USA - NATIONWIDE: An Introduction to Crisis PR & Communications

The field of crisis communications covers many threats to an organisation’s or person’s brand, legal posture, operations, policy goals or livelihood. If some buyers of these services generally make one mistake in retaining crisis communications consultants, it is viewing the field’s scope of services too narrowly. Crisis counselling is not just about dealing with an established set of facts and figuring out what, when, how, and to whom to say them. It is equally as much about building that set of facts.

During a crisis, instead of feeling like you are the narrator of your own tale, it can seem that you are the passive character whom others are writing about and acting against. But clients can greatly influence their narratives as they, not their stakeholders, control what they do. The common wisdom – tell it all, tell it early, tell it yourself – omits an essential truth: the story is never complete, never fully written.

Before, during and after crises, clients have the ability to evidence (through the actions they take) that they are responsible actors who take seriously their legal and ethical obligations to their stakeholders. And those actions, in turn, greatly strengthen the communications efforts to minimise the negative impact to brand, reputation and other keys to client success. The best crisis communicators know this and help their clients both assess the potential or actual crisis and decide what facts to build.

This view of crisis communications should inform both how you approach and practise crisis management and which outside communications consultants you choose for help.

Once you realise that you are the storyteller of your own tale, this means that you should begin writing it before a crisis happens through crisis prevention and preparation steps. For crisis prevention, this means regularly assessing potential vulnerabilities and proactively addressing them – creating a record of diligence should a crisis later develop. If a crisis in one of those areas does develop, what would you want your stakeholders to later know about what you did to try to prevent it or minimise its impact? And for crisis preparation, it means not just identifying the operational logistics of managing a crisis; it also means preparing detailed messaging in advance for the key areas in which you have established a firm record.

For managing an actual crisis, realising you hold the pen means that, when a crisis hits, you recognise that the story that stakeholders are hearing is still being written. Beyond your legal obligations, what else would positively impact your stakeholders? Are you being transparent to the extent you can? Are you investigating? Are you holding yourself or those responsible accountable if there was incompetence or misconduct? Do not just take those operational steps that minimise liability – take the operational steps that best position your brand and reputation.

One of the foregoing’s ramifications is that you should retain crisis communications consultants who have the expertise and experience to help you decide what broader institutional actions you should take – wholly apart from stakeholder communications – to prevent, prepare for, manage or recover from a crisis.

If you retain a crisis communications firm, you will fail to take full advantage of its expertise if all you ask of it is to advise strictly on communicating facts that you hand it on a plate. Looking through a different lens, they may have insights your other advisers do not. Yes, your provider will advise about what steps will best aid your brand and reputation (as opposed to legal exposure or business continuity), but the scope of advice from that reputational perspective can extend beyond communications to the operational, legal and board-oversight facets of crisis management. Which, in turn, means that your communications consultants must be capable of providing that advice. Do they have the collective communications, legal, political, and business experience and expertise called for given the crisis at hand? Make sure they do.

To recap, to successfully navigate a crisis and maximise your relationship with a crisis communications firm, you should (i) continuously (before, during and after a crisis) build a factual record that evidences that you take your duties to your stakeholders seriously, (ii) ask your crisis communications firm to advise on what that record should reflect and how to build it, and (iii) choose a firm that can meet your moment.