It's been about a half-year since I summarized "lessons learned" though situations I've observed and/or helped to manage. So here's 20 more crisis management lessons for you - and hopefully you won't have to learn them the hard way!
1. No organization can afford to be ignorant about Internet-
centered communications and its role in crisis prevention and
response Those who mean you harm are often very savvy in this
regard and if you remain ignorant, you enable their activities.
2. Internet-centered activists seek allies in their efforts to
destroy organizations they oppose - the organizations they
oppose need to seek allies as well.
3. There does not have to be any logic or factual basis for your
organization to be the target of Internet activism.
4. If your own people badmouth each other internally, you can count
on that being "heard" externally.
5, Internet critics going after global organizations will do all
they can to get their criticism translated into the language of
your target audiences, so don't assume that you're "safe" from a
crisis spilling over into other cultures you serve just because
the critic him/herself primarily speaks one language.
6. Delay in response has exacerbated the negative impact of crises
more than any other factor.
7. Litigation breeds negative PR. Negative PR breeds litigation.
Yet all too often, the PR/crisis management people and the lawyers
aren't talking to each other.
8. Too many experts in one field think that they're also expert in
another, with disastrous results. Knowing what you know and what
you don't know - where you need help - is as important to
effective crisis management as it is to any other critical task.
9. It's possible to believe you know your organization so well that
you don't really see what's going on.
10. It is not possible to be sure of your target audiences' feelings
about or reactions to a crisis situation without asking them.
11. Time no longer causes negative information to fade from memory
as it used to, because the Internet has become a perpetual
"collective memory" for everyone -- with ease of memory retrieval
being dictated by the search engine optimization skills of those
who generate the information.
12. A organization held together with reputation management or
business continuity band-aids will eventually disintegrate.
13. Emails have a way of going to the wrong person.
14. In the 21st Century, basic Crisis Management/Crisis Communications
skills are critical for all senior management personnel and, with
rare exception, most senior management have no such training.
That's a recipe for disaster.
15. No reputation - I repeat, NO reputation - is so exalted that it
can survive consistent criticism that is not met with effective
response.
16. If you don't have designated spokespersons, then a whole lot of
folks will think they can speak for you.
17. If you say a policy is important -- but you don't remind your
employees of it frequently and train/retrain them in its
implementation -- then you're deluding yourself.
18. In the event of a crisis, the only thing any of your stakeholders
- internal or external - really want to hear is the answer to "How
does this impact me?"
19. Don't take your IT department's word for it that your data and
hardware is adequately protected. Make them - or someone - prove
it to you in words that a non-techie can understand.
20. Denial, per the American Heritage Dictionary, can be defined as
"An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to
acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings." If this
reminds you of your leadership's perspective on crisis
preparedness and response, perhaps you should slip this entire
list onto a few desks, anonymously.
