Barton (2004) offers a comprehensive guide of avoiding/tackling crises and also emphasizes the importance of communication in the process of managing disasters. Hence, communication plays a paramount role starting with the preparation of a systematic program of crisis avoidance (issues management) end ending with the crisis resolution.
The way in which an organization communicates and the moment when it communicates in times of crises exhort influence on its reputation. By being the first to acknowledge a crisis, an organization has the opportunity of defining it, thus framing the story so as to save its reputation. According to the framing theory, also known as the second level agenda setting, "media tells us how to think about something" -McCombs & Shaw,1972-by making salient certain aspects/frames of an event over others. Consequently, by being the first to acknowledge a crisis, a corporation has control over it by emphasizing certain aspects over others to such an extent to which the crisis has a less detrimental effect on its reputation. The chances of having the story framed in a way that does not distort the information provided is for a company to provide as much information as possible so as to minimize the eventuality of the journalists seeking out details of the crisis from other sources. Certainly, the same information that corporate representatives provide to the media (external communication) must be equivalent with the information about the crisis that the company provides to its other stakeholders (employees, shareholders, etc) so as to avoid a discrepancy that may impede the crisis management process and further tarnish the reputation of the organization.
Interestingly, a crisis comes to an end when corporations confirm that it is over: it is through communication that the crisis ends.Media will stop covering a crisis the moment corporate representatives declare that the crisis is over. According to Barton (2004) a person in authority that talks to the media and asserts that the crisis is over should also recap the crisis by explaining what happened and why it happened as well as provide a "clear and candid picture" of what was resolved and let media know how things stand as of the day of the conference. Additionally, the spokesperson should also offer the plan that the company aims to put into practice so as to achieve its strategic goals and also to encourage everyone to do their best in order to move forward.
In times of crisis, the messages provided to the media should be clear, accurate, and candid. Additionally, negative coverage can be thwarted by the availability of the spokespersons. In most of the cases, the spokespersons of an organization should be identifiable leaders, such as the CEO, the PR manager, etc. Yet, if the crisis involves technical issues for examples both the presence of the CEO and a person with technical knowledge are encouraged to be present. Moreover, it is also recommended that the leader of an organization be present at the very place where a tragic event occurred. However, his or her presence is not necessarily required only for the sake of the media and getting good coverage, though the latter also helps preserve a good reputation but also because, in times of crises, people seek for a true leader whose presence and encouragement ease the healing process and the recovery. Rudy Giuliani's presence in the aftermath of 9/11 helped build a spirit of togetherness: not only did he talk to the media, but he also interacted with people in the street, etc appearing at the place of the tragedy within minutes after the Twin Towers had collapsed.
Prior to delivering media messages, organizations need to perform a public segmentation (what medium to use for what public). In times of crisis, media and other stakeholders demand exigent responses and there may be little time for such preparation. Therefore, it is advisable that the public segmentation is part of the contingency plan that is incessantly updated by organizations before issues morph into full-blown crises.
Among others, the contingency plan should entail the organization of a team, the assessment of the issue, and the development and testing of the plan (training simulations). Yet, there are many issues that can arise within a company and can lead to impending crises how can the management be aware of them? Barton (2004)asserts that many times the best way to find out about issues is to give voice to all your stakeholders whether employees on entry-level jobs such as customer or sales representatives. Employees in such positions are the ones that come in contact with customers on a regular basis and thus, they can alert of flaws in products etc. Additionally, alerting of issues of either internal or external concern could be encouraged by establishing a target that each employee has of signalizing problems that they further discuss with the crisis management team. Certainly, the organizational culture needs to permit the freedom of speaking up and pointing at issues that affect the employees or the consumers.
Barton (2004)also stresses the importance of a continuous scanning for issues both externally and internally and deals with the chances that the crisis management team has in prioritizing potential crises. He further proposes a mathematical function that calculates the expected value E(X), i.e. how much the crisis will detriment an organization financially. For example, the cost of the effects of an event K is $2 million and the odds that the crisis can occur is one in one thousand (.1 percent or .001). Thus, the impact of the event on the corporation will be $2 million X .001 which is $ 2,000. Yet, in order to calculate E(X) we need to have data on the estimated impact of the crisis and its probability of occurrence.
Barton (2004) encourages companies to have a crisis management team comprised of specialists from different fields (technical, communication, etc) that should meet regularly in order update a stock of potential perils and a contingency plan in case of a crisis that cannot be shunned.
The author also states that organizations are more likely to recover after a crisis if they put the human life first in the process of decision making.
Additionally, when crises strike it may be hard to estimate how much the costs will be and decisions are sometimes made by approximation. Therefore human life should be put first.
Finally, regardless of how much a company comes to grips with a crisis from a financial perspective, if it doesn't tackle communication well, it runs the risk of tarnishing its reputation and thus negatively impact its future sales. The way in which an organization communicates has the power to frame the crisis and thus gain public recognition and support. Further on, the crisis gets off the media's agenda the moment a spokespersons confirms that the crisis is over. Therefore, it is important to be cognizant of the effective way in which a company can communicate to dodge a crisis (issue management) or to weather it. What strategies of response can spokespersons adopt in order to effectively tackle smoldering problems and full-blown crisis?
Strategies of response are discussed by Coombs (Situational Crisis Communication Theory ---offers a PR perspective on crisis response strategies) and Benoit ( Image Restoration Discourse----brings in a rhetorical view).
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