Well, well…the threat of a virus pandemic never entered experts’ minds, not to mention the mind of the average person. All other risks have paled in comparison. Nevertheless, other risks still exist. Every week we see in the media the latest terrorism incident that has been thwarted or happened in countries around the world. And, of course, there are all the types of corporate crises that could happen, many related to the internet and information technology. In view of all this, you need to get senior management to act on your crisis communication plan.
One of the first considerations in a crisis plan is to monitor and analyze information about potential risks in the operating environment. As we have seen with COVID-19 and its variants, as well as other risks, many global risks have potential to affect your organization at a local level. What’s more, sudden crises accounted for more than 50% of worldwide media coverage of crises in 2020, according to the Institute for Crisis Management in its 2020 annual report, published in August 2021. Previously, ‘smoldering’ crises accounted for two thirds of crisis situations. Smoldering crises are much easier to predict and minimize, so the predominance of sudden crises in 2020 may be a sign of the future. Many countries are already reeling from sudden extreme weather, and other crises like employment uncertainty and loss of social cohesion caused by inequality. It is therefore prudent to consider these types of potential risks as part of your business environment scanning for crisis communication planning.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) conducted a survey in 2021, which found the most common concerns about global risk, as noted in the chart below. The WEF defines global risk as the possibility of the occurrence of an event or condition that, if it occurs, could cause significant negative impact for several countries or industries. For the purposes of the WEF’s Global Risks Report 2022, the scope was over the next 10 years, and included human suffering, societal disruption, economic shock, environmental degradation, and political instability. Respondents were “the Forum’s extensive network of academic, business, government, civil society and thought leaders. Survey responses were collected in September-October 2021 from the WEF’s multi-stakeholder communities (including the Global Shapers Community), the professional networks of its Advisory Board, and members of the Institute of Risk Management.”
Image: World Economic Forum The Global Risks Report 2022, 17th edition, p. 14.
In a similar way, Amy Webb, Professor of Strategic Foresight at New York University, summarized “The 11 sources of disruption every company must monitor” in the MITSloan Management Review of 10 March 2020. Being aware of these potential sources of disruption enable competent management of risk in your communication strategies. Webb uses a simple tool to apply the future forces theory to organizations as they are developing strategic thinking. The tool lists 11 sources of macro change that are typically outside a leader’s control. She says technology is so intertwined with everyday life that it is shown as intersecting with all the other sources in the image below.
Image: The 11 sources of disruption every company must monitor, MITSloan newsletter, March 2020.
Prof. Webb says:
In 15 years of quantitative foresight research, I have discovered that all change is the result of disruption in one or more of these 11 sources. Organizations must pay attention to all 11 — and they should look for areas of convergence, inflections, and contradictions. Emerging patterns are especially important because they signal transformation of some kind. Leaders must connect the dots back to their industries and companies and position teams to take incremental actions.
The 11 sources of change might seem to raise an immense number of potential risk issues at first, but there are big benefits from taking such a broad viewpoint. The most success arises in teams who use the macro change tool not just for a specific deliverable but to encourage ongoing signal scanning. Webb says sources of macro change encompass the following:
As a communicator, you can take a leading role in influencing your top management to extend their horizon and start identifying tomorrow’s disruptors. This would be a great opportunity to add value to your role – not just monitoring the current operating environment, but anticipating future actions that may be needed. You can also read more about identifying risk in my article, “Management of risk in your communication planning.”
Whether you are inhouse or a consultant, crises are relevant to you as a communicator because crises are largely about the perceptions of stakeholders. Operational managers can deal with operational emergencies, but crises happen when emergency incidents impact on stakeholders, whose actions can affect the ability of your organization to survive. That’s where you come in – to communicate with key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, shareholders, government regulators and suppliers.
It’s not easy to get senior management to actively support crisis communication plans. Most of them don’t want to know about crises. They know the chance of being caught up in a crisis is tiny and they don’t want to take time away from their daily work priorities to deal with something that just might happen one day, and then again, it might not. And crisis preparation costs money in staff time, in equipment and other resources. Point to business crises that have recently occurred, and use these as a basis for convincing senior management to act on your crisis communication plan.
What’s more, many executives perceive crises and emergencies only in terms of an operational response (“put the fire out and return to full operations ASAP”). They look at communication only as an afterthought to the real work. This is an extremely frustrating attitude to encounter. Those executives will need to be convinced of the impact on your organization’s operations and therefore profitability before they take full notice of your communication plan. (In a government agency the discussion would need to be about the impact on output and the fallout from politicians to a public shambles.)
One fatal assumption many organizations make is to think their own IT and server will be available during a crisis. You need to ensure you can communicate with key stakeholders from your back up system for a significant time during a crisis. Lack of thought in this area could come back to bite you. Save your crisis response material on a separate server and regularly update it so that you can use it during a crisis, even from other premises.
A great crisis communication plan is only as good as the extent to which it is implemented. Here are some ideas to get senior management to respect your crisis communication plan and support its implementation:
Any concerns about management not understanding the importance of crisis communication must be addressed in the pre-crisis planning phase. You need to be proactive and meet with the emergency response planners now. Show them your competence and expertise. Be energetic. Set your own time aside for thinking through and documenting for your reference any action points. Act promptly on those action points. So many types of crises have emerged in recent years that it is essential for you to get senior management to act on your crisis communication plan.
Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash – The World restaurant in the UK temporarily closed due to CLOVID-19.
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