Not long ago, the phone rang at 2 a.m. in the home of Richard B. “Rick” Goins, director of global communications for McDermott International. The caller announced a surprise drill: In a fictional scenario, a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment fabricated by McDermott had failed, shutting down operations for a petroleum facility in the Middle East. Never mind that it wasn’t real. Goins shook himself awake, got out his crisis playbook and started calling people in his phone tree. Rather than being improvised, the crisis rehearsal followed a detailed plan. “In today’s world,” Goins says, “there’s such a need for immediacy, you can get out in front of yourself if you don’t have a good playbook in hand.” Beyond that preparation, he says, you must also practice.
Hold Drills for Crisis Scenarios
In some high-risk industries, companies conduct drills frequently. McDermott, an international engineering and construction company, runs eight or nine drills annually. Employees—including Richard B. “Rick” Goins, director of global communications for McDermott International —are not given advance warning. Receiving the call from the executive serving as crisis event manager, Goins writes down the information and reads it back for accuracy. Then he phones his list to inform everyone. He checks his email on his laptop and reworks a draft holding statement that would have been released had the crisis been real. At the top in red letters it states, “THIS IS A DRILL.” You should set up a war room and simulate at least one press conference, says Deon Binneman, a reputation management consultant who advises companies in South Africa and throughout Asia. Identify who will be talking to members of the news media and who must approve statements, and make certain of what you’re saying to the press.
After a crisis or a drill, hold an evaluation. Crisis communications expert Gerard Braud of Braud Communications, who focuses on pre-crisis planning, recommends the following assessment:
- Ask yourself how well you planned for your designated function. Did the sequence of your plan work as expected?
- Did you successfully gather your team and get the information out quickly?
- Were there surprises?
- How can you modify the existing plan for the future?
- Identify people who took on roles they should not have assumed. Did well-meaning people step outside the bounds of what they are supposed to do? Did anyone withhold information from the crisis team?
Know Your Allies
Determine your partner advocates “who could be delivering messages that are found to be more credible and less filtered than those coming directly from an organization,” says Matthew Doering, president and senior partner at Global Gateway Advisors. List these contacts so you can reach out to them in a crisis. Partners can help if the relationship is authentic and part of what you’re doing anyway, says Alastair Turner, global chief executive of the London-based global PR agency Aspectus. Most companies seek to build partnerships with their communities and engage their audiences. Turner cautions, however: “If your knee-jerk reaction to crisis is to bury it and then find a partner and then look good, I think people are wise to that these days.”
Train Your Executives on How to Talk to the Media
McDermott schedules annual media training, and members of the executive team cycle through it every two years. Some companies bring in an outside expert; others do this internally. Sometimes executives ask, “Why do this every year?” Goins says. He reminds them that every time they do anearnings callor an employee town hall, they do a walk-through. They need practice with media training as well.
Training helps executives and spokespeople understand the demands of dealing with members of the news media. Some company lawyers can harm the company’s image if they see it as their job to “throw a heavy legal safety blanket over a crisis situation,” rather than release information, Turner says. Executives should be trained that reporters need accurate information as soon as it becomes available. Journalists want to know about the “information flow,” or when facts and explanations are likely to be available, Turner says. “They don’t mind not being given information if the facts are not known,” Turner says, “but they sure as hell resent it if something important that was known to the organization at the heart of a crisis leaks out, or it finds its way into the media from another source.”
This is an excerpt from our best practices guide, How to Build a World-Class Crisis Communications Playbook. Click here to get your copy.
Allison Gosman is a Marketing Assistant supporting Nasdaq Corporate Solutions. She completed Nasdaq’s summer internship program in August and has returned to The George Washington University as a senior on track to receive her B.B.A in Marketing in May 2016.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
