First it was Toyota with a major crisis that hit the world headlines. Now its BP. PR professionals and crisis management experts are having a field day critiquing how each organisation has performed in the heat of battle. So, what does this mean for Australian PR Directors and Managers?
Ensuring that your organisation is ‘crisis-ready’ should be a key responsibility for any Australian PR Director or Manager. You can reduce the risks by planning and training for the crises that you think are most likely to hit your organisation.
During 30 years in the PR business, I’ve had quite a bit to do with crisis management. I’ve helped clients cope with a few – but to be honest in the scheme of things they’ve been pretty minor (one in this category was a Christmas cake with stones in it – but not so minor to those who broke their teeth on Christmas Day!). I’ve also written quite a few articles on crisis management in PR Influences during the last decade.
But I’m a great believer in ‘horses for courses’. My forte is not handling the hurly-burly of a full-blown crisis that is a number one news story. There are plenty of PR and so-called crisis management experts out there who get their kicks from being at the centre of the storm. They are good at it – especially handling the media aspect.
Rather my skill, and experience, is more at the strategy and ‘thinking’ end – putting the systems in place to handle a crisis. I’ve introduced crisis management structures, protocols and processes to a range of organisations, including some multinationals, across Australia and New Zealand. It’s my experience that there’s not many PR people who work at this end of the crisis spectrum.
The role of the PR Director or Manager in crisis management is like a football coach. You need to select a team, choose a captain, work out what’s likely to be thrown at them, develop a game plan to counter it and then practice. The game won’t pan out exactly as you might expect, but you have a better chance of winning if you’ve done the preparation.
Look over my checklist to see how your crisis-ready your organisation is:
1. A formal crisis management plan, protocol or process. If you are controlled from off-shore the plan needs to be workable in Australia. (Don’t scoff - some I’ve seen in multinationals aren’t!).
2. A senior member of the management team (or ideally the CEO) to have ownership.
3. Written procedures, guidelines protocols that are accessible to those with crisis responsibilities.
4. An analysis of likely risks, with scenarios, positions and outcomes for each.
5. Delegated executives throughout the organisation with specific crisis responsibilities relevant to the crises that might impact on them.
6. Prepared documents, statements etc (in some cases even a dummy website set up).
7. Prepared media and stakeholder lists.
8. To regularly train and practice the team against your most likely scenarios.
9. Media training for your key spokespeople – again specifically around chosen scenarios
10. Communication protocols that link all the key people in the crisis management team in the event of an alert.
Most crises that hit companies are not of the magnitude that impacted Toyota and BP. However, most still have the ability to do reputational damage if they are allowed to fester and get out of control.
Whether large or small, studies show that for most crises it’s how they are managed in the first 24 hours which is the most important. As a PR Director or Manager you can reduce the risks of a crisis doing reputational damage to your organisation by planning and training.
I know it’s not exciting or sexy. But I can assure that it’s an investment well worth making. And it’s another way to demonstrate the role of PR to the C-suite.
See my blog: Toyota – Oh what a shambles!
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