A blessing in disguise?

A crisis in an organization can be a positive trigger that propels a company forward while strengthening its image. Deal with it properly, and a crisis won’t necessarily hurt you

By Julie Demers

Some people think that facing the media when a crisis occurs in an organization is the last thing to encourage. They fear bad publicity or a public outcry and think it might be better to hold back information and hope that nobody notices that anything is wrong. But this could be precisely the wrong way to deal with such a problem.

One good example of how a company  deals with such a situation properly, and to its advantage, is the case of Johnson & Johnson. It had to manage the crisis that ensued when seven people died as a result of ingesting poisoned Tylenol capsules. The company used the CBS investigative journalism program 60 Minutes to address the situation, and what might have become a public relations nightmare for the company led, instead, to positive change — today’s tamper-proof sealed packages.

The 1998 ice storm in Quebec is another good example. What made that crisis unique, besides the fact that it affected hundreds of thousands of Quebecers, was that everyone who could, watched it live. Thousands of hours of television and radio programming and hundreds of print stories tracked the situation hour by hour. The total number of customers without power was regularly updated like the results of a telethon.

At the worst point of the ice storm, the spotlight was constantly on Hydro-Quebec. The utility’s public relations staff did their job so well that Hydro-Quebec’s satisfaction rating reached 93% in the midst of the crisis. And people still remember Steve Flanagan, one of the utility’s chief spokespersons during the crisis.

Today, Flanagan is an instructor in media relations at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and also trains spokespeople in the university’s continuing education department. He started his sixth year of teaching in the fall and is currently completing a communications master’s thesis on media relations during a crisis. Although Flanagan is no longer part of Hydro-Quebec’s communications staff — he switched to marketing in July 2000 and is now manager of promotions and partnerships — he continues to track how various emergency situations are managed and his advice continues to be sought out when crises occur.

He also gives lectures and training workshops on crisis management. “Over time, I have refined my approach and added other incidents besides the ice storm,” he explains. Flanagan mainly concentrates on the preparation that all organizations must make. Most Quebecers saw him at work non-stop during the ice storm, so it’s understandable that people turn to him when they want to know more about how to work with the media. Their interest is what led him to develop a course on the subject.

He shares lessons from his personal experience in these classes. “I have also investigated the literature and the experience of others,” Flanagan points out. Crises occur every day around the world. He is particularly interested in how the media manages crises because, he believes, “that’s where the outcome is decided.”

Events don’t have to be what we consider disasters for crisis management plans to be launched. Flanagan firmly believes that every organization must be ready to deal with any situation at any time. He’s convinced that it’s possible to prepare for a crisis without knowing what it may be or when it will occur. “Every self-respecting company can evaluate its risks,” he notes. Even if it’s impossible to anticipate what will happen, good basic preparation is necessary. “This applies as much to a small company as to a multinational,” He insists.

A major crisis for a small company won’t necessarily be on the same scale as that of a bigger company. “A small company can easily be ruined by a small crisis that it’s unable to manage,” he explains. Specialists in this field can easily evaluate the potential risks an organization faces and suggest measures to help it manage them. It’s very important to know how to be organized the instant a critical situation appears on the horizon.

A company that’s properly prepared for such events may not merely survive but can use the crisis as an opportunity to improve its image. It can convey information quickly to its customers, employees, suppliers and even the general public. In many cases, a company hires a crisis management consultant when an emergency occurs, costing a fortune. “It’s much better to prepare in advance by planning the roles and responsibilities of each member of the organization in a crisis,” Flanagan suggests.

In this way, all employees know from the outset exactly what they must do, and the organization is able to take control of the situation. He adds that it’s by no means easy to get organized once an emergency is in progress. Ideally, each individual’s role during a crisis has been made very clear. It’s a demanding planning exercise because when the time comes to implement the plan, the organization is facing the unexpected. “With a minimum of preparation, it’s possible to develop reflexes,” Flanagan says. “In an emergency, getting off on the right foot is vital for the final outcome.”

When a crisis actually occurs, there is virtually no time to prepare, and the first few hours are crucial. You have to make the right impression from the outset and assume leadership. According to Flanagan, everything is decided early on. If you don’t exert control immediately, you will spend the rest of the time trying to respond to the initiatives of others, especially when it comes to perception and constructing reality. Not surprisingly, badly managed crises very often get worse.

There’s no miracle formula for managing a crisis, because it depends on a host of factors. The important thing is to be aware of a lack of preparation and fix it before a crisis management plan has to be used. In Flanagan’s experience, it’s disconcerting to see how badly prepared many organizations are when facing an emergency. “Since September 11, 2001, you can sense a real desire on the part of companies to be proactive, because they are much more aware of the potential impact of a crisis,” he says, noting that there’s now a strong demand for crisis management. In his view, may companies have missed out on opportunities to improve their image during critical situations.

 “A labour conflict can easily degenerate into a crisis,” Flanagan notes. The main thing to avoid is complacency — to believe that the critical situation under way has no consequences. It’s absurd to imagine that, if you hide the problem, everything will fall quietly back into place.

Crisis management experts agree that the procedure to follow is to disclose as much information as possible to the public to try to control the damage before it occurs. “The public is entitled to know, or at least to know a minimum,” Flanagan adds. What’s important to remember in a media-obsessed society like ours, where information can easily be broadcast instantly, is that there isn’t a lot of time in which to react. The media will construct its own reality in the first few hours of the crisis. If no quick public response is made, the main supplier of information won’t be the company itself. Instead, it will find itself constantly trying to fix the public version.

It’s critical to become the main source of information. “You may not be able to give answers to all questions but at least you are always there, and you show that you are in control of the situation,” declares Flanagan. Whatever happens, the media are going to try to find an explanation. If the company doesn’t give its own version of the facts, the journalists will turn to other sources, creating a media reality that may not be one that suits the organization.

There’s no magic bullet for managing crises. Although facing the media may seem to be a burden and the idea of washing your dirty linen in public is far from attractive, Flanagan and other crisis management experts agree that there’s no other choice. Planning the crisis strategy will dictate what the organization discloses and when it does so, and on the same occasion, it can use the attention to burnish its image and profit from an unfortunate situation.

Julie Demers (jdemers2000@hotmail.com) is associate French editor of CMA Management magazine.

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