Is Your Organization Ready for a Crisis?
Organizations can never be too ready for a crisis. Issues are inevitable and they could threaten the reputation, or worse, the livelihood of a company. While it’s impossible to know when a crisis will come or what exactly will happen, it is possible to prepare.
How can organizations prepare for the inevitable? “Plan, plan, and plan some more” says Marianne Gooch, an expert in enhancing leadership performance during a crisis. A crisis can be defined as an unexpected event or sequence of events of enormous scale and overwhelming speed, resulting in a high degree of uncertainty that gives rise to disorientation, a feeling of lost control and strong emotional disturbance. Marianne walks us through the three stages of a crisis: pre-crisis, the crisis, and post-crisis, and how to prepare for each stage.
Before the crisis: strategize and plan
Before a crisis occurs, Marianne works with her clients to identify a variety of scenarios and then categorizes them into three different tiers: tier three being the least severe and tier one the most severe. The tiers can be defined as…
Tier three: a matter that needs attention, perhaps addressing an issue on the company’s social media pages
Tier two: a problem that could evolve into a crisis if ignored
Tier one: a full-blown, all hands-on deck crises
Companies should proactively identify different scenarios that could impact the company . The scenarios should include minor issues up to a full-blown crisis and everything in between. For each tier, scenarios should include who will do what, who the communication lead will be, and the names of the decision-makers. The plans should also detail who should be notified and include drafted communications. You may be wondering: “Ok, what if we identify several scenarios and then a scenario occurs that we didn’t plan for?” It’s possible that an unplanned scenario occurs but the good news is, you’ll have a leg up during the crisis because a lot of the groundwork has been completed. The planning that happens during the pre-crisis phase provides you with a solid plan to reference and update, as well as the confidence that you need to act during the crisis.
During the crisis: communicate, communicate, communicate
The key to being successful during a crisis is to communicate. Through communication plans, leaders should be transparent, empathetic, personable, and believable. The message should be simple and include the good, bad, and the ugly (because people will find out). Good leaders are great communicators and quick to communicate, even if they don’t have all of the answers. During the crisis, leaders should communicate a simple message that includes ‘we’re all in this together.’ Oftentimes, leaders are reluctant to lay out the facts because they’re afraid of how their employees or the public will take it. However, a company’s reputation is on the line and it’s crucial that leaders lay out the facts, explain what the company is facing, acknowledge that it’s news that no one wants to hear, and ensure people that you’ll get through it together. During a crisis is the critical moment that leaders show who they are. To sum it up, leaders should communicate, communicate, communicate and then communicate some more while mid-crisis.
After the crisis: document lessons learned and practice!
After it's all said and done, it will be tempting to move on after dodging a bullet. Regardless of the crisis, it's important to prepare for the next crisis. Because guess what, there will be another crisis in the lifespan of the organization. It's important for the team to gather and answer these questions:
Did we have the right teams in place?
Did we have the right people on the teams?
Did we engage our employees as the ambassadors for the message and the company?
Were decisions made effectively?
Were the correct decision-makers identified?
Did we manage our time well during the crisis?
Were the crisis plans effective and efficient? What could have been better?
Was the communication plan effective?
What does the road ahead look like and what needs to change to avoid a similar crisis in the future?
While documenting lessons learned is likely the last thing that anyone wants to do after surviving the crisis, it’s critical to rip the band-aid off to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future. Every month, organizations should take care to look at the crisis plans, update the scenarios, as needed, and then practice, practice, practice, at least once a quarter. Otherwise, you won't remember where you filed all of that stuff away when the crisis hits.
Most top-notch, large organizations are prepared for a variety of crises. Large companies regularly prepare and they do it well. It’s the small-to-medium sized companies that haven’t experienced a crisis that don’t prepare because they feel like they're immune to it. Whether a company is small or large, you can never be too ready for a crisis. The best thing that an organization can do is take the time to plan for each stage of a crisis: pre-crisis, the crisis, and post-crisis. Is your company prepared for a crisis?
Contact ChangeStaffing to learn how to prepare for a variety of inevitable crises!
A very special thank you to Marianne Gooch, an expert in enhancing leadership performance during a crisis, for collaborating with us on this blog.
Written by Kylette Harrison