As with any professional discipline, the way crisis communications is practiced can follow different approaches, or different schools of thought. This is particularly the case when it comes to crisis communications planning.
Just recently, I told a group of college students an old story for me of how I once had to rewrite a crisis communications plan where there was so much tutorial information up front that its Table of Contents appeared on page 36!
As a point of reference, imagine if the emergency manual at a power plant was equally packed with background information, so that when an accident occurs, the emergency responders would have to plow through 36 pages of background before they could even tell what was in the plan.
This is rare, of course, but it was a sign of things to come.
This old crisis communications plan had something in common with so many others, though, which was that it was also dense with volumes of hypothetical press releases and statements. There was a template news release in the event of workplace violence, another one in the event of a flood impacting operations, and another in the event of a product recall.
That’s a school of thought that persists.
For some organizations such template documents give them a sense of comfort that they feel they have thoroughly anticipated every possibility and are prepared. This can be a false sense of security, to be sure. Yes, the effort to think through and develop all of this content is often distracting and wasteful of time, money and resources. But perhaps worst of all, organizations can tend to feel so burdened by the crisis communications planning process that managers look for every excuse not to participate, which can have a direct impact on the organization’s readiness when a crisis hits.
The truth is, you cannot anticipate every possible crisis situation in advance to the point where you can write a passable first draft of a news release. Once the crisis happens, there are usually so many distinguishing factors tied to time, place and the people affected, among other things, that you have to start all over. If the template release is helpful at all, it may be in the first five minutes of the crisis, and after that, the many hours spent on developing, editing and approving it are quickly devalued.
What then matters is that a solid communicator be in the loop directing that part of the crisis response process. That there is a team involved in information-gathering and strategic planning and response. That a reliable spokesperson has been designated to assure the organization speaks with one voice. And that an organizational commitment is made to responsible communication and accountability.
Just as with anything done right, it just can’t be handled with a template. Rather, the sense of security has to come from knowing there is a quick-start process in place, that the organization is practiced in it, that it’s tied to the way the organization already works and makes decisions, and that good people are involved in the crisis plan’s implementation.