Businesses and advocacy organizations around the world are facing a rapidly changing landscape. As the pandemic evolves, so does the threat of global warming, climate change and disruptions to supply chains. Lives, businesses and entire communities are being lost to fires, floods, droughts and the pandemic. The worst is yet to come.

As a result, crisis aversion and crisis management have taken on a new urgency in the world of brand management. The companies that navigate these challenges proactively and responsibly are more likely to survive, if not thrive, as these events unfold. While some short-sighted companies are trying to capitalize on these crises, others are wisely positioning themselves as responsible citizens. They are positioning themselves as leaders, the voice of reason and reliable problem solvers. They are building relationships, while leading stakeholders to higher ground. They do the right things at the right times without concern for the bottom line, but investor relations must be handled simultaneously with public safety concerns.

Customer Relations During A Crisis

In a crisis, everything that your organization does and doesn’t do will impact its brand and its future. Everything that spokespeople say and don’t say matters. Even nonprofit organizations must strike the proper balance in substance and tone. Branding and positioning are part of crisis communications. Be part of the solution.

What factors make consumers trust brands during a crisis?

1. Wellbeing of customers;
2. Wellbeing of employees; and
3. Not taking advantage of the crisis to maximize profits.

During a crisis, consumers don’t want messages of hope, prayers, optimism, nostalgia or even statements about strong moral principles. Consumers want brands to demonstrate leadership and action by taking care of customers and employees. Ultimately, leaders are winners in the hearts and minds of stakeholders and stockholders.

Employees Essential To Crisis Communications

Data shows that during uncertainty, workers want their employers to be their trusted leader. Fifty-four percent of consumers are concerned with how employers are treating their employees during a crisis. Better treatment fuels brand trust from consumers, as 48 percent trust brands more when they take care of their employees. Likewise, employees are important resources who can help spread important messages and they can help prevent misinformation.

Six Steps To Better Crisis Communications

1. Assessment and Prevention: For survival and liability reasons, it is essential that all organization do everything within their power to anticipate and prevent a crisis. Negligence is a message that cannot be overcome in the court of public opinion or in the courts of justice.
2. Planning and Training: Appoint a crisis management team to help develop a crisis communication plan that can handle most contingencies. Build your stakeholder networks and keep contact information current. Put the plan to the test in a variety of scenarios to make sure that it is flexible and capable. Planning and coordination can save time, lives and reputations. Identify the key spokespeople for a variety of scenarios and provide them with media training so that they know how to get vital messages out under any circumstance.
3. Safeguard Public Health: When lives are at risk, nothing else matters. Don’t allow an opportunity for a negligence accusation. Prevent. Plan. Respond.
4. Build Relationships With Stakeholders:  Customers, employees, suppliers, allies, regulators and elected leaders are all important audiences. Listen, don’t be tone deaf and avoid humor. Be human. Be relevant and responsive. Survey stakeholders to find out what they need, what they think and what they are doing to evolve.
5. Be A Leader. Leaders develop solutions, offer resources, issue awards, produce best practices, and offer ongoing career education. This might be the right time to initiate some of those tactics. Leaders also earn media coverage that is relevant and meaningful. Don’t forget to monitor your competition during these times just to stay in tune and in step. In fact, there might be an opportunity or need for cooperation to help save lives.
6. Continuous Quality Improvement: As the world evolves, so does our need for crisis communication plans. Keep refining your plan, your contact lists, your mobile/remote capability and other important details. Keep testing for new scenarios. Ask yourself and others “what could go wrong?”

No two crises are the same, but the planning and prevention phase can help you develop a customized crisis communications plan that will serve and protect your stakeholders.

Crossbow Communications is an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Best Practices In Crisis Communications appeared first on Crossbow Communications.

The coronavirus had billions of people and millions of businesses fighting for survival. It provides an important case study in crisis aversion, crisis management and crisis communications.

Of course, our first concern was for our families, friends and co-workers. We quickly expand our focus to our customers and stakeholders. What do they need to know? How can we help them?

On the economic front, few brands went untouched. The crisis defined winners and losers in a variety of ways. In a crisis, everything that a business does and doesn’t do will impact its brand. Everything that you say and don’t say will impact your brand. Even nonprofit organizations must strike the proper balance in substance and tone. Branding and positioning are part of the equation whether you like it or not.

Failure to safeguard public health could be the kiss of death for businesses and and customers. Failure to reopen also will kill businesses, so pathway/pathogen management are still today essential for all stakeholders.

Crisis communications represent an opportunity shine as leaders. It’s a time to build relationships and demonstrate reliability. It’s a chance to solidify your position as a leader in your industry and within your community. We must be responsible, responsive, relevant, trustworthy and extremely proactive because actions speak much louder than words. The pandemic response will forever tarnish corporate brands that failed to do the right thing for consumers, employees and other stakeholders.

Building loyalty in a time of crisis can make or break a brand.

Organizations are turning on a dime to improvise and make difficult decisions that will ultimately have lasting effects on their brands. When asked what factors make consumers trust brands more, the top three responses focused on the wellbeing of customers, the wellbeing of employees, and not taking advantage of the crisis to maximize profits. What consumers don’t want are messages of hope, optimism, nostalgia or even statements about strong moral principles. Consumers want brands to demonstrate leadership and action by taking care of customers and employees. Brands that fail to take these actions put their reputations and trustworthiness at risk.

Organizations standing behind their employees is one of the top reasons consumers trust any brand.

Data shows that during uncertainty, workers are looking to employers and managers to lead even more than they are looking to governments and other organizations. Consumers are watching. Fifty-four percent of them say they are concerned with how employers are treating their employees in this time of crisis. Better treatment fuels brand trust, with 48 percent indicating they trust brands more when they take care of their employees.

Clear and frequent communications from the company will increase brand loyalty among employees. But not all companies are doing it. Only about half of employees approved of their employers’ COVID-19 actions, and less than 60 percent believe their employers communicated well during this crisis.

Among those who were satisfied with their employers’ COVID-19 actions, 90 percent believe their employers communicated well, resulting in significantly higher levels of trust. But too many employers let their employees down. Employers who communicated poorly during this crisis experienced significant distrust with 63 percent indicating they trust their employer less.

As consumers adjust to the new world, 65 percent of consumers indicated that during this crisis a brand’s actions have a significant or major impact on their trust in that brand. A study from Morning Consult shows that consumer attitudes about brands evolved during the coronavirus crisis. Today, fewer than half of Americans (41 percent) trust large corporations to guide them through these anxiety-inducing times.

In order for large companies to fortify consumer affinity and loyalty, Morning Consult’s research suggests that they should put their purposes and values into practice. A majority of those surveyed (over 75 percent) answered that they think it is either very or somewhat important that brands take care of their employees and treat them well, have products available when they need them, care about society, contribute to society, stand for something beyond just profit and show sensitivity and empathy. 

Moreover, Americans’ top five considerations when deciding whether to buy from a company right now are largely rooted in the basic, fundamental needs of consumers: product availability, safety and cleanliness, financial accessibility and compliant solutions. Boomers were most likely to buy from companies that stand for something beyond making a profit and for companies that are providing flexibility (87 percent).

Amid this unprecedented environment this much is clear: what companies communicate to consumers, through both their actions and their advertising, will have lasting effects. Participants of the Morning Consult special coronavirus report noted that messaging should be centered around informing and improving the situation, helping stakeholders rather than selling to them, all while remaining practical and sensitive. 

The consumers surveyed indicated an interest in not only how brands are taking care of and providing for them, but also how they are managing and protecting their employees by complying with safety and health measures. Consumers also want to be provided with useful updates on business operations and the availability of products and services, which can have real implications on their day-to-day lives.

Only 13 percent of Americans polled strongly felt that companies shouldn’t advertise during a crisis like the pandemic. For the majority of Americans that do want companies to say something rather than nothing, messaging perceived as explicitly self-serving, situation-insensitive or situation-impractical should be avoided. Instead, brand messaging should be comforting and optimistic, demonstrating how team members are being treated and accentuating how company products and services can be used to combat the spread of the coronavirus and improve customer wellbeing.

Three-quarters of those surveyed desired brand advertising with tones that are empathetic, safety-focused, honest and transparent, or were compassionate and kind.

Results show that consumers are far more likely to be attracted to messaging that shows how the company’s products and services could be used to tackle the spread of coronavirus (DoorDash), or those that show how the company’s products and services could improve customers’ happiness and well-being during the pandemic (Hyundai, Ford), versus advertisements that do not address the pandemic at all (Seventh Generation).

According to a survey from Advertiser Perceptions, nearly half of advertisers have either pulled a campaign or delayed the launch of a campaign because of the novel coronavirus. A third say they completely canceled a campaign pre-launch. Brands that build a solid foundation for long-term equity gains by managing business in a favorable way and engaging with customers compassionately will also position themselves as reliable. 

In a report from Edelman, based on interviews with 12,000 people in several countries, 71 percent of respondents said that if they perceive that a brand is putting profit over people, they will lose trust in that brand forever and 77 percent want brands to explain that they are aware of the crisis and the dramatic impact on people around the world.

As you continue refining your crisis communications plan and stakeholder engagement activities, here are several tips for your consideration.

Strategies For Branding, Positioning During Crises

1. Safeguard public health. Don’t allow an opportunity for a negligence accusation or lawsuit. Identify all possible pathways that the virus can spread and expose stakeholders. Manage those pathways aggressively to prevent/minimize exposure.
2. Build relationships with stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, allies, regulators and elected leaders. Listen, don’t be tone deaf and avoid humor. Be human. Be relevant and responsive. Survey stakeholders to find out what they need, what they think and what they are doing to evolve.
3. Be a leader. Aimbridge Hospitality, which operates Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt hotels, is making rooms available to house and quarantine healthcare workers; New York City is paying. Embattled cruise companies like the Carnival Corporation have offered up ships as makeshift hospitals. Leaders develop solutions, offer resources, issue awards, produce best practices, and offer ongoing career education. This might be the right time to initiate some of those tactics. Leaders also earn media coverage that is relevant and meaningful. Don’t forget to monitor your competition during these times just to stay in tune and in step. In fact, there might be an opportunity or need for cooperation to help save lives.

In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, corporate and nonprofit brands must figure out how they can help and what actions can be taken to help solve the crises. Find ways to help stakeholders survive. Brands have an opportunity to strengthen the bonds of trust with employees, customers, and communities.

Crossbow Communications is an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

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Many companies think a crisis will never happen to them. In reality, crisis situations affect businesses of all sizes and industries every day. The following best practices, however, will help outline and deploy an effective plan to avoid/minimize harm to people, property and reputations.

Being proactive to prevent issues from gaining momentum is the first step of a crisis communications plan. Safeguarding human health is paramount. What keeps you up at night? What could possibly go wrong? What are the critical success factors for your business or organization? What do stakeholders and stockholders expect from your organization? This checklist can help us identify the downside issues within an organization, prioritize them and manage them for maximum impact.

Crisis Containment

Failing to plan is planning to fail. The only way to make sure you’re fully prepared to deal with crisis situations is to spend the time before an issue arises to put a plan in place. A good crisis communications plan should:

1. Identify the core response team. This group is your first line of defense in crisis situations. At the very least, it should include someone from your PR team and a legal representative. It’s helpful to create an email alias with that group so you can contact everyone at once.

Make sure to designate someone in this group as the directly responsible individual (DRI), as well as an alternate in the event that that person is unable to help. That person will be responsible for evaluating incidents, convening the response team, and looping in other teams as needed.

2. Identify the executive response team. Once the core response team has evaluated an incident and determined its severity, it’s important that they know who on the leadership team should be alerted to the situation. The core group should stay the same from incident to incident, but you should also be prepared to bring in other executives as needed (for example, if it’s a customer-facing issue, make sure your head of customer support is looped in early).

3. Determine your workflow. Outline the specifics of how the team will mobilize during an incident. How will you communicate? How will people in the response teams be notified? How often will you report publicly? Where will you post those communications?

Make sure you consider multiple different scenarios when putting that workflow in place. It’s also helpful to list out all of the constituents that might be impacted, such as customers, employees, partners, or investors. You should also record the different channels you would use to reach these audiences – think in-product notifications, emails, social media posts, or a press release. This work can feel tedious, but it’s incredibly important to have this done well in advance so that you’re not scrambling to compile it later.

Every company is different, so the additional elements of your plans might differ slightly, but these core factors are essential to any effective plan. By outlining these ahead of time, you can be sure you’ll be prepared when a situation actually arises.

Crisis Response

In today’s 24/7 news cycle, information can spread globally quickly, and it is more difficult to control the narrative once it’s public. It’s vital to quickly—and thoroughly—evaluate the situation to issue editorial materials and stabilize the issue.

Public statements and news releases should be issued as soon as the crisis has been identified and immediately after pertinent information has been verified. If possible, written content and verbal statements should outline potential solutions and next steps. Including this information demonstrates the company’s commitment to a quick resolution and aides message control.

If you catch wind a crisis is looming, consider preemptive efforts, such as initiating contact with relevant reporters or using company social channels to get your story out before news breaks. While that may seem like an unconventional approach, this type of transparency allows the company to control the narrative, so resulting news coverage is more likely to contain accurate, fairly balanced information.

Issue Monitoring

Advanced software platforms that monitor news and social media activity in real-time are essential for keeping a pulse on news coverage as well as public comments and sentiments. The real-time data provides a line of sight during a crisis, so trending headlines and social conversations are immediately identified and important decisions can be made quickly.

The cost for media monitoring and analytics software varies based on the depth of analysis and reporting capabilities of the program. Enterprise systems for large, publicly traded organizations can cost tens of thousands and require a long-term contract.

However, there are also media monitoring systems with free service options for smaller organizations. The gratis systems are useful for examining news mentions and social conversations, but keep in mind that they have limited reporting and analysis capabilities.

With consistent monitoring, you’re able to know what the public is saying and respond in real-time. Remember, one negative mention can quickly go viral. Implementing ongoing monitoring is a smart practice to help mitigate issues before they become crises.

Transparency

Among the most damaging impacts of a crisis is the loss of public trust and credibility. A crisis might be “handled” in the sense that your company is no longer in the headlines, but the aftereffect can cause long-term damage to a company’s reputation and market share.

Repairing brand reputation requires transparency. If a mistake was made, a mistake was made. This is an opportunity to take ownership, if necessary, and demonstrate a commitment to resolving the issue.

No matter the root cause of the crisis, authenticity in your communication is vital for winning back public trust. Don’t become silent or respond with “no comment.” Instead, create positive conversation and dialogue by sharing relevant information and updates as well as your intended next steps to repair the damage.

Crises are difficult to predict and can stem from a variety of sources – actions of unruly employees, evidence of racial insensitivity or sexual bias, fake news and everything in between. Should a crisis come your way remember, responding to the pressure is better than reacting to it.

Crisis Communications vs. Incident Response

If your company has a physical office, it’s likely that your security team already has an incident response plan in place. Incident response plans are tactical and deal with day-to-day issues that could arise at the office, such as problems with the building or an incident that impacts the physical safety of employees. These plans are often internal-facing and don’t provide any necessary steps for communicating externally other than looping in the PR team if a situation has the potential to go public.

Both crisis communication and incident response plans serve a unique need and are incredibly important for making sure your company is prepared if and when an issue does arise. Today, however, we’ll be focusing on strategies and best practices that are useful for developing a crisis communications plan.

Crisis Management

Once a situation escalates into a crisis, things start moving pretty fast. It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in the moment, and emotions will be running high as everyone mobilizes to try to solve the problem. Remind yourself that you’ve done the hard work ahead of time to get your crisis plan in place, so you should have everything you need to get through the incident. Keeping a steady head is essential in making clear decisions and moving quickly.

Communicate updates as quickly as possible. For product incidents, that means getting a status page up on your website about the situation. Just knowing that someone is on it is often enough to reduce some anxiety during a crisis.

Also, commit to how often you’ll report updates, such as every hour or by the end of the day. Making that commitment will keep things moving on your end and should also provide some comfort for the folks waiting for your response.

Positioning and Segmenting

Leaders lead, whether it’s a crisis or an opportunity. Stakeholders like to follow leaders, so keep doing your thing for the common and corporate good. It will pay dividends for many years in many ways. Be a defender and a problem-solver in ways that impact your stakeholders (including activities outside of your normal business). Redirect resources and capacity to help. Remember that critical actions are more important than words. Stakeholder segments include:

• Board of Directors
• Employees
• Customers:
• Allies
• Suppliers
• Distributors
• Public Health Agencies
• First Responders
• Law Enforcement
• Industry leaders

Messaging

1. Be open and honest about impact. The widespread closures and heavy demand for services are having a deep impact on businesses both large and small. Be transparent with your customers about how this is impacting your business, and in turn impacting your customers. Many online providers recently sent out an email indicating service may slow over the coming weeks as demand for their products increases. They also included similar messaging at the top of their website homepage.
2. Acknowledge uncertainty. Email can help you to establish consistent communication with your customers and announce changes in real-time.
3. Express gratitude. Times are tough for everyone. When you’re planning your email communications, don’t forget to express gratitude towards your customers. Additionally, calling out wins is a welcome morale boost in tough situations.
4. Offer an update on where you are with business.
5. Let them know about the steps taken to ensure their safety during this time.
6. Encourage them to continue business as appropriate and thank them for their support.
7. Share helpful blog posts and videos.
8. Ask and answer important/helpful questions.

Channels

• News conference;
• Email;
• Video conferencing and video production;
• Avoid postal service for now (unless vital);
• Use social media (update profiles);
• Post updates on your website;
• Share/produce blogs/videos (yours and others); and
• Make it easy to opt-out.

Email is still one of the best ways to reach your stakeholders. A study by Adobe found most Americans spend 209 minutes each workday using work email and 143 minutes using personal email (totaling almost six hours). Email is considerably better than social media when it comes to sweeping communication because it allows you to contact all your customers at once — instead of just the ones the algorithm selects. Update your customers with any changes as they come up. Stay factual, helpful and positive on social media.

After a crisis settles down, it’s important to do a postmortem to evaluate how the team performed and determine whether there are any improvements you can make to the process. Survey stakeholders involved in the crisis, as well as holding a meeting to review the feedback and talk through relevant next steps. This should be part of every crisis situation.

Crossbow Communications is an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Crisis Communications Checklist appeared first on Crossbow Communications.

In the digital age, public relations disasters can strike at any time. No brand is immune from a negative social media post that is gaining traction or an unfavorable news story, and when an incident like this occurs, it’s imperative to act quickly and decisively to save lives and reputations.

When a PR crisis erupts, the first hours and the first steps are critical. What you do during this period can determine how quickly your organization recovers – or if it recovers.

Activate Crisis Team and Command Center: In this day and age, all organizations should have a crisis communications plan and a crisis team in place. Immediately assemble the team to verify the facts, options and priorities. The actions taken in the first 48 hours of a public relations crisis can set the outcome. Assemble a communications team to determine the messages and channels to quickly reach customers, shareholders and employees. Any public response must be in alignment with the culture and values of the company. Then, stay on top of the situation and monitor social networks inside and outside the company.

Analyze The Potential Impact Of The Situation: It’s important to understand the situation, analyzing how big or small the disaster truly is based on reach, then evaluating brand impact to guide decision-making. It’s important to look at all angles and then proceed with a more strategic plan that includes details, targets, and spends and communication delivery.

Crisis communications is not the platform to tell your entire story. Keep the plan simple and keep the message simple. Train the crisis team regularly.

Key Messages for Key Stakeholders: Understand the problem, who is affected, and the potential impact. This will tell you a lot about who you need to communicate with and what you can share with them. Create a list of bulleted talking points for the crisis team. Refine those talking points for key audience segments as necessary and update the key messages as the situation evolves. Public safety is always your first concern and the first message in such situations;

Who Needs To Hear What: The information needs among stakeholder groups are not the same. This is an area where crisis planning pays dividends because you now have separate lists and channels for each stakeholder group. Now you can target key audiences with critical, customized information. Teams must determine the right level spokesperson for the issue and ensure their crisis plan is working and provide an accurate flow of information to the right people.

Make Yourself Visible and Available: It may be hard to believe in the midst of a crisis, but recovery is possible. Make sure you are visible and that the world sees you are actively engaged and communicating. No matter how distasteful the facts of the situation may be, tell the truth. If you don’t have an answer, admit it and get the answer. 

Truthful and timely communications can restore trust and credibility.

Audit and Adjust Communications Plan: What worked and what didn’t. What resources and systems will help avert and minimize crises in the future. Does the team need more media training.

Review Policies and Procedures That Could Have Prevented or Minimized The Crisis: Crisis aversion is always the best form of crisis management. What changes can minimize crises in the future.

Build New Alliances: Before, during and after crises, reach out to potential allies who can help prevent or minimize crises in the future. Share your vision, concerns and areas of potential collaboration.

Crossbow Communications is an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Be Prepared For Crisis Communications appeared first on Crossbow Communications.

No business likes to enter crisis mode. As a leader, you may not know how to respond to tough questions and negative media coverage. You can add insult to injury by making misstep after misstep in your actions and statements. You may overspeak and provide a comment that just seems to rub your customers the wrong way. No matter what you do, it isn’t working, and it just gets worse with each move. Handling crisis correctly can save lives, reputations and shareholder value.

Crisis aversion is the most important element of crisis management. Organizations owe it to themselves, stakeholders and stockholders to anticipate worst case scenarios and avoid them. Of course, aversion and planning only go so far. So don’t lose sight of your compass and conscience when you enter unchartered territory–also known as crisis communications.

Below, members of Forbes Coaches Council provide some lessons learned from handling a crisis incorrectly and how you can avoid making the same mistakes:

1. Listen To Your Team: A crisis is usually considered handled incorrectly when a leader goes rogue and does their own thing without consulting their team. A leader who doesn’t listen to their team will always be blamed when they don’t consult others first. By listening to input and experiences of others on the team, joint decisions can be made and the company will be much more likely to rally around the CEO.

2. Take Responsibility And Apologize: We see, time and time again, CEOs who excuse, equivocate, or give halfhearted and completely insensitive apologies. The primary thing you should do as a CEO is take responsibility and make a full apology, which includes what you will do to make amends for what has happened and what you will do differently in the future. Be honest, be vulnerable, and don’t be afraid to show emotion.

3. Tell The Truth: Transparency is key when dealing with a crisis. So many CEO try to hide the mistakes that they or the company have made for fear of losing profit. But when the truth comes out, they lose much more than profits, they lose reputation and brand equity.

People want to buy from companies that they trust and believe in. Profit and brand values go up when transparency is real.

4. Reflect And Practice: There is no shortage of examples of CEOs who have made mistakes when handling a crisis. Company leaders can learn from this by reflecting on the ones that could impact them, then think about how they would have handled the situation differently. They should also anticipate the “hurricanes on their horizon” then ensure the proper process to handle a crisis is in place in the event it ever surfaces.

5. Create A Diverse Crisis Response Team: When responding to a crisis, it is important for an organization to see the issue from different perspectives before responding. Employing a diverse crisis response team will ensure that your message is not tone deaf to the issue or the community affected by the incident.

6. Discuss, Correct, Move Forward: A wise company leader will know that mistakes are inevitable — the only thing they can do is make sure that big decisions have been discussed among the experts in the company and that decisions have not been taken autocratically. If the entire group makes a wrong decision, it will be a lesson learned. Take corrective action and move on. You have nothing then else but to live and learn.

7. Be Accountable: Trust comes from meeting expectations. When executives ask, “What should we do?” they create a self-referential frame and become self-protective, doing and saying things that make them feel less bad. Instead, they should ask, “What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible company to do when facing this kind of situation?” Doing what reasonable people appropriately expect causes trust to remain or to increase.

8. Remember Communication Is Key: When handling a crisis, leaders must communicate. Remember the ABCs of communication: accuracy, barriers and context. The message that is shared must be truthful and provided with only the facts. Leaders must keep in mind the barriers to communication, which include the length of the message and the method by which it is delivered. The context represents the situation in which it is delivered.

9. Build Trust In Advance:Companies often wait until a crisis to take care of fundamentals that should be already established with customers/clients. When I was advertising for a large quick-service restaurant and there was fear of mad cow disease coming from Europe, we preemptively developed a campaign about the quality of the food. So, understand how you can build trust with your customers/clients and start right away.

10. Be Prepared For A Crisis: Leaders take the time to prepare for everything, from acquisitions and mergers to cocktail parties, but one area that sometimes gets overlooked is crisis aversion and management. One of the best ways to prepare for a crisis is to simulate possible crisis scenarios and practice responses until you feel ready. Practice until you are truly ready for that “news camera in your face” moment and others agree that you are ready.

11. Get The Facts Before You Act: In the midst of an organizational crisis, executives make a bad situation worse by speaking out before they know the facts. Although in a crisis everything seems to move at the speed of light and every stakeholder is demanding action to be taken immediately, systematic decision-making is never more important. Executives should acknowledge that the situation is of high priority and give full attention to the collection of the facts.

12. Demonstrate Empathy: A grievous mistake that CEOs make during times of crisis is to express concerns only about maintaining shareholder value. Although the business should be top of mind, the outward expression of caring about one’s business is caring about its employees. A case in point is BP’s CEO who did not immediately empathize with the fallen employees and their families, leaving BP with a tarnished environmental, business and people record.

13. Understand The Power Of Press And Community: You’ve seen the ugliness that can happen after a CEO handles a crisis incorrectly. This type of negative press intensifies the damage already done and can sometimes leave a permanent mark on his/her reputation. One thing CEOs must learn is that even with all the power and influence they possess in their personal careers, the press is very powerful and “turning off” their communities can prove very damaging.

14. Highlight The Crisis: The most important element company leaders can learn from a CEO handling a crisis incorrectly is to treat it as a priority and engage early with leadership from all functional areas within the organization. By highlighting the crisis, you open the door to potential solutions and next steps from all sides. And this level of transparency leads to an increased versus decreased sense of trust.

15. Treat Others Like You Want To Be Treated: A simple leadership principle that brings clarity to every situation is to treat others as you would want to be treated. When a CEO follows this guiding principle, it helps make things clear. In times of difficulty, the leader is called to act with integrity, compassion, and thoughtfulness. When a leader thinks of others, the pathway becomes clear.

One critical factor in crisis communications is the prioritization of actions and messages. First and foremost, assure safety and minimize harm to all forms of life.

Failure to do so will only magnify the crisis. Of course, the first statements also need to address health and safety if there is such a risk. After that, be sure to gather the facts before you move into reputation management mode. It’s OK to buy time by saying that you are gathering the facts and will issue a statement as soon as possible.

Crossbow Communications is an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Crisis Aversion Checklist appeared first on Crossbow Communications.