment clubs for rumors, etc.
• Contact your trade association to determine how they can support your
team, including linking you with similar experiences.
• Ask sales representatives to seek out reaction to the incident from
key customers, and share their insight with senior management. Promptly
adjust your message as needed.
• Create a memorial or fund for victims promptly, if appropriate.
• Consider launching a focus group of customers, neighbors or other key
stakeholders to review their reaction to incident management and to prompt
their suggestions on what could be done to alleviate their fears and concerns
In summary, even the best disaster
response plan will fall short if key stakeholders are not aware of what
you are doing, why you care, and how you intend to recover. It’s so true
that the best crisis is the one prevented. But when disaster does strike,
flawless communication can insure that you rebound fast, and effectively.
About the Author
Larry Barton is a leading crisis consultant based
in Scottsdale, AZ and former vice president of communications for Motorola,
Inc. His new book, Crisis In Organizations II, can be ordered at www.larrybarton.com
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