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