One of the top lessons we’ve learnt from the past week’s political events is a continual reinforcement by all three the main parties for calm or in their words ‘fiscal stability’. The importance of staying calm in a crisis should not be ignored.
Undoubtedly, the breakdown in public trust in our political system, our financial system, etc has been a major influencer. So too has been a certain lack in clarity in just how exactly our decision makers are planning to get us out of the financial quandry we continue to find ourselves in.
Let’s be clear, as communications professionals and business owners, we have a duty to be optimistic and to have confidence that we will get through to the other side. However, it’s virtually impossible to ignore that there will be some tough choices in getting there for all of us!
Here are just some of our top tips for staying calm and dealing with a crisis:
- Find out all the facts. There’s no point in shooting from the hip, find out the who what, why, where and how first and then determine your position. This is essential for maintaining trust and reputation.
- Tell the truth. Say in simple language what’s gone wrong without assigning blame or covering things up. This type of overreaction invariably comes back to bite you and will certainly not help your credibility or reputation.
- Stay in control. Pretending the problem doesn’t exist will not make it go away! Decide what you need to do to deal with the issue and put an action plan in place.
- Identify a suitable spokesperson. This doesn’t have to be the MD, but often the more senior the person, the better. Make sure before they speak to anyone or the media, they are fully briefed on the company’s position.
- Don’t be afraid to communicate. Stay calm, keep the message clear and simple and reinforce your position as often as possible. Not only do you retain a measure of control on the time spent answering questions from all angles, but you go a long way to ensuring the info that is used by the media is as accurate as possible.
- Think before you speak or act. It’s perfectly OK to think through your response first. This also helps you come across in the best possible way when speaking to the media or members of the public or your team.
- Take swift action. It’s always advisable to have a crisis comms protocol and plan in place which can simply be implemented in the event of a crisis. It also helps to practise this from time to time so that it can be implemented without too much alarm.
- Copy the best. If you see someone who’s calm under pressure and comes across as credible when facing a barrage of questions – learn from them and practise, practise, practise.
- Get professional advise. If you don’t know how to proceed, get in a crisis management professional. You can then spend more of your time dealing with the issue at hand.
- Learn from your mistakes. No one’s perfect, but learning the lessons and acting responsibly will help you should you ever find yourself in a crisis situation again.
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on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
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