Where's the Crisis PR template?

For some reason, the word ‘crisis’ is associated with ‘panic’ – and so most organizations do exactly that even at the distant sight of a crisis.

There are examples galore of how even the most communication savvy leadership/PR team of an organization (gifted with a fair amount of media leverage), gets into a shell and resorts to denial mode when it’s time to speak more.

The cardinal rule in handling PR in times of a crisis is – communicate immediately, speaking and send fact statements to the entire gamut of media houses – including web2.0 and social platforms.

Invite media conversations, using every opportunity to share more and more details possible. Never give a remote sense that your organization is shying away from the media – even when the crisis in not your own making.

When you shy away, the immediate conclusion is that the organization wants to hide facts.

While there can be well documented papers (by your PR agency or internal communications team) of how to respond when there is a crisis, it’s easy to manage a crisis when some basics are in place.

Just see if these things are in place in your organization, real,-time! 

• a designated spokesperson, who will instantly be updated on any crisis that may have hit – he is the points man for all information to be given – facts, details, images, live feed and whatever.
• Handpicked communication team that swings into action – gets into an auto pilot mode in any mishap – which is connected and networked 24/7/365 to take the crisis PR initiatives. Stay abreast all through the crisis life cycle, and ceaselessly and tirelessly handles all queries from every corner of the globe.
• a communication mechanism (call it a protocol) which communicates to all the key decision makers and every internal stakeholder in the organization the details and occurrences of any crisis that may have hit, how the consequences will be managed, how internal/external stakeholder interests will be protected, what are the cost consequences and the impact on the organizations’ fiscals et al.
• a standard template that captures all the finer details of any mishap that may occur, roll it out into the form of a media release, so that the same can be handed to the media fraternity  and follow up questions taken.
• a mechanism that ensure that all the state authorities are informed of the mishap in the shortest possible time, with as much details as gather-able in the least lead time.
•  A media room which gets activated when such an event happens, where all the journalistic fraternity can report from, with all information fed to them officially, live wire. 

Do  this sound like baby steps? Yes, they are. Yet, in crisis management, many a times it’s the lack of this basic preparedness that brings in misery to the organization, much more than the actual crisis itself.

Make sure your organization is ready in the first steps of managing crises. 

The old adage says, being well prepared is half the battle won. That’s the word in managing a crisis too.