As 2020 showed us, the ability to swiftly handle a crisis has never been more critical. Effective crisis leadership helps to minimize the loss and damage to organizations and allows potential threats to be identified and addressed much sooner. This is your guide on five ways to prepare for crisis management.
Develop a Crisis Management Plan
Your company will never be able to put together a plan with contingencies for every potential situation. Inherently, crises are unexpected and can have devastating effects on an organization. However, your business can put together a general crisis management plan that gives you a place to start. For instance, develop a protocol for how communications with staff, clients, and the public will be handled. Put together a crisis management team and designate a leader through which all actions will go through. Have your plan written (or typed) out and available both digitally and in print so that all staff can already be familiar with the plan.
If your company is susceptible to specific crises, put contingencies in your plan for them. For example, let’s say your organization is responsible for confidential client information. Have a plan in place should the integrity of this information be compromised.
Get to the Truth
During times of crisis, there tends to be a lot of misinformation swirling around. Before you can take any action, you need to get to as much of the truth as possible as quickly as you can. Unknowingly presenting false information to your clients or the public will only make the situation worse.
Take Action Quickly
The sooner you address the incident, the less damage there will be. The most important thing to make sure of is that everything is factual. Postponing the inevitable will not help, and it will allow outside organizations such as the media to paint the crisis as they perceive it. Your crisis management team should take control from the very beginning. Your employees, clients, and the public should first hear of the incident from your company.
Be Honest and Show Empathy
Bad news always gets out one way or another. Attempting to hide it will only make your company look worse and instill a sense of distrust among consumers. Be forthcoming about bad news. Present it very delicately and show that you have empathy for the victims involved.
Ongoing Information
Make sure employees, investors, clients, and the public remain in the know of ongoing progress. Hearing frequent updates of the situation’s status will prevent the media and other outlets from speculating and circulating misinformation.
Bonus Tip!
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