What skills do you need to draft a crisis communication plan?

Here at the CIPR Crisis Communications Network we aim to host at least two of our Open House events a year. These are informal drop-in type of occasions enabling our members to turn up with whatever questions or comments about crisis communication and current crises in the news they may have. It’s all about being accessible and inclusive.

The risk for those of us from the Network Committee that hosts Open House is that we are never quite sure what is going to hit us. With record registrations for September’s Open House – more than 100 – we knew we would have to be on our toes, and it was just as well we at least mentally prepared for the range of questions we were asked our views on. 

“I need to go and lie down now in a darkened room,” was the response from at least one of us immediately afterwards.

One of the reasons for such a high level of interest in that Open House may well have been the publication of our first CIPR skills guide: Drafting a Crisis Communication Plan. One of our aims in setting up the network just two years ago was to bring the latest academic and real world thinking in crisis communication and reputation risk management to a wide audience of PR professionals. We have done this so far through more than a dozen events and around 50 blogs. Publishing skills guides was the natural next step.

Crises and reputation

Every crisis is different. The study of crisis management has its roots in business continuity and risk management, but it has grown to encompass the more challenging issues-based reputational risks we now see today. Despite this diversity in the type and challenge of the crises we face there is enough commonality to give us a foundation to prepare. This is what our new skills guide aims to do.

Our guide begins with a graphic of the stages we see in a crisis; it then looks at the preparation we can do at each of these stages. 

Risks have first to be identified and if possible mitigated: as we all know an issue ignored is a crisis ensured. Once we are clear on the most likely and the most damaging risks that could develop into crises, we can then do our scenario planning; channel identification; and high-level messaging. 

There is a stage between the planning and the breakout of a crisis which has been called by one academic, Fink, the prodromal stage. I sometimes talk of it as the ‘straws in the wind’ stage. We know something is happening or has happened, but it is difficult to predict just how big it will be or whether it is an issue that really will come knocking at our door. 

The benefit of hindsight

When we read crisis communication case studies, we should never forget they are written with 20/20 vision and the benefit of hindsight. It always seems obvious to the reader that the crisis was in full swing. But to the crisis practitioner, knowing when to ‘press the red button’ during the prodromal phase – with all that this involves in terms of the impact on the organisation and the senior leadership team – can be a matter of fine judgement and experience.

Once the crisis is in full swing then, as our guide points out, there are some crucial tools you need to have to hand. An up to date out-of-hours contact list is one of the must-haves. This list needs to be regularly revisited, especially as crises rarely happen between 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. Depending on the nature of the risks you have identified, think broadly about who you may need to contact and who would be impacted if a risk turned into a full-blown crisis. Stakeholder identification and segmentation is crucial for any crisis communication plan.

Channel management

The next must-have is a list of the various channels of communication open to you to get your crisis narrative out and reach the stakeholders you have identified. I find many large organisations are surprised at just how many channels they have, so some kind of communication channel audit should be part of your crisis preparedness. Make sure you know who operates all the channels you have and that in a crisis they can all be managed in line with the agreed crisis communication strategy. Think about any scheduled marketing due to run on your channels: how appropriate would this be given the crisis the organisation is currently dealing with?

When it comes to high level crisis messaging, don’t be defeated by the idea that without all the facts it would be impossible to say anything. Any crisis creates an information vacuum and if you don’t jump in to take control at that point there will be many others who will. Don’t expect any of them to be on your side. 

At the very least a simple holding statement acknowledging the facts that are known will show that you are in your own story and intend to take control of it. There should also be a commitment to regularly update stakeholders. Next go back to the risks you have identified and think what stakeholders would need to do and what would you want them to think and feel about the situation. Remember any messaging should always put the needs of the ‘victims’ at the heart of what you say, and compassion and empathy should be the watchwords.

Crisis over? Learn from it!

When the crisis is over don’t think you or the organisation can simply return to normal.  At the very least have a formal process to learn the lessons. How did the crisis communication plan work in practice?  Where were the gaps?  How can you improve? And, crucially, what is the health post-crisis of the organisation’s relationships with all its stakeholders?

You will probably find your senior leadership team are even more keen to return to normal. But if it was ‘normal’ that caused the crisis in the first place it very often falls to the communications team to point that fact out. This may be the most important risk management work we do. 

The CIPR Crisis Communications Network Drafting a Crisis Communication Plan is available to all CIPR members.

Chris Tucker is chair of the CIPR Crisis Communications Network, where this post was first published as ‘September’s Open House sees the launch of our first Skills Guide: Drafting a crisis communication plan’.