5 Core Crisis Management Philosophies

In any given year, the WordWrite team handles a dozen major crises for businesses in a bind. About 10 of those never make the news — and then there are a couple that can’t help but be all over it.

Regardless of whether a crisis is under the radar or going viral, we've been there. We know how to handle the heat, and over the years, we’ve developed five core philosophies for managing crises.

The most valuable asset your organization has before, during and after a crisis is what we call your Capital S Story — the story that answers why someone should buy from you, work for you, invest in you, or partner with you.

In times of crisis, those audiences affected don’t have any interest in sales slogans, taglines or pretty logos. They judge you based upon what they believe to be the true character and nature of the organization. How they feel about you before the crisis will influence their interactions with you during the crisis and their willingness to have a relationship with you after the crisis.

We define this reputation you've earned as your “bank of goodwill.”  The number of deposits you make in your account prior to a crisis is directly proportional to the amount of grace and consideration you'll get back when you're on the hot seat. In other words, the more clearly you can define and communicate your genuine Capital S Story, the more goodwill you’ll receive when something happens that might potentially damage your reputation.

You won’t have all the answers when a crisis strikes — especially if it’s ongoing — but you must keep communicating with your stakeholders. How do you communicate updates when there are no updates? Communicate process. Keep employees and, when appropriate, the public abreast of the steps you’re taking to respond to the crisis and that you’ll share updates once available. Be honest. Tell them what you've done, what you're doing now, and what you plan to do to fix the situation.

This simple strategy helps you control the story and lets stakeholders know that you are taking action to solve the crisis.

Everyone has seen at least one cringe-worthy interview or on-camera flub (if you haven’t, here are five). These public-facing moments are critical during a crisis, because as Warren Buffet once put it, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” Therefore, it’s especially important to pre-identify and train your spokesperson(s).

Generally, this public face shouldn't be the president or CEO unless there are no other options. In a fast-moving situation, you don't want the ultimate decision maker to be delivering information that changes the following day, leading to accusations that the CEO is lying, when the truth is simply that more facts became available.

As well, once a crisis response is elevated to the ultimate decision maker, it can't go any higher, and your president or CEO presumably has other important things (like running the company!) to do even while a crisis is burning. Depending on the situation, you'll need the most knowledgeable, calm, and collected representative from the company to speak on your behalf most frequently — we call this person a "fluent storyteller." This may be an employee- or perhaps an external media relations resource to be your gatekeeper. 

You know the old phrase about mountains and molehills. That’s what we’re talking about here — don’t go turning the latter into the former, because a molehill can turn into a mountain in no time.

In this context, issues are smaller-scale problems that may deserve attention from the business but don’t shut down operations or become widely publicized. Crises, meanwhile, are the large problems that can shatter reputations and damage an organization in an operational or financial sense.

For a broad example, an issue might be a customer posting a one-star review of a product or service — it’s not great, but you can’t please everyone. But if an employee reacts by insulting the customer and that interaction goes viral, suddenly you may be in a crisis.

And thanks to social media, many companies now are susceptible to problems being amplified exponentially by simple shares and retweets. So, if your staff encounters an issue, these are some of the questions you can ask to determine if it can become a crisis:

• Is it emotionally compelling?
• Is it relatable, or is there a conflict?
• Is it easily sharable?
• Could this go viral?

Having an established process and plan in place to evaluate issues and potential crises will help you keep calm even when a bigger issue does arise.

In 2020, no one could have guessed the COVID-19 pandemic was going to turn the world upside down. However, plenty of people did predict that the world would endure another pandemic at some point.

Just because we can’t see exactly when a crisis is coming doesn’t mean you can’t plan for one. Think of oil companies, for example. They don’t know if or when a tanker will crash and spill oil into the sea, but they can reasonably assume it could happen (there are many previous instances from history, after all). You can believe, just as their tankers are insured for accidents, there are plans for responding to those potential incidents. 

Think of the risks in your own industry. Weigh how likely those risks could become a full-blown crisis. Plan for it — and follow those four other philosophies while you’re at it.

Want to learn more about crisis communications? Feel free to reach out to us here.