The bad news: virtually every PR counselor will endure the rigors of a crisis situation at some point in his or her career. The good news (sort of): Corporations are 63% more
likely to be hit with a smoldering crisis - the kind that starts small and festers - than a sudden catastrophe. Which means most crisis situations can be predicted and
minimized, according to Larry Smith, president of the Institute for Crisis Management in Louisville, Ky.
Although crisis patterns tend to repeat themselves, Smith warned attendees at PR NEWS' June 20 "Advanced Crisis Management" seminar against using "fill in the blank"
crisis software as a means of preparing for the worst. The better approach is to interview key executives inside your organization - the CEO, CFO, COO, VP of HR and general
counsel - and use their insights to map out the scenarios that could most likely plague your company.
"Ask them, 'When you go to bed at night, what keeps you up? What do you worry might happen?'" Smith advised. Then boil down their responses into the key scenarios that will
comprise your crisis plan.
For example, say one of your contingencies anticipates a corporate plane crash. Have you ranked who should be notified first, and in what order? Do you have flight histories
with your pilots' experience? Do you have a policy dictating that your CEO and CFO can't fly on the same plane? Do you have records regarding your corporate aircraft (year
purchased, make/model and maintenance schedules)? Do you have a succession plan to implement in the event of your CEO's death so your stock won't tank?
Smith described other universal crisis scenarios as those involving workplace violence, sharp declines in share price, work stoppages, and, most recently, electronic crime.
Embracing Murphy's Law
While pessimism is generally not considered an attractive human quality, it can be an asset if you're a crisis counselor. There's no such thing as being overprepared for every
contingency, Smith said. "A crisis that happens at 3 a.m. is easy because you know where to reach people. It's the one that happens at 3 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon that's a
problem." This is when people are out running errands, taking their kids to soccer , and otherwise impossible to reach.
As such, it's a good idea to outfit your executives with pagers, and to keep copies of your crisis plan, along with key contact phone lists, in your office, car, home and
briefcase. "What if a tornado levels your building and the only copy of your plan was in your desk?" Smith hypothesized.
Having an offsite plan of attack is advisable, given that you never know when your building may have to be evacuated due to fire, hurricane, a man-eating lizard outbreak
or any other number of fiascoes.
The one certainty is that the media will get there before you do. "Sometimes media relations starts at the front gate, and other times it's from the back of a pick-up truck,"
said fellow speaker Ernest Del Bueno, VP with the crisis consulting firm Rowan & Blewitt. A good PR team will be ready to set up a crisis hub in a remote location, if
necessary.
"Have a letter of agreement with your local school, neighborhood center, or a hotel whereby you can set up a war room and media center instantly in the event that you can't
work in your building," Smith said. Similarly, forge a contingency plan with an office equipment lessor to have fax machines, phones, copiers and computer equipment ready on
demand. Ditto with the phone company: have a swat team prepared to install war room phone lines, and plan for back-up cell phones, chargers and batteries.
Imperfection Guaranteed
Even the best-laid plan will be flawed, so testing is a must, Del Bueno said. He recalled one late-night incident in which none of the senior leaders on hand knew the
code to activate a phone system in their war room . "Both the doers and the support staff need to be [deployed]," he added. Regular drills willensure that everyone is familiar
with the equipment and is clear on designated roles and responsibilities.
Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle to effective crisis management is often senior leadership denial. Don't be afraid to offer gruesome evidence of companies similar to yours
that allowed small incidents to escalate and suffered the consequences. (Intel's flawed Pentium chip fiasco, for example, makes a good poster child in the product-bashing
category. The manufacturer's reputation took a beating from cyber-vigilante squads after it ignored customers' initial complaints about the flawed chip.)
Not all crises are alike, but they often share the same ending. The longer a crisis ferments, the more damage it will cause to sales, earnings, stock price and competitive
position. So it doesn't hurt to enlighten senior managers (diplomatically) about what's at stake for them.
"I once had a corporate executive tell me his company didn't pay him enough to wear a pager," Smith said. "I told him, they don't pay you enough not to wear it."
Unless you're a millionaire and you're ready for early retirement, be prepared to handle a crisis as if your job depends on it. It just might. (Smith, 888/708-8351; Del
Bueno, 703/234-4400)
Odds and Ends
Every business has its own idiosyncratic crisis needs. Larry Smith cites one incident involving an oil pipeline explosion on a golf course. A vacuum truck arrived at the scene
to suck up the bulk of the mess, immediately followed by a semi-truck full of absorbent diapers, which were used to mop up the residual oil. This tactic not only mitigated a
potentially disastrous environmental situation, it shifted the media's focus from the problem to the solution (quirky, but effective).
Types of Crises
Perceptual - e.g., the belief that P&G's former corporate logo was devilishly designed to resemble a 6-6-6 pattern.
Bizarre - a la Marv Albert's fashion preferences.
Sudden - e.g., customers are taken hostage at your store.
Smoldering - e.g., poor internal communication during a merger prompts a mass exodus of top talent; disgruntled employees complain to the press; financial analysts doubt
the viability of the agreement; your stock takes a dive; the merger falls through; you've lost your best people; the quality of your product suffers; you lose public trust; you go
bankrupt.