Coombs Chapter 6 – Crisis Recognition

One of the most important questions this chapter answered was: when does a situation become a crisis.

Coombs provided a simple response: a situation becomes a crisis when key stakeholders agree that it is. However, this answer is more complicated than it sounds – sometimes managers or people in the dominant coalition of an organization may not agree that a situation is a crisis, and the crisis management team or the public relations practitioner might have to make them accept that the organization is involved in a crisis. So it is true: a crisis is a crisis when key stakeholders accept is as such.

And crisis managers or the crisis team might need to sell the crisis to the managers in order to take action, however, the issue is how do you sell a crisis?
Crisis Framing is a strategy which crisis managers can use to sell the crisis to the dominant coalition. Crisis framing contains three important dimensions that need emphasis: crisis dimensions, the expertise of the dominant coalition, and the persuasiveness of the crisis framing argument or presentation.
Crisis dimensions include perceived importance, immediacy, and uncertainty. The importance of the crisis depends on value of the possible loss (impact of crisis) and the probability of the loss (likelihood). Immediacy involves time pressure, how quickly the crisis will hit and the amount of stakeholder pressure to take action. Uncertainty is the amount of ambiguity associated with the crisis situation and the potential results.
Expertise of the dominant coalition should be considered when framing a crisis. Using the dominant coalition’s jargon might be a strategy to use when trying to sell them the crisis. Persuasiveness of the crisis presentation is important for the acceptance of the crisis. The crisis presentation needs to include credibility, emotion and reason in order to persuade the dominant coalition.
Resistance to crisis is one of the challenges crisis managers or public relations practitioner face when trying to make the dominant coalition accept that the organization is involved in a crisis. Crisis managers need to consider all stakeholder groups’ arguments about a crisis and try to determine if other stakeholder groups will perceive the situation also as a crisis.

I understand that to sell a crisis for dominant coalition is important because it can give crisis managers the power to handle the situation proactively. This was an important point that crisis managers should keep in mind in their practice. On the other hand, I also think that crisis managers’ acute judgment about the situation is more important than selling the crisis to dominant crisis. If crisis managers’ judgment was not accurate and cause confusion to stakeholders, it can cause another problem. The book mentioned challenges and rumors as two crisis types in which contrasting interpretations abound. Therefore, crisis managers’ considerate sense is also needed significantly.