Time to Throw Out the Crisis Playbook
I remember being handed the crisis communications playbook my first week at a big company. It was three-quarters of an inch thick. I can’t tell you what it said because I promptly shoved it in a drawer and never looked at it again.
Why? Clearly a lot of effort had been put into it, and C-suite leaders have for years felt having such a document was essential. However, the unpredictability of life and the speed at which change happens today make it impossible to plan for every possible scenario. Who had responding to a year plus pandemic in their plan? (If you did, get to Vegas immediately and bet it all against the house.)
President Dwight Eisenhower once said, “plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” Agree! So how do we help prepare our businesses for the inevitable crisis without wasting time and effort on a document no one will remember exists when an actual crisis hits?
Identify the team. I’ve heard people talk about a decision tree and who will call whom when a crisis hits. In my experience, that’s never how it works. The handful of necessary people will be pulled together and that likely will include the CEO or president of the company if it’s a big enough issue.
So who’s in that core group? CEO and/or president, general counsel, head of communications, with others such as head of technology, finance or human relations, possibly a business unit leader, depending on the issue. And if external experts will be required, know in advance who specifically you’d turn to and develop those connections in advance of needing them.
Define what actually is a crisis. Some companies think any negative news story or investor report is a crisis. In a world where information moves quickly, today's noise is likely to disappear within days, if not hours. So understanding what leaders believe is truly a crisis for your business is critical to avoid over-reacting and potentially making a situation worse.
Hire the right talent. As leaders, you need a wide array of talent when a crisis hits and you need people with real crisis experience and critical thinking skills on your in-house team. You don’t want to be completely reliant on external firms that don’t have the breadth or depth of knowledge about your business or the internal relationships when that moment arrives.
Understand best practices. If a cyber breach is on your list of possible, even likely, situations, then it’s helpful to study what others have done in those situations. What worked, what didn't? Same applies to airplane crashes, food recalls, etc. There’s very little in life that hasn’t happened before; there’s a wealth of learning the rest of us can benefit from so we’re asking the right questions and not repeating mistakes.
Establish degrees of latitude. This is more relevant to mid- to lower-tier crises but important nonetheless. If the core group is engaged, are they empowered to move forward? Who needs to approve before they can? This is especially true in fast-moving situations. If the news cycle gets away from you, it can be very difficult to undo the harm of waiting a few hours for another set of approvals. See #3 above. Hire the right people and trust them.
In today's hyper-connected, dynamic business world, a crisis can pop up at any moment. You can't plan for every one but you can put a team in place that is nimble enough to respond quickly.