No organisation is spared or can be insulated against a crisis taking place or affecting it.
Crises have long drawn impacts affecting organisations that fail to manage crises effectively, leading to crippling, trust defecits.
It is a fact that many organisations - public sectors, private enterprises, social organisations and professional bodies have given little attention to the art and science of crisis communication and management.
Today, and more so into the future ahead of us, the liberating communicating technogies have empowered (if not weaponised) societies with the speed and sophistication of communication means.
It is not an understatement to say that even any kid can trigger a crisis given their accessibility and prowess in using 4G, 5G and even 6G communication technologies, simply with their mobile phones.
Thinkers and communication experts like Mark Poster, Appadurai, Manuel Castle and others have warned or written extensively about the new age, cutting technologies set to transform the world where human beings will be connecting with each other in a manner never seen before throughout civilizations.
To what was left to imagination and discourse in past decades, information, misinformation and malinformation are already unfolding before our naked eyes at an accelerating pace where even goverments are struggling to keep ahead of.
Challenges on the four frontiers of human existence
In a world of fake and true news circumstances, the paradigms of politics, social, economic and environmental 'standards' are being challenged by communication technogies.
And organisations therefore cannot anymore treat crisis communication and its management as mere cost centres.
There is an alarming call to revist how crises are to be handled.
For, all it takes is one person hitting the keys on his phone to trigger a photo or video or voice recording going viral in hours and throwing an organisation in a helpless, hopeless defensive-scrambling mode in our globally networked society.
Investment or cost?
Hence today, and ever more so into the near future, organisations will have to consider their crisis department as an investment and properly structured.
It pays not anymore to regard the crisis department to be restricted to a safety and security function or be secured within the confines of legal.
Worst is to continue to park this function under the human resource department as an 'additional responsibility' or to charge a junior PR executive with the job.
It is a full time job with a full fledged department at work, empowered with adequate budgets and autonomy and know-how.
Two distinct functions:
A crisis demands catetgorically an efficient and effective ability to both communicate and to manage a crisis anytime, anywhere.
These are two distinct and yet symbiotically connected roles, responsibilities and functions.
The communication entity is the unit that handles all things related to communicating before, during and after a crisis. This is the supporting arm for an organisation in its preparedness.
The management entity that depends on the communication inputs and outputs, manages all matters before, during and after a crisis.
This unit is the decision making entity.
The one person who forms the critical link betwern both the communication and management functions of a crisis is the head of the public relations department.
In all three phases related to a crisis - before, during and after, the public relations head coordinates all engagements to ensure adequate information is gathered and fed to the management unit that serves as the point of contact with all stakeholders.
All three phases are vital and equally important for an organisation to keep its stakeholdrds' trust.
Issues Management :
The very definition of a crisis, namely, it is a situation that has gone ignored for a period of time, indicates that issues management is central to any organisation as the failure to address issues in a timely, responsible and accountable manner makes an organisation vulnerable to a crisis eventually.
Media Management The liberating and fast empowering communication technogies demand that organisations invest in media.
Media here encompasses technologies, facilities, human resource and news media partnering.
Crisis communication is handicapped when it is depraved and deprived of the advancing tools and skills in utilizing these tools of communication technologies.
Be it a designer or writer or tech savvy hand or researcher, having access to all of these features / capabilities will determine how effectively and affectively the organisation will fare in its crisis communication and crisis management challenges.
If you see it as a cost, budget cuts will cripple this function. It must be factored in as an investment to benefit from the enabling factors of crisis communication.
The ability to write well cannot be discounted. The head of public relations engaged must have examplary writing skills and a comprehensive appreciation of all forms of evolving media platforms.
Meanwhile, the management unit will comprise of all heads of departments and is chaired by the CEO or appointed captain of the organisation.
Their deliverables are to be incorporated into their respective KPIs if an organisation is going to succeed in managing crises by any count.
Many organisations suffer from the 'ostrich syndrome' in the face of a crisis. And a deeper study also reveals that when you do not formally engage heads of departments for the task there is a tendency for senior management to work like a 'blinkered horse' over issues that go undetected and leading to a crisis.
Media matters much:
Partnering with news media is vital to combat any crisis. It however does not happen when only stuck in a crisis.
Organisations need to develop healthy relationships with media houses.
An effective and ethical way to keep your media partners in the loop long before any crisis strikes is to share with them information that makes credible news.
A media that understands your organisation well will always work alongside to help address a crisis.
Bear in mind, media is not beholden to any organisation although an organisation's sizeable advertising budget in good times finances media operatives.
It is the ability to share information and provide adequate, timely inputs with media that helps get across your side of the story to the public and stakeholders.
And credible media do not exploit your situation but adheres to the age old principle of reporting news to answer its readers' (or viewers) going concerns and to keep them informed.
Policy matters:
In many organisations it is a standard feature and practice where news employees are briefed and given a handbook on the organisation's policies.
Most of the employee handbooks tell you about the Do's and Don't s, and benefits.
As long as Crisis Communication and Crisis Management is not considered as an essential chapter in the handbook, it will be very difficult to enlist the entite workforce to pay serious attention to combating crises.
To battle a crisis or even to prevent one, it is crucial to have an organisation-wide appreciation of this matter because you cannot avoud or fight a crisis with shouting orders but by cultivating ownership and accountability among employees.
An organisation must also develop its Operating Instructional (OI) Manual on crisis communucation and its management.
It will feature in addition to structuring who does what when, where and how to prevent a crisis or when faced with a crisis, the organisation's policy statements on media partnering and liason / interactions.
The more meticulously transparent an organisation gets with this OI, the better it becomes in crisis communication and crisis management.
Conclusion :
In a nutshell, crisis communication and crisis management demands commitment, resources and budgets.
It is not a cost but an investnent that can safeguard untold losses. Indeed, a stitch in time saves nine.
It is a job cut for the trained public relations person who must be given the ropes and reins to carve out a crisis communication and crisis management plan of action for the organisation.
The writer, J. D. Lovrenciear is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Relations Malaysia (IPRM) and the ASEAN PR Network, and has authored several books. He is the Vice President of PATRIOT Malaysia, and also served in the Council of IPRM for several years.