Discussion on PR element in crisis
Discussion
What are the key PR elements for crisis management?
Posted 12 hours ago |
Tawanda Johnson
Press Secretary at APS Physics
1.
Ian Cluroe
Alliance Leader, Emerging Solutions, Deloitte Consulting
Be honest and take appropriate responsibility; focus on resolving the situation for whoever's adversely impacted; explain to the public how the situation is being resolved and steps being taken to prevent it from happening again; reinforce what you do well.
Posted 11 hours ago |
2.
Tawanda Johnson
Press Secretary at APS Physics
Thank you. I have another question: Given that everything ends up on someone's blog these days, what are the best ways to counter misinformation in the Web 2.O realm?
Posted 11 hours ago |
3.
Camille Y. Golden
Public Relations/International Events/Communications Coordinator
Hi Tawanda,
I think key elements to a PR crisis management include two things:
1) A united front - meaning all parties involved provide the same message
2) A succinct response.
Take care,
Camille Y. Golden
Posted 10 hours ago |
4.
Brian Ahearne
Public Relations Professional
If the crisis has hit, that's "crisis communication". "Crisis management" happens way before the crisis. It involves thinking the worst, getting people over the dumb idea that "It'll never happen," - "never" is a long time - and planning for the crises. Ensure you have a crisis plan in place, that you know what you're going be saying - including how you'd tackle and resolve the issue - and making sure you communicate quickly with your stakeholders. Preparing webpages that can be launched as soon as the crisis hits and linked to from the corporate home page, with bloglike abilities to be updated frequently, is pretty much a must nowadays. Being first to communicate means you seize the position as the authority on everything involved with the crisis.
If you're in the crisis communication stage, well, Ian above has given some good pointers, but still it's important to be first, to be accurate and admit any faults when you're aware of them.
Recognising that you have responsibilities is very important.
Shortly after the Exxon Valdez crisis, BP had an oil spill in California. The CEO of BP was asked whether he thought the spill was BP's fault. Although a contractor was to blame, the CEO said, "Although our lawyers say it's not our fault, we *feel* like it is our fault and we're going to act like it's our fault." Assuming corporate responsibility and working to do more than you would be expected to - not just trying to minimise ill effects - minimises ill effects. Being neutral and defensive isn't going to end neutrally.
There's loads more to think about, but that's a few pointers from me.
Posted 8 hours ago |
5.
Halim Mahfudz
CEO/Founder of Halma Strategic
Many valid points have been addressed above. One thing you cannot ignore in crisis communication is the role of staff, business partners and auhtoritative institutions related to your business. They all can be 'made' as you ambassadors with sincere messages. Staff is the most potential party to become ambassadors of your efforts to convey messages. In most cases, their role have been somewhat neglected. You should give staff information that you want your stakeholders get. It's necessary to organize townhall meeting to update them and encourage them to pass the messages on to ther families at home, the
ir neighbors, their fiends and so on. Good luck!
Posted 4 hours ago |
6.
Michael Gury
Global Communications, Marketing, PR, Branding Expert
What you don't need is a giant binder of business recovery instructions.
A pocket card with less than 12 top names, cell numbers and a teleconference bridge account will do, with instructions as to who talks to whom. In general, the communications person should be the host, manage messages, and deliver them.
Posted 4 hours ago |
7.
Gregg Feistman
Assistant Professor, Public Relations at Temple University
Along with all the good advice already given, don't speculate, no matter who's asking (management, the media, other stakeholders). Get the facts first and only respond with what you know. That will change as the crisis develops. When you know more and can confirm it, then you can design messages about it. And every crisis is different. As Brian mentioned, the time to have a crisis plan is before you have the crisis. Once you're in it, it's too late. And when you have the plan developed, run a crisis drill a couple of times a year. Just because it's on paper doesn't mean it'll work that way.
Posted 4 hours ago |
8.
Greg Brooks
Principal, West Third Group
Crisis management is a sub-discipline of risk management. So if you're talking about crisis communications planning, your plan should include input from the senior risk managers in the organization -- certainly the CEO in a smaller operation, but also corporate counsel and the chief risk officer in a larger company.
Too many communicators (and we haven't seen much of this in this particular thread, thank heavens!) have an almost pathological urge to try and get the story out too early, tell the whole truth immediately, etc. That's an admirable ethos, but it might also expose the company to greater risk in some circumstances.
I'll say it again: Your job in handling crisis communications is to manage risk for your employer. That might involve free and open communications and it might not, but it does require some sort of plan and some sort of shared understanding of the risks.
Posted 3 hours ago |
9.
Anthony (Tony) Jaques
Issue and crisis management specialist
Brian is right. Dont confuse crisis response with crisis management. Mitroff and Pauchant coined the great phrase "crash management" to decribe the stuff you do after it has all turned to custard. True, proactive crisis management is what you do beforehand to stop the crisis from happening in the first place
Posted 23 minutes ago |
10.
Steven Spenser
Principal, Praxis Communication/Seattle, specializing in Internet marketing, public affairs & nonprofit PR
To view crisis management from the perspective of the affected companies, check out my detailed outline of lessons to be learned from the Firestone Tire Recall. Each of the 43 actual quotes from Bridgestone and Ford reflects a different, standard crisis-communication tactic.
Including:
#1--Recast safety risks in scale-minimizing context...
#7--Seize the high moral ground by proclaiming outrage...
#17--Contain the spread of inaccurate public perception...
#24--Proclaim confidence in ultimate vindication...
See "Crisis Management 101" in the "Start Here" folder at my public files at www.box.net/PraxisPR. (It can also be accessed from the Box.Net section of my LinkedIn profile.)
=================
Tawanda, I highly recommend "Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach" (3rd ed.) by Kathleen Fearn-Banks, which includes analyses of Katrina, AIDS in Africa and the Columbine shootings. (Disclaimer: Kathleen was my instructor at the University of Washington in both undergraduate and Professional Certificate in PR courses.) You can find it on Amazon, where others rave about it.
Posted 12 days ago | Reply Privately
11.
Dick Wolfe
VP at Gibbs & Soell PR
lots of great advice here. i'll just add one thought about misinformation on the web. the first thing you do is decide if something is worthy of a response. if you respond to every blog posting, etc. you'll only make the issue bigger than it maybe it needs to be, create a lot of work for yourself and increase the risk that you'll say something that really will get you in hot water. do your homework and only respond to things you know can influence masses of people. most web postings are here today and gone tomorrow. be smart about who you choose to joust with.
Posted 12 days ago |
12.
Jeffrey Cole
Communications at Social Traffic Inc.
Very good stuff here. I could add lock the lawyers out of the room. I am joking, but you have to engage with your company's counsel. Too often lawyers see only the short term - "we might get sued so say nothing" - as opposed to the long term - "if we say nothing we will kill the company."
Lawyers need to understand the long term effects a poorly handled crisis ca have. Sometimes it is more important to bite the bullet, pay a settlement and move on. Stonewalling can destroy a company's reputation.
Also, I have blogged extensively about crisis communications: here is the first one on planning for a crisis: http://www.pr101.biz/lesson-5a-crisis-communications-planning/
Posted 12 days ago |
13.
Brian R. Salisbury
Skilled Copywriter and Editor, Public Relations and Communications Consultant
Great advice from everyone. Please take a look these articles that I wrote for my e-newsletter concerning crisis communications. Here are the links:
Why your organization must have a crisis communications plan
http://www.briansquill.com/anmnet/templates/?a=40&z=4
Five key ways to protect your company's reputation
http://www.briansquill.com/anmnet/templates/?a=45&z=4
Swallowing this bitter pill can cure your public relations crisis
http://www.briansquill.com/anmnet/templates/?a=46&z=4
When the media calls, don't let a blabbermouth respond
http://www.briansquill.com/anmnet/templates/?a=57&z=4
Posted 12 days ago |
14.
Tawanda Johnson
Press Secretary at APS Physics
Great stuff here! Thank you all very much. This was my first attempt at starting a discussion, and it has worked out much better than I anticipated.
Posted 12 days ago |
15.
Greg Brooks
Principal, West Third Group
To Jeffrey's (excellent!) point...
One of the problems we run into -- and this is why measurement is so crucial -- is that legal counsel typically advises on real or potential *tangible* risk. Do this and you'll be in violation of a law, do that and you open yourself up to civil liability, etc.
Meanwhile, we talk about reputation.
That's not necessarily the wrong topic, but it's an ethereal topic of undetermined value if we haven't spent time tying it to metrics.
Posted 12 days ago |
16.
Michael Gury
Global Communications, Marketing, PR, Branding Expert
Don Hewett, creator of "60 Minutes", the 40 year old Sunday night U.S. news/documentary program, died yesterday.
My comment is that, as a corporate PR person for many years, the fear of having a reporter from "60 Minutes" show up to cover some topic was all consuming. Reporters like Mike Wallace were brutal.
If you hadn't a crisis before they showed up, you had one when they did.
Frankly, a few examples from that program of executives being eviscerated provided excellent material for media training -- as part of a crisis management program, or any media program for that matter. Hewett created the great white shark of news programs.
Posted 12 days ago |
17.
David Kirk, APR, Fellow PRSA
President, thePRguy incorporated
Just returned from an informal lunch with colleagues at which we had this conversation. Allow me to add:
1. Innoculate against the fatal disease of testosteronitis. Too many crises are "managed" by men who let their hormones overwhelm their good judgment.
2. Bob Woodward said this at a seminar last year in response to the question, "From a media perspective, what's the best way to respond to a crisis." He said that it's very simple. Just say: "We did it. We're sorry. We won't do it again."
Posted 12 days ago |
18.
Dick Wolfe
VP at Gibbs & Soell PR
that's funny. it's sort of the other side of something i always tell clients to say when things are unfolding and it's unclear exactly what happened but people are screaming at you for a comment.
"We're on top of it. We're taking it seriously. We're going to do the right thing."
Posted 12 days ago |
19.
Maggie Jensen
Media Relations Consultant at Securian Financial Group
Steve Spenser: I'd like to see your information about the Firestone/Bridgestone thing, but our firewall won't let me into the link you listed above and my google searches have failed to direct me to your web site. Is there any other way I can get to the outline?
Thank you,
Maggie Jensen
Posted 11 days ago |
20.
Steven Spencer
Principal, Praxis Communication/Seattle, specializing in Internet marketing, public affairs & nonprofit PR
Maggie, I've e-mailed you a .pdf copy. If anyone else has experienced problems trying to access the material from my Box.net public folder (firewall or other) please let me know.
As for why your Google searches failed to find my Web site--it's because I've never needed one.
Posted 9 days ago |
What are the key PR elements for crisis management?
Posted 12 hours ago |
Tawanda Johnson
Press Secretary at APS Physics
1.
Ian Cluroe
Alliance Leader, Emerging Solutions, Deloitte Consulting
Be honest and take appropriate responsibility; focus on resolving the situation for whoever's adversely impacted; explain to the public how the situation is being resolved and steps being taken to prevent it from happening again; reinforce what you do well.
Posted 11 hours ago |
2.
Tawanda Johnson
Press Secretary at APS Physics
Thank you. I have another question: Given that everything ends up on someone's blog these days, what are the best ways to counter misinformation in the Web 2.O realm?
Posted 11 hours ago |
3.
Camille Y. Golden
Public Relations/International Events/Communications Coordinator
Hi Tawanda,
I think key elements to a PR crisis management include two things:
1) A united front - meaning all parties involved provide the same message
2) A succinct response.
Take care,
Camille Y. Golden
Posted 10 hours ago |
4.
Brian Ahearne
Public Relations Professional
If the crisis has hit, that's "crisis communication". "Crisis management" happens way before the crisis. It involves thinking the worst, getting people over the dumb idea that "It'll never happen," - "never" is a long time - and planning for the crises. Ensure you have a crisis plan in place, that you know what you're going be saying - including how you'd tackle and resolve the issue - and making sure you communicate quickly with your stakeholders. Preparing webpages that can be launched as soon as the crisis hits and linked to from the corporate home page, with bloglike abilities to be updated frequently, is pretty much a must nowadays. Being first to communicate means you seize the position as the authority on everything involved with the crisis.
If you're in the crisis communication stage, well, Ian above has given some good pointers, but still it's important to be first, to be accurate and admit any faults when you're aware of them.
Recognising that you have responsibilities is very important.
Shortly after the Exxon Valdez crisis, BP had an oil spill in California. The CEO of BP was asked whether he thought the spill was BP's fault. Although a contractor was to blame, the CEO said, "Although our lawyers say it's not our fault, we *feel* like it is our fault and we're going to act like it's our fault." Assuming corporate responsibility and working to do more than you would be expected to - not just trying to minimise ill effects - minimises ill effects. Being neutral and defensive isn't going to end neutrally.
There's loads more to think about, but that's a few pointers from me.
Posted 8 hours ago |
5.
Halim Mahfudz
CEO/Founder of Halma Strategic
Many valid points have been addressed above. One thing you cannot ignore in crisis communication is the role of staff, business partners and auhtoritative institutions related to your business. They all can be 'made' as you ambassadors with sincere messages. Staff is the most potential party to become ambassadors of your efforts to convey messages. In most cases, their role have been somewhat neglected. You should give staff information that you want your stakeholders get. It's necessary to organize townhall meeting to update them and encourage them to pass the messages on to ther families at home, the
ir neighbors, their fiends and so on. Good luck!
Posted 4 hours ago |
6.
Michael Gury
Global Communications, Marketing, PR, Branding Expert
What you don't need is a giant binder of business recovery instructions.
A pocket card with less than 12 top names, cell numbers and a teleconference bridge account will do, with instructions as to who talks to whom. In general, the communications person should be the host, manage messages, and deliver them.
Posted 4 hours ago |
7.
Gregg Feistman
Assistant Professor, Public Relations at Temple University
Along with all the good advice already given, don't speculate, no matter who's asking (management, the media, other stakeholders). Get the facts first and only respond with what you know. That will change as the crisis develops. When you know more and can confirm it, then you can design messages about it. And every crisis is different. As Brian mentioned, the time to have a crisis plan is before you have the crisis. Once you're in it, it's too late. And when you have the plan developed, run a crisis drill a couple of times a year. Just because it's on paper doesn't mean it'll work that way.
Posted 4 hours ago |
8.
Greg Brooks
Principal, West Third Group
Crisis management is a sub-discipline of risk management. So if you're talking about crisis communications planning, your plan should include input from the senior risk managers in the organization -- certainly the CEO in a smaller operation, but also corporate counsel and the chief risk officer in a larger company.
Too many communicators (and we haven't seen much of this in this particular thread, thank heavens!) have an almost pathological urge to try and get the story out too early, tell the whole truth immediately, etc. That's an admirable ethos, but it might also expose the company to greater risk in some circumstances.
I'll say it again: Your job in handling crisis communications is to manage risk for your employer. That might involve free and open communications and it might not, but it does require some sort of plan and some sort of shared understanding of the risks.
Posted 3 hours ago |
9.
Anthony (Tony) Jaques
Issue and crisis management specialist
Brian is right. Dont confuse crisis response with crisis management. Mitroff and Pauchant coined the great phrase "crash management" to decribe the stuff you do after it has all turned to custard. True, proactive crisis management is what you do beforehand to stop the crisis from happening in the first place
Posted 23 minutes ago |
10.
Steven Spenser
Principal, Praxis Communication/Seattle, specializing in Internet marketing, public affairs & nonprofit PR
To view crisis management from the perspective of the affected companies, check out my detailed outline of lessons to be learned from the Firestone Tire Recall. Each of the 43 actual quotes from Bridgestone and Ford reflects a different, standard crisis-communication tactic.
Including:
#1--Recast safety risks in scale-minimizing context...
#7--Seize the high moral ground by proclaiming outrage...
#17--Contain the spread of inaccurate public perception...
#24--Proclaim confidence in ultimate vindication...
See "Crisis Management 101" in the "Start Here" folder at my public files at www.box.net/PraxisPR. (It can also be accessed from the Box.Net section of my LinkedIn profile.)
=================
Tawanda, I highly recommend "Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach" (3rd ed.) by Kathleen Fearn-Banks, which includes analyses of Katrina, AIDS in Africa and the Columbine shootings. (Disclaimer: Kathleen was my instructor at the University of Washington in both undergraduate and Professional Certificate in PR courses.) You can find it on Amazon, where others rave about it.
Posted 12 days ago | Reply Privately
11.
Dick Wolfe
VP at Gibbs & Soell PR
lots of great advice here. i'll just add one thought about misinformation on the web. the first thing you do is decide if something is worthy of a response. if you respond to every blog posting, etc. you'll only make the issue bigger than it maybe it needs to be, create a lot of work for yourself and increase the risk that you'll say something that really will get you in hot water. do your homework and only respond to things you know can influence masses of people. most web postings are here today and gone tomorrow. be smart about who you choose to joust with.
Posted 12 days ago |
12.
Jeffrey Cole
Communications at Social Traffic Inc.
Very good stuff here. I could add lock the lawyers out of the room. I am joking, but you have to engage with your company's counsel. Too often lawyers see only the short term - "we might get sued so say nothing" - as opposed to the long term - "if we say nothing we will kill the company."
Lawyers need to understand the long term effects a poorly handled crisis ca have. Sometimes it is more important to bite the bullet, pay a settlement and move on. Stonewalling can destroy a company's reputation.
Also, I have blogged extensively about crisis communications: here is the first one on planning for a crisis: http://www.pr101.biz/lesson-5a-crisis-communications-planning/
Posted 12 days ago |
13.
Brian R. Salisbury
Skilled Copywriter and Editor, Public Relations and Communications Consultant
Great advice from everyone. Please take a look these articles that I wrote for my e-newsletter concerning crisis communications. Here are the links:
Why your organization must have a crisis communications plan
http://www.briansquill.com/anmnet/templates/?a=40&z=4
Five key ways to protect your company's reputation
http://www.briansquill.com/anmnet/templates/?a=45&z=4
Swallowing this bitter pill can cure your public relations crisis
http://www.briansquill.com/anmnet/templates/?a=46&z=4
When the media calls, don't let a blabbermouth respond
http://www.briansquill.com/anmnet/templates/?a=57&z=4
Posted 12 days ago |
14.
Tawanda Johnson
Press Secretary at APS Physics
Great stuff here! Thank you all very much. This was my first attempt at starting a discussion, and it has worked out much better than I anticipated.
Posted 12 days ago |
15.
Greg Brooks
Principal, West Third Group
To Jeffrey's (excellent!) point...
One of the problems we run into -- and this is why measurement is so crucial -- is that legal counsel typically advises on real or potential *tangible* risk. Do this and you'll be in violation of a law, do that and you open yourself up to civil liability, etc.
Meanwhile, we talk about reputation.
That's not necessarily the wrong topic, but it's an ethereal topic of undetermined value if we haven't spent time tying it to metrics.
Posted 12 days ago |
16.
Michael Gury
Global Communications, Marketing, PR, Branding Expert
Don Hewett, creator of "60 Minutes", the 40 year old Sunday night U.S. news/documentary program, died yesterday.
My comment is that, as a corporate PR person for many years, the fear of having a reporter from "60 Minutes" show up to cover some topic was all consuming. Reporters like Mike Wallace were brutal.
If you hadn't a crisis before they showed up, you had one when they did.
Frankly, a few examples from that program of executives being eviscerated provided excellent material for media training -- as part of a crisis management program, or any media program for that matter. Hewett created the great white shark of news programs.
Posted 12 days ago |
17.
David Kirk, APR, Fellow PRSA
President, thePRguy incorporated
Just returned from an informal lunch with colleagues at which we had this conversation. Allow me to add:
1. Innoculate against the fatal disease of testosteronitis. Too many crises are "managed" by men who let their hormones overwhelm their good judgment.
2. Bob Woodward said this at a seminar last year in response to the question, "From a media perspective, what's the best way to respond to a crisis." He said that it's very simple. Just say: "We did it. We're sorry. We won't do it again."
Posted 12 days ago |
18.
Dick Wolfe
VP at Gibbs & Soell PR
that's funny. it's sort of the other side of something i always tell clients to say when things are unfolding and it's unclear exactly what happened but people are screaming at you for a comment.
"We're on top of it. We're taking it seriously. We're going to do the right thing."
Posted 12 days ago |
19.
Maggie Jensen
Media Relations Consultant at Securian Financial Group
Steve Spenser: I'd like to see your information about the Firestone/Bridgestone thing, but our firewall won't let me into the link you listed above and my google searches have failed to direct me to your web site. Is there any other way I can get to the outline?
Thank you,
Maggie Jensen
Posted 11 days ago |
20.
Steven Spencer
Principal, Praxis Communication/Seattle, specializing in Internet marketing, public affairs & nonprofit PR
Maggie, I've e-mailed you a .pdf copy. If anyone else has experienced problems trying to access the material from my Box.net public folder (firewall or other) please let me know.
As for why your Google searches failed to find my Web site--it's because I've never needed one.
Posted 9 days ago |
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