By Jonathan Hemus
For an organization which overcomes the initial shock of a breaking crisis, successfully wrestles control over it and ultimately puts the reputational fires out, it’s natural to want to return to business as usual as soon as the crisis seems to have passed.
Natural but foolhardy.
Whilst no one welcomes a crisis, all organizations should use them as an opportunity to learn and improve – some may even use them as a catalyst for change or re-invention. Adversity draws people together and creates focus and energy; harnessing that energy to shape a new future is one of the best ways of putting a crisis experience to good use.
Post-crisis review
As a minimum, businesses must objectively evaluate not just how their crisis management plan and team performed, but also review the culture and practices which allowed the crisis to occur in the first place.
It’s critical to act on these learnings, make changes to processes, conduct training where knowledge gaps have been revealed and exercise the revised plan. Fail to do this and further crises may lie just around the next corner.
Listen: TCIP #016 – Malaysia Airlines Crisis Management with Jonathan Hemus
It’s quite possible to fully recover from an isolated crisis, but a succession of incidents are much harder to successfully navigate (and a crisis-prone organization will be in the media’s sights for months, even years).
Learning from the crisis management experiences of others
Even if your organization is skilled (or lucky) enough to have avoided crisis situations, there’s no guarantee that you will remain immune. That’s why it’s important to learn from incidents suffered by other organizations, not just thank your stars that you’ve escaped (for now).
In August, I was invited to lead a two day crisis management course in Kuala Lumpur for 36 delegates from a range of Malaysian businesses and government departments. No country has suffered more in 2014 with the loss of Malaysian Airways’ flights MH370 and then MH17. So the opportunity to learn from the experiences and views of those close to the incidents was a rare privilege for me.
A duty to learn and prevent future crises
One of the things that struck me most powerfully was that in the midst of national grief at terrible events, there was a sense of purpose, energy and determination to emerge from tragedy stronger, more resilient and with a dignified pride.
Crises are traumatic events for individuals and organizations. Despite this, it is our duty to learn from them and so reduce the potential for harm in future.
I discuss the learnings and lessons from the Malaysian Airlines incidents during a podcast with Melissa Agnes. These learnings have relevance for all organizations planning to prevent or successfully manage a crisis. Listen to our episode of The Crisis Intelligence Podcast here.
Jonathan Hemus is the managing director of Insignia Communications, a UK-based reputation management consultancy specialising in crisis management. He is a sought after trainer, coach and speaker on crisis and reputation management and has spoken on reputation management, crisis communication, PR and business continuity at national and international conferences and events, most recently the International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference in Florida. He is a guest member of the Henley Business School faculty and a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. Follow Jonathan on Twitter or contact him directly by email: jonathanhemus@insigniacomms.com
I agree that a focus solely on business resumption can be a terrible mistake after a crisis, but there is also another critical activity beyond learning from what happened, and that is managing post-crisis issues.
This period has sometimes been called the “crisis after the crisis” and includes all those inquiries, inquests, investigations and litigation. The risk to reputation can be greater AFTER the crisis event is over, and I think failure to recognise that risk that ranks up there with the greatest mistakes in crisis management.
I agree. Jonathan and I talk in depth about this in episode 16 of The Crisis Crisis Intelligence Podcast. The crisis after the crisis is a good term to use.