1 lesson / 30 minutes / FREE
This FREE Course courtesy Furia Rubel Communications
Essential Crisis Management Planning
If you are responsible for managing a business, law firm, bank, for profit or non-profit organization, understanding why you need a crisis management plan (CMP) and a crisis management team (CMT) is imperative.
In this video, experienced crisis management expert, legal marketer, attorney and CEO of Furia Rubel Communications, Gina Rubel, discusses the necessity of a crisis management plan and crisis management team and illustrates real-life examples of well-executed crisis responses. Some scenarios that can cause a crisis are a fire, natural disaster, cyber breach, workplace violence, layoffs, bankruptcy, employee theft, and leadership departure.
There is a difference between reacting and responding to a crisis. A well thought out crisis management plan will ensure that the crisis response team will respond, rather than react to the crisis. Members of a crisis response team have some of the most important positions, as they are responsible for protecting assets, managing and executing the crisis plan and communicating about and during the crisis.
Key components of an effective incident plan include
- identifying your incident response team
- listing scenarios and needs
- developing a scenario management checklist
- developing a media and social media policy
- implementing monitoring tools for media and internet
- training your spokesperson, staff and board
- conducting a mock crisis
- evaluating and refining the crisis plan.
Also known as an incident response plan, elements include
- securing contact information
- identifying roles and responsibilities
- picking a command post, if needed.
Internal and external audiences such as employees, customers, the media, vendors and partners, stakeholders and the community at large will need to be informed regarding the crisis.
Response time to a crisis should be as soon as safely possible. It is also imperative to determine when your lawyer needs to be involved. Determining which message delivery vehicles should be used (TV, radio, print, social media, and/or a press conference) also is an important step. Finally, conduct a post-mortem by evaluating the effectiveness of the crisis team and tactics, by updating the scenarios and response measures, and updating the contact list and training methods.
