US&S 3 & 4 – Lessons on Effective Crisis Communication & Leadership
Wes Jamison, Tolu Odubela, Ronnie Lovler & Jennifer Warmington (see below)
These readings from Effective Crisis Communication provide insights and best practices for effective communication and leadership during a crisis. The task: You will provide a 500 word comment that summarizes three key points that you don’t want your peers to miss in the chapter and raises at least three questions or discussion points for consideration by the class. Doc students: remember that you, especially, should be looking for theoretical points and not just application.
These readings from Effective Crisis Communication provide insights and best practices for effective communication and leadership during a crisis. The task: You will provide a 500 word comment that summarizes three key points that you don’t want your peers to miss in the chapter and raises at least three questions or discussion points for consideration by the class. Doc students: remember that you, especially, should be looking for theoretical points and not just application.
posted by prteacher at
3/28/2007 06:35:00 AM
1 Comments:
Determine your goals
All good houses ALWAYS have a sturdy foundation. Determining and setting the goals of a crisis communication plan is the first step to effectively dealing with a crisis. Goals ultimately determine the direction and action an organization takes in tackling a crisis. i.e. the communication objective, which answer the basic question of “What do we hope to achieve by communicating this piece of information?” Without goals, crisis communicators are oblivious of what their, or the organizations, objective are in times of crisis. “This strategy can also reduce uncertainty for the organization because, once goals are defined, the organization is better able to consciously think about what strategies it can use in order to accomplish its objective…Determining, ranking and, and identifying potential obstacles to goals of crisis communication before a crisis is a key step to in effective crisis communication” (US&S p.34).
Partner with crisis audience
“Partner with crisis audience is a critical part of effective crisis communication is determined by the relationships organizations have with their stakeholders. Organizations should work before a crisis to cultivate strong partnerships with stakeholders…maintaining equal relationships and partnerships with groups and organizations is critical to effective crisis communication…organizations should create a dialogue with stakeholders about important issues and work out equitable solutions” (US&S, p.35). This helps organizations have a good working relationship/foot in the door with various stakeholders who are likely to be affected by a crisis and reduces the likelihood of stakeholder aggression and quick resolution to crisis situation. Identification of the stakeholders should be done before a crisis happens and communication should be open and honest in order to develop trust and credibility which are important should a crisis emerge. It is not advisable to attempt to persuade or manipulate the stakeholders to get them to think or act in favor of the organization as this could have a negative impact on client/organizational relationship and the valued tenets of open and honest communication.
Understand the diversity of your audience
“Effective crisis communication tend to consider the diversity of the audiences they will be in contact with after the crisis rather than viewing their audience as one large, homogenous group” (US&S, p.36). The need for organization to be extra-perceptive to audience diversity cannot be overemphasized especially in this century of globalization as technology shrinks the world smaller and smaller and brings together people of different races, values, backgrounds, and business and social culture. Organizations will be committing a faux pa if they give the same treatment to all their stakeholders without taking into consideration how each culture or stakeholder group views/interpret and deal with crisis. While it may be important to adhere to certain standards or organizational policies for consistencies sake, it is advised that policies are modified to suit the host environment.
Discussion points/Questions
1. I am sure we are all aware that all form of communication involves SOME KIND of persuasion. The question then becomes, at what point as a communication practitioner do we cross the line of “two-way symmetrical” communication, which is impossible if the former statement holds true, and persuasion?
2. Does anyone else disagree with US&S’s definition of a partner defined to include “groups that are antagonistic?”
3. Thinking back to the “legitimacy of publics, ” what are the criteria used by crisis communicator to determine which stakeholders are primary and which are secondary, or which publics are to be considered as stakeholders to begin with?
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