As we saw in the previous article, responding to a crisis is a non linear activity that involves simultaneously executing and constantly monitoring various tasks in an efficient manner. This calls for coordinated efforts between individuals, teams, departments and business units. Communication, therefore, becomes extremely crucial in such a scenario.
PAS 200, 2011 - Part 4 of 5 Communicating in a Crisis
As we saw in the previous article, responding to a crisis is a non linear activity that involves simultaneously executing and constantly monitoring various tasks in an efficient manner. This calls for coordinated efforts between individuals, teams, departments and business units. Communication, therefore, becomes extremely crucial in such a scenario.
Communication Strategies
Issues Management
Threats can be anticipated well before they actually occur. Issues management is a practice that shares many of its principles with horizon scanning and vulnerability assessment procedures. The advent of technology allows real time sharing and comparing of information. This implies that crisis related information can be easily exposed to the public domain and spread at a fast rate.
Employee staff and personnel themselves might resort to sharing information through social media channels and this can be detrimental to the objective of managing issues during a crisis.
The manner in which information is shared plays a vital role in crisis communication. Conflicting perceptions of the same situation amongst staff and stakeholders can create friction and opposing points of view.
Risk Communication
Employees, stakeholders, customers and suppliers experience the impact of a crisis in varying degrees. This creates a variety of communication needs for different units within the organization. Leadership teams often have to work with and base their decision on insufficient information that may not necessarily be accurate. This poses a major challenge while responding to a crisis.
and base their decision on insufficient information that may not necessarily be accurate. This poses a major challenge while responding to a crisis.
As we have already seen in earlier articles, crises tend to be unpredictable in nature with uncertain outcomes. Hence, the management and leadership of an organization should be prepared to adapt their communication strategies depending on a variety of factors such as:
- the prevailing organizational ambience at the time the crisis occurs
- the extent to which staff, stakeholders and others involved are concerned about the event, its impact on business and so on
- the nature of the crisis and the scale on which it is occurring
- the use of digital and social media based on how it can impact the crisis response and recovery measures
- newsworthiness of the crisis – the extent to which the crisis gains mileage in the press and media due to environmental, humanitarian, economic, technological and sociopolitical concerns.
Stakeholder Engagement
Crisis related information should be adapted in tone, style and details while sharing with different stakeholders and stakeholder groups such as staff, suppliers and customers. What information should be shared with whom and the manner in which it is done is an important factor to consider. However, consistency in the content that is shared should be maintained. Inconsistent and contradictory information can be damaging to the organization’s reputation and negatively impact the outcome of response/recovery plans.
The management should discuss and reach a consensus on the extent of involvement that different groups of people are allowed.
- Information – Regular updates and notifications can help clear the fog and provide clarity on the measures a company is taking, the severity of the damage, the amount of effort and resources needed for recovery and so on.
- Monitoring – Keeping a tab on the kind of reactions the information generates from stakeholders, staff and customers can provide valuable inputs on the kind of changes needed in communication strategies.
- Consultation – Decision makers constantly seek advice and guidance from key investors and stakeholders on the ideal course of action and possible alternatives.
- Involvement – Stakeholders, investors and even staff can be allowed to participate actively so that the leadership team can collect as many varied inputs as possible before deciding on a strategy to employ.
- Collaboration – Collective efforts that are coordinated between various groups of people who are affected by the crisis can ensure the development of a robust and foolproof strategy with a high probability of success.
Crises also tend to attract the attention and involvement of groups who take a stance on the crisis and how the organization is responding to it. Communication strategies must keep in mind the impact these “new stakeholders” can have on the effectiveness of the organization’s crisis plan and should be developed accordingly.
Formal and Informal Communication
Formal – Organizational hierarchies with complex interfaces and rigid structures considerably slow down information sharing due to bottlenecks and message filtering protocols present in communication channels. This can create severe inefficiencies during crisis and even lead to escalations.
Informal – They come with their own set of problems such as the spread of myths, rumors and the creation of unnecessary tension. However, relaxing communication protocols can speed things up during crisis situations by cutting through red the tape and sharing information quickly and efficiently.
Being mindful of people’s sensitivities and establishing trust amongst peers and associates plays a vital role during a crisis as it greatly increases the reliability of information being shared. This in turns saves the organization considerable amount of time. Speed and precision are crucial factors while communicating during a crisis.
Some generic guidelines have been listed below:
- Crisis management teams should keep track of possible distractions that can lead to a loss of focus and slow down the decision making process.
- IT and communications systems should be made redundant enough to ensure a smooth failover to business as usual in the event of a hazardous situation.
- There should be an analytical framework in place that can gauge the validity of information being shared and communicated between individuals, teams, departments and units during emergencies.
- Crisis specific communication channels should be kept as clutter free as possible. This increases the speed of transmitting data and also creates additional time for validating its accuracy before making decisions.
- Employee personnel should be kept up to date on the status and progress of the various response and recovery plans in place. This is crucial in extending a feeling of solidarity, keeping the staff in good spirits and raising the overall morale during testing situations.
- The organization’s crisis management plan and its corporate communications policies should be in sync with each other.
Methods of Communication
Organizations today have a variety of options at their disposal for communicating during a crisis, coordinating their efforts and responding collectively to a problem. The leadership team’s choices in this regard largely depend on the ambience and work culture of the organization. Nevertheless, senders of information must carefully choose the mode, tone and style of communication to avoid exaggerations, understatements, ambiguity and misinterpretations which can worsen the situation.
Some commonly used options have been listed below:
Internal
- Meetings
- Briefs
- SMS
- Electronic and/or Physical Newsletters
External
- News Interviews
- Press Releases
- Press Conferences
- Social Media
- Organization Website
*Communication through social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook becomes very critical during emergency situations that attract a lot of public attention, interest and concern.
Communication Pitfalls
Misunderstandings, tensions and feelings of uncertainty have a way creeping into an organization’s communication efforts. Some common pitfalls have been listed below along with their solutions:
- The tone of voice and use of language while drafting messages.
Solution: Keep communication simple, direct and to the point – catering to the specific needs of different target audiences. - Discretion while filtering out unnecessary details from critical information.
Solution: Clarify gaps in communication such as ambiguity and misinterpretations as frequently as possible to ensure that all parties involved are on the same page. - Damage to infrastructure such as physical lines, equipment etc.
Solution: Using alternate modes of communication that are technology and infrastructure independent such as face-to-face interaction.
Recommendations
- Communication strategies should be kept flexible so that they can be easily adapted to the need of the hour.
- A clear objective must be established and implemented across all internal and external communication tasks. This is determined by the organization’s core values and mission statement.
- Addressing stakeholder concerns should be given high priority. Also, crisis management teams should always be on the lookout for new interest and advocacy groups that can arise because of a crisis. Strategies must be created that address their concerns.
- Detailed plans of action about when and where to use formal and informal channels of communication should be clearly defined.
- Trust must be built with affected parties, expressing empathy and being sensitive to their specific needs.
- Alternate options for sharing information must be identified.
- Systems with sufficient levels of redundancy to ensure failover capabilities must be installed.
- Strategies must be developed to counter ambiguities, exaggerations, understatements, misinterpretations, delays, inaccuracies and tendencies to impose a personal or subjective point of view on communication.
- Communication channels should allow for real time sharing of information and coordination of interdependent tasks and workflows.
- Communication strategies employed during crisis situations along with the success rates of specific policies/procedures and the reasons for the same should be archived for future reference and improvements.
