The sky may not have fallen yet.
But should it happen on your watch, whether it be an outbreak of avian flu, BSE, a train derailment or another event that plunges a business into a high-profile crisis, the result need not be a disaster.
In fact, says one of the world's most quoted crisis communication management consultants, it can be used to your company's advantage.
"A crisis rarely destroys a company," says James Lukaszewski, chairman and president of the White Plains, N.Y.-based Lukaszewski Group Inc. "It's just really a bad day."
Lukaszewski, who recently spoke in Edmonton at a Growing Alberta seminar on crisis communications, says most organizations are not ready to handle a crisis until it is over.
However, that can be averted if companies prepare properly, use information to their advantage and not attempt to deny, hit back or divert attention from the problem at hand.
"Any organization, any company, can be plunged into a crisis at any time," says Jennifer Fisk, Growing Alberta's executive director. "James is one of the most renowned experts in North America. (By bringing him here) we can all be prepared and in a better position the next time a crisis hits."
Growing Alberta, a government- and industry-funded lobby group for the agriculture and food industry, says the seminar was not designed as an answer to recent crises that have occurred in Alberta.
"It's a chance for our industry to learn from one of the best," says Fisk. "It is not a response to anything (a specific event). It just makes good sense (to be ready)."
One way to prepare - above and beyond what might be considered a standard crisis response program - is to develop a website but to keep it "dark" until the event in question takes place.
"Don't light it up until something specific happens and have one for each scenario," says Lukaszewski. "The idea is to be this ready. You'll reduce your call volume by 90 per cent."
Further, expect the heaviest response to the website to be from your own employees. That's important, Lukaszewski says, because it alerts the people you care about - particularly your own staff - as to what is happening. It also provides them with the information they're seeking and quells the possibility of misinformation spreading.
But the overall key to proper crisis management is to "disclose, disclose and disclose in a confident way that makes sense," says Lukaszewski.
Communicate all information that is known, and when previously unknown material becomes available, make that public, too. That's the way to build credibility, he says, as opposed to holding information back, which destroys any trustworthiness that has been created. "It's not what you know. It's when you know it."
Answering the question, emphasizes Lukaszewski, is the most significant thing you can do in a crisis.
Meanwhile, all aspects of response should be in place within the first two hours. A company should do its best to ensure that the crisis is no longer creating any more victims while managing that situation at the same time; communicate with its employees to get the information out - if you don't, Lukaszewski says they'll make it up - deal with those that are indirectly affected to end any collateral damage, and handle any self-appointed critics.
Although staff below the senior executive level may end up putting together the crisis response plan, CEOs need to start the ball rolling, Lukaszewski adds.
"The boss must be in on the planning process (or a trusted representative) or it won't work," says Lukaszewski, noting that when a crisis starts, everyone at the company is a communicator - but the boss sets the tone.
Another key factor is to be able to advise leaders to look forward in a crisis.
"They want to know what to do, what to say, where to go. They want to know about tomorrow. Teach them about tomorrow," says Lukaszewski.
Part of being smart, he notes, is recognizing that these events or very similar ones have happened before and to recognize and use this information.
Also, even something as simple as an up-to-date phone list for crisis response can save untold amounts of time. Lukaszewski says that, on average, staff can spend 30 minutes trying to find out how to reach each person who needs to be contacted or called in, time that isn't there during an emergency.
Dealing with a crisis properly transforms it from a trust-busting event into a situation where a company can manage its own record while creating credibility and trust. "We only defeat ourselves," says Lukaszewski.
(Laura Severs can be reached at laura@businessedge.ca)
