What do Tylenol, Jet Blue and JP Morgan all have in common? If the word “headache” came to mind, you would be close but not quite. Each company made the news in a huge way, forced to navigate a crisis in the public eye.
Whether your company is nationally or locally known, you’re never immune from the chaos of putting your leadership in crisis. And while you can’t control its effects, you can at least control their extent with preparation and quick thinking.
Pre-Crisis Planning
Prepare yourself for any and all types of crises. While types of crises are wide and varied, the most common types include natural disasters, malevolence (criminal attacks), technological (privacy leaks, website hacking, etc.), workplace violence, media misrepresentation, financial collapse, mergers and man-made disasters. Universal principles apply to every crisis plan, but the type of crisis determines specialized care. Create or review your Crisis Control Plan now. Include general action steps as well as specific steps for specific types of crises.
Action Steps
1.Remember SSLR. Most adults with any kind of safety training know to stop, drop and roll when caught in a fire. The catchy phrase helps those in danger remember the basics when all other thoughts go out the door due to a state of panic. Likewise, business school professors often teach their students to remember SLLR when faced with a corporate crisis. Your thoughts may be all over the place, but if you can remember to stop, look, listen and respond, you’re on your way toward successful crisis management.
2. Determine the scale. Judy Smith, a leading crisis management expert and author of Good Self, Bad Self; Transforming Your Worst Qualities into Your Biggest Assets recommends getting all the facts immediately to help you determine the scale. Identify the key players and seek to understand the reasons why the crisis happened, and all future consequences of it. Keep in mind your corporate culture, popular culture, the political climate and the role that social media will play. The more information you know, the better you will be able to effectively communicate during the crisis.
3. Redefine crisis as a challenge. Positive thinking gives way to positive attitudes that help incredibly during crisis navigation. View the crisis as a challenge and watch you and your team rise to the occasion.
4. Communicate. Your employees are facing tremendous uncertainty during any kind of leadership in crisis and the worst thing you can do to increase their stress is not communicate. Make it a point to keep your team well informed on all levels as frequently as possible. Even if there is no news, a timely word from leadership can provide a little certainty in a difficult time.
5. Provide counseling. Ensure your employees have all they need to personally cope with loss that usually comes with a crisis (loss of life, money, security, dignity, etc.) Outsource to a local counseling center or bring in an outside facilitator to meet with and listen to employees vent their fears.
6. Correct. Fix the problem the best you can. Leaders who are directly responsible for the crisis do well to humbly admit fault, realizing that transparency usually brings a better response than denial or an attempt to deflect from the truth. If the media refuses to publish truth, remember that they aren’t your primary audience and consider using alternative media like advertorials to release your own message to the public.
7. Don’t be afraid to seek help. Pick the brains of others who have faced crises before you or tap into the services of a crisis consulting firm. You never have to be alone if you don’t want to be.
8. Learn a lesson from history. Remember that history tends to repeat itself. After you identify what triggered the crisis, make steps to ensure those triggers don’t happen again.