Page 201 - Crisis Communication Practical PR Strategies

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1 182 Crisis Communication
But a crisis never works that way. Crises evolve, their agendas
change and expand, and the stakeholders involved are constantly
reshaping the game and recalculating their moves. It’s not unlike how
companies are constantly responding to a competitive situation where
every corporate action is met with a counter-response by other market
players.
A crisis should be no different. Yet many senior executives, by
assigning their legal and public affairs team to a problem, compart-
mentalize the issue. This creates a potentially dangerous, high-liability
problem: the misconception that marshalling corporate resources can
solve public perception problems.
It’s a common attitude that corporate resources – people, time,
expertise, money, resources – can trump an issue or gloss over a
potential crisis. We want to influence some legislation and start a lob-
bying campaign. A corporate financial crisis is revealed, and we head
to the court and issue a press release. We think that lawyers and PR
people can fix these issues, and once we initiate a legal response, or
have the PR people run articles and place paid advocacy ads, that
we’ve got this situation fixed. In fact, what is needed during a crisis is
meaningful response and a committed management team looking not
just at the immediate crisis or issue, but taking a hard look at their
internal corporate governance and business processes.

Responding to a crisis with real
process change

‘It’s about a fix, not a change.’

Many companies facing real business challenges, issues such as con-
sumer boycotts or regulatory intervention, often find out the hard way
that the real solution to an issue needs to be driven at a senior man-
agement level. Solutions may even involve changes in fundamental
management attitudes and internal business processes.