How prepared are you for a crisis?

published 2003

Some insights into crises:

• A good proportion of crises can be predicted through internal company monitoring.
• No matter how good the planning, one of the key initial problems is actually contacting those nominated as part of the crisis team.
• One of the biggest dangers in a crisis is in under-estimating the length and severity of the event. Often managers protecting their own ‘patch’ and not wanting to face up to the truth cause this.
• Another key initial problem is in inexperienced managers not getting the balance right in what they say to the media. They either don’t give enough information or give too much and make claims and accusations that come back to bite them.
• Senior management who can only commit to a few hours or a day can cause problems. Full-blown crises need to be managed full-time as an ongoing commitment. Unless a senior manager is prepared to drop everything for the full duration of the crisis they are better off delegating to someone else right from the start.

Test your organisation’s preparedness by asking these questions:

1. Do you know what type of crises your organisation is most susceptible to?

   It is possible to make your own risk assessment of those you are most likely to face.

2. Do you have an early warning system in place?

   Contrary to popular belief, a great many crises can be identified through monitoring what’s happening in your day-to-day business.

3. Have you clearly established ‘what to do’ procedures?

   It pays to have a crisis management handbook or plan for the organisation or site.

4. Do you have a crisis management ‘team’ and could you contact them all within 30 minutes of a crisis developing?

   With mobile phones and e-mails you probably assume that you will be able to instantly contact ‘the team’. But experience shows that the details of how to contact everyone are not always readily accessible.

5. Have you identified key audiences to contact in the case of an emergency and do you have databases and full contact details already in place?

   You won’t have time to find all this out when a crisis breaks. It needs to be set up in advance.

6. How prepared is your spokesperson?

   It’s not just about who will speak but what authority they have and who they need to clear things with beforehand. And has he/she had recent media training?

7. Have you run a crisis simulation to test the preparedness of your team?

Having documents means nothing until and unless you have a live simulation and seen what needs to be done as you work through the evolution of a crisis.