Are You Prepared for a Crisis?
Crisis Communications Planning Checklist
In today's unpredictable world, preparing for a crisis is essential for any organization. A Crisis Communications Plan is vital, offering a guide to not only handle crises but also to recover effectively. This article provides questions — in the form of a metaphor — to encourage a review of your plan, tools, strategies, insights, and philosophy to standardize procedures and incorporate best practices.
Crisis Management Plan: Questions Checklist
Review your current crisis communications plans through my Crisis Communications metaphor:
TEFLON
Definition: To withstand criticism or attack with no apparent effect.
T - Team
E - Education
F - Functions
L - Leadership
O - Objectives
N - Network
TEAM
Who are the members of your crisis communications team?
Form, train, and maintain a Crisis Management Team
Define Roles: fact-gathering, official spokesperson/s, key stakeholder communication, media relations, media monitoring and social media listening etc.
Develop a comprehensive contact list for the Crisis Management Team and senior leadership, including work, mobile, and home phone numbers, as well as email addresses. Ensure each team member adds these contacts to their primary phones.
Do you have a relationship with a Crisis Communications Consultant?
When a crisis hits, you need a trusted and experienced colleague to call and get immediate support.
EDUCATION
What is a Crisis?
A crisis is an unplanned event impacting normal operations with potential for significant consequences.
What are Crisis Categories?
Disaster (Weather, accident)
Issues Management (Focuses on the present, addressing current or imminent issues. Proactive approach to prevent issues from escalating into crises.)
Risk Management (Forward-looking perspective, focusing on what could happen in the future. Minimize the probability and impact of adverse events. Proactively anticipate and reduce uncertainties that could harm the organization.)
Reputation Management (Actively build and maintain an authentic and positive public image that aligns with the organization's values and goals. When the time comes, handle negative perceptions or events that place the organization at risk.)
Health and Safety (injury, loss of life)
Organizational (leadership decisions, work culture, incompetence)
Other (Always be alert to any situation that can escalate into a public-facing crisis.)
What are the Phases of a Crisis?
According to Timothy Coombs and Sherry Holladay in The Handbook of Crisis Communication, you are always in one of three phases of crisis:
Pre-Crisis Phase
In the pre-crisis phase, crisis communication concentrates on locating and reducing risk.
Crisis Response Phase
In the crisis response phase, the “how” and “what” an organization communicates has a significant effect on the outcomes of the crisis including the number of injuries and the amount of reputational damage sustained by the organization.
Post-Crisis Phase
Post-crisis communication covers the time period after a crisis is considered to be resolved but managing the effects of the crisis continue.
FUNCTIONS
What are the main organizational functions of handling a crisis?:
Small to Midsize Organizations:
An Emergency Preparedness Plan is the organization’s playbook for what to do in different types of emergencies, focusing on actions like evacuation, shelter in place, and safety procedures.
A Crisis Communications Plan, usually integrated within the Emergency Preparedness Plan or as a complementary document, is about the responsibility and process to pull together the team, fully understand the crisis, determine a plan to inform key audiences, like employees, the board of directors, donors, the public, and the media, focusing on sharing accurate and authentic information, maintaining trust, and managing the organization's reputation by showing your organization’s mission and values in action.
Large Organizations:
Large organizations that are directly involved in public safety and emergency response should also have an Incident Command System (ICS). An ICS is like a special team that handles the immediate response to big emergencies. Some crises are not large enough to trigger the use of an ICS.
LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY
Develop a leadership philosophy that guides all decisions in a crisis. Examples include:
Guard organization’s integrity
Show your mission in action
Everyone is a Chief Reputation Officer
Leave nothing to chance
OBJECTIVES
What are your objectives in a crisis? Pre-plan and prepare accordingly. Examples include:
Protection Priorities:
Focus on people, and then property, reputation, and operations.
Communication Culture:
Build trust and credibility in communications – internally and externally.
Ensure the organization has well-established and well-utilized digital channels (Website, social media channel/s, way to reach all employees etc.)
Prioritize sharing information on the organization’s formal channels to reduce misinformation and to eliminate reliance on informal channels (word of mouth from one employee to another).
Ensure consistent communication across the organization.
Official spokesperson/s handle all communications.
Media Relations
Proactively establish effective media relationships
Be available to the media
Templates
Think through all of the various scenarios that could occur, and build out templates for official statements.
NETWORK
In crisis communications management, a connected network of internal and external audiences is crucial for effective information flow and coordinated action. Examples include:
Identify all Key Contacts: Who are they? Where are they? How do you get a hold of them quickly?
Build Relationships: Continuously cultivate and strengthen relationships within your network to ensure trust and collaboration during crises.
Post-Crisis Analysis: Engage your network after the crisis to gather insights and lessons learned, strengthening future response strategies.
If you are missing any of the actions on the checklist, find time to add this to an agenda this week! Ensure your organization’s Crisis Communications Plan is in place, trained on, and ready for effective crisis communications management.
If you are interested in a one-day Crisis Communications Workshop, please send me an email: erin@claritychannels.com.