Crisis Ahead

101 Ways to Prepare for and Bounce Back From Disasters, Scandals, and Other Emergencies

Edward Segal

• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781529361421
• eBook ISBN: 9781529361957
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Public Relations
• Index: Business

How many splashy scandals and crisis situations have befallen companies and public figures in the past week alone? How did the organizations and people at the center of those crises manage the situation? Did they survive with their reputations intact or are they facing an ongoing public nightmare that keeps building on itself in the era of social media?This new book from veteran public relations expert Edward Segal is based on the following premise: it's not a matter of IF a scandal or crisis will hit, it's WHEN. How a company deals with it will have lasting impact on their reputation, profits, and more. But for most organizations, when a crisis hits, they're caught off guard and ill-prepared. While essential, crisis plans are worthless unless properly executed, as the stories and examples featured throughout Crisis Ahead attest. Edward Segal's vivid and memorable accounts underscore the benefits of practicing and updating crisis plans at least once a year. The book also provides a template for creating a customizable crisis management plan. Crisis Ahead is for CEOs, senior staff, corporate communication professionals, HR and legal teams, boards of directors, and front-line employees who need to know what to do in the moment: what levers to pull and what moves to make in real time when faced with a crisis, scandal, or disaster. This book is written with the need for speed in mind. It's concise and practical with a light touch and occasional humor to help people on the front lines prepare for, survive, and bounce back from a crisis. It includes dozens of anecdotes, stories, and lessons about how companies, organizations, and individuals - ranging from Amazon, Apple, and the European Union, to Disney, Starbucks, and entrepreneur Elon Musk - have prepared for, created, managed, and communicated about crisis situations.

CHAPTER 1

How Ready Are You?
Find Out Now Before It’s Too Late

Three things that never work for avoiding, managing, or recovering from a crisis are ignorance, denial, and wishful thinking.

You just learned that someone in your IT department has sent an email to all your customers, vendors, and media contacts. The message contains derogatory comments about you and embarrassing photos of you.

What would you do?

Don’t wait until you have a crisis to find out whether you are ready for it. You are bound to be disappointed with the answer. It’s safe to assume that if you are reading this book, you want to know now what you can or should do when a crisis strikes. The first step is to take a reality check about your vulnerability to a crisis and how prepared you are to deal with one.

The 10 Rs of Crisis Management

There are several major steps you can take to help ensure that you are as ready as you can be for any crisis. I’ve boiled the steps down to the following 10 rules—“The 10 Rs of Crisis Management.”

1. Risk. Identify the risk triggers that would cause a crisis for your organization. Some risks may be unique to your company because of the nature of your business. For example, if you’re an airline, a risk trigger would be an plane crash. Other triggers could apply no matter what type of business you are in, such as embezzlement or sexual harassment.
2. Reduce. Take the steps that are necessary and prudent to lessen known risks. These steps can be as basic as following common-sense accounting procedures in order to help prevent fraud and forgery to more extensive actions such as providing appropriate training or retraining to employees.
3. Ready. Have a crisis plan in place and ready to implement when it is needed. Because one size will not fit all companies, the plan should be customized to meet the needs and realities of your organization and industry.
4. Redundancies. Have back-up and contingency plans in case they are required. Since it is impossible to plan for every eventuality, a Plan B, Plan C, or Plan D may be needed, just in case.
5. Research. Get all the information you can about your crisis, including details about what just happened, is happening now, or you expect to happen. Knowing the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the situation is essential in helping to respond strategically, effectively, and efficiently.
6. Rehearse. Practice implementing your plan on a regular basis—at least once a year. Having a plan and not practicing it is not much different than having no plan at all. The more you practice implementing the plan, the more prepared you will be if and when you need to use it.
7. React. Activate your plan when necessary. Know what will trigger a crisis and how you would respond to different crisis scenarios. A crisis is no time to try to learn as you go along.
8. Reach Out. Immediately communicate with those who are affected by or concerned about the crisis. Your company or o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: How Ready Are You? Find Out Now Before It’s Too Late
• Chapter 2: If You Fail to Plan, You’re Planning to Fail
• Chapter 3: Put Your Plan to the Test
• Chapter 4: When the Sh*t Hits the Fan: Best Practices
• Chapter 5: How to Work with the Media during a Crisis
• Chapter 6: Learn from the Successes and Mistakes of Others
• Chapter 7: Bouncing Back: How to Recover from a Crisis
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author