A Crisis is sometimes defined as anything that interrupts normal business operations
… something Webster says that brings about a turning point or decisive moment when
difficult decisions must be made. Many if not most organizations, companies, and
leaders understand the need to put a crisis plan in place before the next crisis
hits, no matter how unpredictable the actual event might be. My next guest argues
that even those entities that carefully prepare crisis plans fail spectacularly
when tested because they forget about one key feature of a successful crisis response:
COMMUNICATING through it. Without a Crisis Communications strategy she says, your
reputation and your very viability might be in jeopardy.
Susan Jones: What are some of the basics about communicating in a crisis
that may be overlooked?
Aileen Pincus: A couple of things about communicating your way through
a crisis bear some repeating, because sometimes success is really about sticking
with the basics and understanding the basics. And what are those? First and foremost,
be authentic. Second, in order to be authentic, of course, you have to know yourself
and your organization, your brand, your stakeholders, and you have to know those
really well. Finally, you have to show up. You have to engage early and often especially
when you're communicating throughout a crisis. What I mean by being authentic is
does your response to this crisis align with how your stakeholders see you and
how you've been defining yourself. If all of your marketing and your sales and
your outreach efforts tout your leadership in your field, for instance as most
do, is your reaction now during a crisis confirming that leadership, or is your
reaction very different now, once you've been challenged and you're under heat?
Warren Buffett said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes
to destroy it." It's true because people, your staff, your clients, all of your
stakeholders, they think that when a crisis hits, they're seeing the real you,
the real state of who your company or your organization is. You don't have to be
responsible for creating the crisis to be held accountable for it. Have you seen
all these interviews with business owners lately saying, "Well, it's not my fault.
It's not our fault." We can accept that. But this is more about how you demonstrate
through your communications your authentic reaction to this crisis. Is it aligned
with who you are? And that leads to my second point in order to do that, you really
have to know yourself. You really have to know your organization, your business,
your company, your entity, what do I do best? What do I believe in? If you don't
know that, I don't care what your website says, I don't care what your mission
statement or your vision statement are. That's not going to save you when you're
tested.
