Crisis Communication: Essential Skills for Crisis Management

Identify key audiences for crisis information, from emergency responders and local media to employees, customers, suppliers, investors, and the public, and apply an audience checklist during and after each threat.

Inventory and prioritize the channels your audiences use during a crisis, then listen, monitor, and respond across multidirectional information flow to counter misinformation and keep audiences informed.

Assess and detail your crisis communication inventory across channels and devices, including access, backup plans, and regular updates, to inform employees, customers, vendors, and the public during emergencies.

Identify crisis response team members from executive leadership, department heads, communications staff, and legal, and establish a clear chain of command with a designated team leader for rapid, cohesive messaging.

Appoint a crisis communication leader to monitor threats, convene response team, log facts, assign tasks, and guide media-trained spokespeople who are visually presentable, calm, and answer questions with compassion.

Establish a crisis command center to enhance team collaboration and rapid decision-making, with appropriate space, tools, and a backup location for uninterrupted crisis response.

Craft concise hold statements from pre-approved proactive materials, such as web pages, boilerplates, and publications, then use the 5w+H structure to outline facts, action plans, timelines, empathy, and reactive statements.

Learn to craft a genuine apology using the three Rs: remorse, responsibility, and repair, to restore trust, communicate accountability, and outline corrective actions after a crisis.

Recognize five common crisis response mistakes, including denial of warning signs, cover up, speculation, no comment, and delegating to outsiders, and emphasize admitting responsibility, verifying facts, and strong internal leadership.

Conduct a post-crisis evaluation by convening the crisis team, reviewing actions, timing, and messaging, and identifying improvements, outcomes, and heroes to frame a new reality and communicate lessons learned.

Master the fundamentals of proactive crisis planning and crisis communication to calmly, quickly, and confidently respond during and after a crisis, with practice using an exercise file.