Poor behaviour, by an individual or an organisation, will always make for a good media story. It is all well and good putting a crisis plan together and media training senior executives, but they should only be considered to be the basic foundations. Expectations are changing. The media, in particular, are used to what organisations say and do in the event that something goes wrong. Other stakeholders too – the public and politicians – do not simply want ‘standard’ responses but want to see and hear genuine words of remorse and a commitment to change. The ‘corporate speak’ and approach of the past no longer cuts it.
However, as standard practices change then levels of expectations on the part of stakeholders increase. What was acceptable two years ago is no longer even a minimum. Just take Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as an example. When the term first started being used, an explicit commitment to the environment was a novelty. Now it is a basic qualification for doing business.
But what are these new expectations and how should organisations react?
- Live the dream – organisations have all got aims, mission statements, objectives, policies etc. in place. But critical failures happen when the practice doesn’t meet the reality. In other words, organisations say one thing and do another. That is unforgiveable for any stakeholder. So yes, transparency is expected but we are beginning to move beyond that to adherence.
- Understand what your stakeholders want – and stakeholders can be the media, suppliers etc. Do not just assume you know what is best and what they want. Ask them and then you can shape what you are saying, how you say it and how you get information to them. So it’s not just what you want to say but what people want and expect to hear as well. This puts a different slant on the nature of the crisis team. It needs to include complementary skills, balancing weaknesses and strengths, but also a track record with stakeholders and trust built in advance can be useful.
- Let people inside the organisation know what is happening – it is still the case, especially in times of crisis when the only people that know what is going on are that carefully crafted team, all fully trained, all knowing how to react – but other members of the team are ill-informed or not informed at all. Staff want to be involved and stakeholders, particularly, the media will want to hear from them. There was a time when it was only acceptable for the Chief Executive or Chair to be put up for media comment but now, in some circumstances, audiences want detail and background information. This may need to be provided by other, more specialist spokespeople.
- Keep ahead of the politicians – political audiences often get neglected in a crisis, they get and make outrageous comments but the media listen to them and expect them to comment. Even under normal operations try and keep ahead of this line. That means looking at what is being said in Parliament or by your local MP – does it given a flavour of where policy is going or any issues that you might need to address? Treat politics as part of your early warning system as well as social media, traditional media.
- Wipe the slate clean – what everyone wants in the face of a crisis is swift, decisive action, well communicated. The longer you hang around waiting for all the answers, the worse things will get. The approach and statement can evolve over time but you need to be clear from the outset. You do not, for instance, want to do what the PM did recently over his offshore position and issue 5 different statements over 5 days and eventually end up where you should have started. Otherwise your actions keep the stories going. You need to maintain confidence in your organisation and your people and that means being prepared, cutting off unnecessary risk and means taking clear and decisive action if something goes wrong.
Self-confidence is often the key to making decisions in a crisis as well as the ability to listen to advice. But there also needs to be an understanding of what expectations are and how they can be reflected in how the organisation reacts.