Flexibility is Key

Over the past couple of years, I’ve reviewed a number of crisis communications plans developed for private companies, non-profit organizations and government departments. Most of them tried to anticipate every possible scenario by developing prepared templates for such things as "Plant Explosion News Release," or "Chemical Spill Statement." I even saw one that had a template to be used in the event that the business was closed by a power failure due to a snow storm and another if the power failure was caused by a lightning strike.

Someone who opens that kind of manual at the onset of a crisis (if they can find it) will most likely find that the specifics of the situation are unique and then trash the template and start from scratch anyway.

Rather than trying to cover all bases in a manual that will sit on a shelf and gather dust, I help clients to concentrate on the processes: getting clear what are the values and principles that will guide decision making; who are the individuals who will play a role to ensure that the company survives; what will they need, and whose support will be critical?

Then we create a modular system for communications and detailing how the team will be brought together, how they will communicate with each other, gather information, process it and approve it, and how the communications team will disseminate it.

One of the most important elements of the plan is that people know their role and have the resources to perform it. When I was working with investigating team of the Swissair disaster, a senior investigator from National Transportation Safety Board, the US counterpart of our TSB, told me a story about a crash he had investigated.

A plane crashed in the Florida everglades. The NTSB investigating team determined that there was a fire in the cockpit and the plane crashed because everyone was fighting the fire and no one was flying the plane.

Even in a crisis there must be a division of labour. Companies must find a way to "fly the plane" and "put out the fire" at the same time.