How You Respond To A Crisis Makes All The Difference

Assess your readiness

A company’s cultural values need to be reinforced regularly. Crisis-preparation plans are important, but odds are they end up forgotten, archived on a computer, or filed in a desk drawer. More important than any plan is a mind-set to stay ever vigilant about potentially harmful issues.
 

For leaders trying to get ahead of the risk curve, it is best to start by assessing your organization, the operations, processes, policies, rules, exceptions, competitive and external threats, and the readiness of executives to avert major problems. Ask yourself: What do you think can turn into something that can become much worse if it isn’t fixed soon? This is similar to a patient examination conducted by a thorough physician. My doctor asks questions to identify current or future pain points. He takes note of what I tell him, coaxing more information from me. In doing so, he gets a better all-round picture of my health while diagnostic testing—blood labs, EKGs, and other tests—provides the benchmark data for annual re-evaluation.

Risk prevention and investigation should start with a lot of one-on-one conversations with people in charge of major functions. People generally don’t like to bring up issues among colleagues, and that’s part of the problem.

That’s where my journalism training helped while engaging executives in corporate risk-management planning. I know how to put people at ease and get them to discuss things they might not initially want to talk about. After an hour-long conversation, I might finally get the person to say, “You know, this is what really keeps me up at three in the morning.” That’s when you start getting at some of the potential threats lurking below the surface.

Cross communication among departments and practices is also important to risk management. Information about issues is so often decentralized, if not buried, in departments. The dots cannot be connected until someone pieces it all together and sees the threat or problem in all its dimensions. People in my business discipline—communications, marketing, brand people, public affairs—must continually engage with the rest of the organization in as many ways as possible. Too often we find out about crucial issues after the fact. To be more effective, we need a seat at the CEO’s conference table and in the boardroom, or in executive committees with the CEO. We need to be part of those mission-critical conversations early on.

Communication executives and top consultants have to be part of the solution, part of the risk-management team dealing with issues before they become much larger problems. Otherwise they are the people who get the call from the CEO or general counsel’s office saying, “We’ve got a big problem and we need you to help fix it!”

Jack Modzelewski is founder and president of JackKnifePR, a business communications consulting firm in Chicago. He is the author of the book, Talk is Chief: Leadership, Communication & Credibility in a High-Stakes World. His extensive career in public relations, marketing, communications, and executive management included roles with global agencies. Most recently, he was president of FleishmanHillard, where he worked for more than 26 years in executive and international positions, including five years as president of Europe & Africa and nearly five as president of the Americas.  Visit www.jackknifepr.com Connect Jack Modzelewski Follow @JackKnifePR1