Crisis Management theories and practice.

Crisis management is very important to PR people. Wednesday, the 23rd of January's lecture on Crisis Management was very interesting and insightful. We started by defining crisis and then moved on to the different types of crisis organisations could face. Lastly we looked at how best to manage crisis as an organisation.

What I enjoyed most was the practical exercise on crisis management. The exercise was about 30 kids from a recognised school being struck by a mystery illness and how best the institutions involved should communicate with stakeholders to keep the situation under control . It put me on the spot and I had to think fast and carefully about what I will do in such a situation.

I learnt that in times of crisis, I as, the Communications Director of an organisation, has to stay in control. The organisation has to take responsibility immediately for what has happened and most importantly empathise with the affected people. This depicts the organisation as being caring and helps to retain the trust and confidence of their stakeholders.

The communication team has to act promptly to reassure stakeholders that all is being done to revert the situation to normal. I also realised that depending on the nature of the crisis, the organisation can either issue a press release or organise a press conference to inform stakeholders. You don't have to organise a press conference if there is not enough information to answer questions from attending journalist. The best thing in this situation will be to write a press release.

I also agree to the fact that, there is absolutely no need to speculate and cause panic in a crisis situation but rather the exact information should be communicated to stakeholders and the media. Whilst the organisation co-operate with other bodies involved, if any, to launch an investigation into the cause of the crisis.

Although crisis has the potential to open new opportunities for companies, it can have negative effects if handled poorly. In my attempt to find out more on crisis management, I read Dowling (2001) which gave me valuable insights on the topic. He observes that the Chinese use the words danger and opportunity to describe crisis and whilst crisis may generate opportunities it can have serious negative impacts if not controlled. Further to this he identifies three factors which contribute to the impact a crisis can have on an organisation. These are:

• Their current corporate reputation, is it negative or positive.
• "The magnitude and type of crisis."
• "The amount and tone of media publicity" (p.253-276)

It is highly informative and I would advise any PR person who is interested in crisis communications to have a look at it. (Dowling, G., (2001).Creating Corporate Reputations: Identity, Image and Performance, New York, Oxford University Press.)