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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 Danger of Alpha Advisers In Crisis and Risk Management (Part 1)

You'd think, by now, that busted brands and companies-in-crisis would know how to master the art and sciences that are so mandatory to effective risk management and crisis response plans.

Despite a surfeit of academic modelling, schadenfreude scenarios and issues handling theorem all dissecting the errors of (inept) crisis management ‘experts’ way too many entities still make ruinous attempts at crisis remediation. Many corporations, too, fail to tick-off even the basics of crisis response practice and image restoration principles. So what’s to blame? A poor risk management process? A crappy business continuity plan? A cruddy corporate handling template? Or poor executive decision-making and implementation?

Well, as the canon of crisis case studies and crisis management plan examples are regularly eschewed then something more seductive must, surely, be being proposed in the place of proven and reliable practice.

And I believe I’ve determined what that most likely is...

In place of proven crisis management plans,  what's often promised (charismatically and forcefully) are conceited yet unproven ways to bluff, bully or ' spin doctor ' the affected brand out of its predicament, little of which works in the real world or the long term.

Having analysed, critiqued and learned-from PR disasters for 25 years, I see the fault often lying at the clay feet of what I call 'alpha advisers' who can quickly gain the ears of those with business, celebrity or political status. To wit, acute insurers, embedded aides, vain lawyers and swaggering 'media minders'; those with the chutzpah and alleged credentials to convince unknowing clients, that these cocky 'alphas' are somehow qualified to seamlessly steer them through any crisis screw-ups. And when I use the term 'alpha', it can apply in many gendered identifications.

Clients believe lawyers can, ultimately, protect their assets and their asses from jail. Clients think ex-journos can quash bad news stories. Some think investigators can dig-up dirt and diffuse the crisis focus by showing others are compromised. Others believe ex-military manpower can outflank the outrage caused by crises.

All may be valid considerations for different circumstances - if often ethically questionable - but all lack the 'stakeholder-centred' generosity of spirit that's so core to getting crisis response 'right'! 

Yet clients often buy the promises of 'big personalities' despite their limited or non-existent strategic and ethical crisis capabilities. Amid crises, clients are often entranced or seduced, for example, by big-noting ex-bankers, ex-cops, ex-editors, ex-forces, and their retained lawyers, who seem to think that media relations - and by their beliefs, crisis management - is an absolute 'doddle'. Yet few of them have studied nor do they reference or practice proven crisis methodologies. 

Most alphas are too rarely schooled in true crisis management embracing effective stakeholder research, creation of risk and consequence matrices, development of robust crisis strategy,  goals or incident record-keeping and crucially, developing empathetic communications. They’re also far less worried about adherence to client sector and peak body codes of ethics required for crisis practitioners of all stripes.

So, lacking a robust corporate crisis management plan, their focus erroneously and lazily goes on insubstantial-to-lame, siloed media tactics where the crisis management problems seem to erupt.

However, effective crisis management fundamentally isn't about legal threats or media management! No, it's firstly about having processes to facilitate responsive, responsible and restorative decisions and actions. Then, the design and enactment of good communications that engage with - and do not offside - any affected or aggrieved stakeholders; that's the basic substance and order for crises handling.

I’ll follow this piece up with more musings on the dangers of Alpha Advisers in crisis management in a subsequent posting. As ever, if you have a busted business continuity plan or a green crisis communication team and you’d like to unpack this concept in more detail, simply reach out to me; gerry@thedrill.com.au - Thanks for now!

Gerard McCusker