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Crisis Management In The Media

CRiSIS Planning And Media COMMUNICATION EXPERTS

The Drill’s crisis management consultants make news headlines: Part of our crisis planning ethos is to try to help businesses shape the developing narrative via judicious media and stakeholder engagement, to take crisis-hit companies from unsafe ground to safer terrain.

Also, when crises break, media journalists/producers often ask Drill experts - all crisis management specialists - to offer insights and observations to boost understanding of the crisis communication issues at play. Our experts have vital international and hands-on crisis management consultancy expertise, which is transferred into our crisis management planning tools and crisis software.

Drawing on years of frontline crisis management consultancy, Drill staff enact crisis fixes and crisis solutions to help businesses overcome their PR and operational problems. Your crisis response plans can be improved just by reading some of the articles below, featuring our proprietary approaches and methodologies for crisis management puzzles. The articles do not constitute specific advice or counsel, but we believe their principles to be, without guarantee, thought-provoking! So when you’re ready for better crisis management planning or preparation, call us.

We hope you enjoy the read.

The crisis in crisis management planning capabilities

Never has there been so much independent criticism of crisis management capability and preparedness.

From banking to bushfires and aged care to pandemic responses, impartial evaluations of national, state, corporate and not-for-profit responses to disaster, emergency and danger threats decry lamentable lapses in crisis management planning, crisis response and mitigation.

Royal commissions, post-event reports, industry whistleblowers, off-sided insiders, rapidly recruited staff and multiple sources have all tipped-off the media about deficiencies in crisis management drills, crisis plans, equipment, supervision, training, process and oversight. No surprise, then, that the consequences can become grave and, in the case of COVID-19, became deadly.

As a crisis management adviser of twenty-plus years, I observe what often starts as a modest issue, rapidly morphs into a major incident due to two simple factors:

  • Poorly orchestrated crisis decision-making; closely followed by

  • Incomplete or inept crisis communication plans and campaigns

Australia needs this disturbing question answered: ‘Why are there so many crises amid our contemporary crisis management responses?’

We’re, allegedly, not short of crisis response experts and emergency responders, all armed with sharp intellects and working from crisis command centres to assess, strategise and implement effective crisis plans. The number of consultants offering free consultations to undertake crisis audits and reviews has never been greater. We live in a crisis-aware world, yet that awareness isn’t always translating into good practice.We have never been so capably tooled-up with all manner of tech — think geo-locating, tracing, modelling, predictive and crisis simulation software. Yet crisis management efforts — from fires to infection crises — are repeatedly found wanting. We need to find out why and need to run crisis management to higher standards.

We see it regularly. Companies deny there’s an issue, then recant under pressure. CEOs insist they did everything right, then resign under media scrutiny. Small businesses see the money but not the need for operating mandatories. Some didn’t know the crisis drill; others had no crisis drill at all. Despite repeat warnings, others just cross their fingers and hope it won’t get too bad.

And our politicians… Well, their hearts were often in the right place. Yet they, and their much-needed actions, budgets, decisions, fail-safes, processes and resources, weren’t as well-found.

In Australia, we should thank and praise the exemplary support we have access to, but we must learn why so many befuddled decisions are still taken with such grave consequences.

But one stark truth is that, clearly, too few make adequate investments in pre-crisis planning and training.

The painful and protracted real costs of crises — depression, distress, family fatalities and social isolation — are often borne by those at the sharp end of the decision-making stick.

There are thousands of theories and case books about crisis management planning. However, while insights intersect and diverge in equal measure, safe ground for any organisation responding to any unfolding crisis is simply this: be single-minded in efforts to isolate and alleviate the pain impacts experienced by the frontline vulnerable. “Forget crisis politics, pursue effective crisis policies,” as ABC radio host Raph Epstein recently said.

Don’t try and serve two masters, kill two birds with one stone, get the best of both worlds or, heaven forbid, juggle the best price for mission-critical tasks. Trying to accomplish too many things mid-crisis just leads to split or compromised decisions where no one wins. Crisis-hit organisations must focus their efforts on taking away the pain.

And to really understand the pain, simply involve someone from the most affected group to tell you what pain feels and looks like to them.

In a crisis, when you focus on their pain — and not your own political, power or profit needs — your heart, focus and energy is always in the right place.

There was a TV advert in the UK for the Commercial Union insurance company in the 80s, with the memorable tagline: ‘We won’t make a drama out of a crisis.’

When crisis management planning is scathingly critiqued by numerous independent and staff reviews — as well as by media and crisis pundits — this old tagline is a great motto to help organisations re-think their approach to crisis management. You must have a crisis plan, rehearse and simulate crises and enact a crisis response template which helps your staff make high-quality, pain-relieving decisions.

Don’t make the crisis worse and always keep others’ pain front-of-mind, as you plan and execute your well-thought-out, well-rehearsed, coherent and easy-to-follow crisis management strategy.

Gerard McCusker