THE THREE WORDS THAT MATTER MOST IN CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS
In my 25-odd years of advising clients dealing with a crisis, there are three words I’ve come to believe matter more than anything in responding to questions from the media.
They are also critical in communicating with key stakeholders – especially when rumours are swirling on social media, and those keyboard warriors are indulging in wild speculation about the facts.
Of course, I should stress that in my crisis communications consulting and media training and coaching, there are quite a few others that I recommend, but these three are crucial – especially in guarding against getting you into trouble down the track.
I’ll stop my teasing now. They are: “At this time”.
That phrase may sound trivial in the grand scheme of things. Don’t you want to focus on saying you are sorry, telling everyone you are cooperating with the authorities or hiring counsellors to support your staff?
I’m not suggesting there isn’t a place for those, but “at this time” is crucial – especially in the first hours and possibly days after an event or an emerging issue that has you in the media spotlight.
My rationale is simple. In my experience, the biggest risk when dealing with a crisis is simply a lack of information and the facts of what has occurred. How often have you seen reports in the media, hours after a major news event, where someone in authority boldly states what they understand to be the cause of an incident? Days later, it becomes evident that the information provided at the time was wildly inaccurate and even comes later to smack of incompetence or a cover-up.
The greatest temptation in responding to questions from journalists, in my experience, is clients wanting to provide very definitive responses to questions about the cause or background of a major issue. It is natural to believe that if you can just fend off questions with something that sounds like you truly know what has occurred, the pressure valve of public scrutiny will be released.
The risk of this approach is especially the case if there is some possibility that the cause of a major incident relates to either a deliberate or inadvertent action by your staff or a genuine breakdown in a piece of equipment, system or process. It is natural to want to defend your organisation and state your confidence in your staff and your management. But what if it turns out you’re wrong?
My experience is that blame for a damaging issue does sometimes turn out to be related to internal incompetence or system failure. And this points to another significant risk in the early hours and days of a crisis: You can’t always rely on your team to tell the truth. People will naturally be reluctant to admit they got it wrong in the case of a civil emergency like a fire injury or death. Let me be more blunt: Under pressure, even the best of us resort to telling a lie.
The reality is that it is rare in most crisis scenarios for any degree of certainty as to what occurred. Now, that is not to say that you shouldn’t take responsibility – it is true that leaders who fail to acknowledge responsibility often come across as seeking to avoid accountability or even appear as simply arrogant.
However, the best way to balance outright avoidance with the need to display transparency, is to use the phrase “at this time”, which can turn out to be the most important words you say. Besides anything else – it is true. Crisis situations are rarely simple. You need time for investigation in a calm and considered environment and the worst time to draw conclusions is in the heat of the moment. True, in the black and white world of a media pack, clamouring for definitive answers, it might seem like you’re wavering. But it is a whole lot better than making statements that turn out to be false and misleading.
Remember the Miranda Rights? Those are the words you’ve probably heard repeated a thousand times on those TV crime shows when the police are making an arrest. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you…”
For more insights and ramblings on strategic business communications and marketing from JLCA Director John Le Cras, visit the JLCA Journal page.
