Marcom A to Z — C for Crisis

Forget death, Ponzi schemes, CEO compensation, an inflammatory YouTube video, product malfunction or corporate malfeasance. The most terrifying crisis that should keep you up at night is not the worst-case scenario itself, but the inability to respond strategically and at lightning speed.

Your CEO’s reputation and that of your company mutually define one another, more so today than ever before. If you’re charged with protecting that reputation, your reputation then is at stake if a crisis communications plan isn’t written, discussed, distributed, tested and, most importantly, understood throughout the organization.

Ten-plus year ago, we talked about the need to respond quickly. Today, we define quickly in minutes rather than hours or days. Consider that an inflammatory article could be re-tweeted and blogged about immediately after its original posting, taking it from a local situation to a global discussion in five minutes flat.

I just read a book that I highly recommend: Memo to the CEO: Manage the Media (Don’t Let the Media Manage You) published by Harvard Business Press and written by William J. Holstein, an accomplished author and journalist who writes for the New York Times, Fortune and BusinessWeek Online, among other publications. Discussing the proliferation of activist groups and technology that facilitates quick communications, he writes:

“The vast majority of CEOs have not yet restructured their corporations and their various communications arms to respond to these new realities. In this environment, PR suddenly becomes something much bigger than PR. It becomes public diplomacy. It becomes corporate social responsibility. It becomes a vehicle that links employees in the pursuit of noble goals. It becomes the art and science of creating internal and external climates of opinion in which a company can achieve its objectives, not all of which are related to earnings per share. It is, in short, part of strategy.”

A critical part of PR is managing the message (and the media, per the book’s title), which cannot happen without a proactive strategy for managing issues, both positive and negative. So if PR is a primary strategy for your company, ask yourself these questions:

• Who on your team is scouring the news proactively to avert the next crisis?
• Do you have a defined system to respond to an inflammatory blog post in minutes?
• If a high-level executive is contacted directly by a member of the media for comment, are you confident that he or she will handle that situation appropriately?
• Who makes up your crisis communications team?
• What’s the worst statement that someone could make against your company or its top executive and how would you respond if that allegation were raised?

If you answered these questions in 10 seconds and without consulting others, you’re likely in a fairly good position to deal with the crisis that may hit today. On the other hand, if these questions were difficult to answer, put “review crisis communications plan” at the top of today’s Must Do List. It could help turn a crisis into an opportunity — one that would actually enhance your reputation and exceed stakeholder expectations by taking appropriate responsibility, telling the truth and demonstrating values with deeds — all within a matter of minutes.

This weekly series discusses marcom concepts by the letter — from A to Z. The next post: D for Differentiation.