Page 50 - Crisis Communication Practical PR Strategies

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Proactive Crisis Communication Planning 31
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If the CEO is not normally the spokesperson outside a crisis, then he
or she is probably not the right person in a crisis. Let us not forget that
whoever is the standard spokesperson for a company will have an
existing relationship with the press. That relationship can be invalu-
able in a crisis.
Multifaceted organizations that find themselves in complex crisis
situations may need specialist spokespeople. These are in-house senior
managers who are normally highly specialized. For example, if an
engineering and construction company also has in-house architects,
one might be needed to explain a complex situation.
Specialist spokespeople are not normally needed to deal with the
crisis, but may be needed to add credibility and explain ‘the way it is’ if
a crisis relates to an area that is outside regular news reader/viewers’
daily comprehension. If you do not provide your own specialist, you
can bet that the news publications and stations will – and from that
point you start to lose control.
All spokespeople need to be media trained. See Chapter 10 for
more details on media training.

The brain – the crisis committee
The committee is led by one team leader (often the CEO of the
company) and also comprises the other crisis team members. The
brain probably does not include specialist spokespeople.
Ideally, you’ll want three to five people to act as the brain.
Irrespective of whether you have an odd or even number of people in
the team, you need to define whether your team leader has a deciding
vote (a vote given to the committee leader to resolve a deadlock and
which can be exercised only when such a deadlock exists).
The crisis committee’s first job is to decide how they will operate.
The simplest way is that the committee must be in a majority agree-
ment for all actions. However, this might not be the optimal approach.
As Margaret Thatcher (ex British Prime Minister) said, ‘consensus is
the negation of leadership’. We can tell you from our experience, if the
leader is ready to lead, and the others in the team are also on board
with this manner of decision making, then this is the most effective and
efficient manner in which to operate during a crisis. You decide what
works best for your brain.

The hands – the doers

In a crisis, for control to be seized and then kept, you need to work
faster than anyone else does. Division of labour is going to make your