England and Wales Cricket Board’s reputation stumped by ‘quick fix’ approach
An independent report into cricket in England and Wales makes for hard reading particularly for the game’s governing body over its handling of a player’s allegations of racial abuse and discrimination…
Racism, sexism, classism, and elitism are widespread in English and Welsh cricket, concludes the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC).
The report singled out the ECB’s hasty response to a high-profile testimony, by a former U-19 England cricket captain, for doing more harm than good, chiefly to its own reputation.
The ECB’s attempt to position itself as proactive backfired spectacularly. The report finds it was wrong to rapidly publish a 12-point action plan, which was poorly received and lacked clear implementation.
The report’s authors conclude that “prioritising a ‘quick fix’ to protect reputation above taking careful, considered and evidence-driven decisions is, in our view, a serious error of judgement, especially when seeking to promote EDI.”
English and Welsh cricket’s crisis is an inflection point. Siloed crisis preparedness and responses create greater risks and may cost the organisation dearly.
Every organisation in any sector should reflect on the ECB’s predicament. What was the ECB leadership thinking? Could this type of serious misjudgement happen in my organisation?
Crisis preparedness is too often conducted by communicators in splendid isolation.
Effective communication done in true partnership with all corporate functions is a powerful mechanism to engage all stakeholders and enables corporate reflection, rather than being an instrument of deflection from valid external criticism.
Our 4 July online panel event, ‘Organisational resilience and integrated crisis planning: views from the resilience professionals’, is prescient. It explored how integrating crisis planning in any sector will result in organisational resilience and better outcomes.
Thorough preparation involving all corporate functions may also help organisations to spot potential risks and often avoid a crisis altogether.
I co-chaired the event with Rod Cartwright, special advisor to the Crisis Communications Network. We were pleased to have three panellists whose expertise reflects the cross-functionality approach that is the essence of good quality crisis preparedness.
We will upload a recording on the CIPR Crisis Communications Network website as soon as possible.
Interested in reading the ICEC report? You can find it here.
Sara Naylor is founder of Ravenhill Media and member of the CIPR Crisis Communications Network committee.
This post first appeared on the CIPR Crisis Communications Network website. Read the original post.