The three things we’ll discuss in this series are:
Readiness
Willingness
Ability
Good practice guidelines, and our practical experience with clients both tell us that these characteristics are central to success in crisis management.
An absence, or shortage, of these makes it difficult for an organisation to respond well when a crisis transpires.
The phrase, ‘ready, willing, and able’, is our mantra here at Briggs Communications.
They’re on our logo too – that’s how important we think they are!
When we work with clients, we want them to become ready, willing, and able to manage a crisis. Everything we do – from start to finish – drives toward this outcome.
Being 'Crisis-Ready'
Readiness is an advanced state of preparedness.
To understand its state of readiness, an organisation and its responsible teams and individuals need to ask, “Are we prepared to face the worst, if the worst happens right now?” Not if it happens next year, or next week, but if it happens now – or at 2.00am.
When you’re ready, you’re fully prepared and can be confident in your immediate response capability.
Practically, this means the designated people can quickly operationalise what the organisation has planned, and what they have learned and practised in training and exercises, to achieve the intended outcomes.
Why is being 'Crisis-Ready' so important?
When an organisation is truly ready, it can respond to an exceptional, unusual, severe situation rapidly but deliberately. And those two things are very important.
We know that moving quickly – in decisions and actions – is critical when a crisis occurs. But, you have to balance the need for speed with accuracy. You have to check facts and make measured decisions, based on the facts.
Readiness sets you up to work like this in the most stressful circumstances.
How do you become 'Crisis-Ready'?
To be fully prepared, you’ll need to have a crisis management program that includes:
anticipating and preventing
reviewing and evaluating your arrangements, both after exercises and after any real crisis.
We’ll talk about some of these things in detail in our next instalments.
Are your staff 'Crisis-Ready'?
We're offering 20% off our Crisis Media Training package until 31 October 2016. Find out more.