The Importance of a Crisis Communication Plan for Government and Non-Government Organizations
Planning for the inevitable, a crisis or emergency, is a practice every organization should employ. As we’ve seen recently with COVID-19, the unthinkable can become thinkable, and planning, strategizing, training, and exercising are essential functions for any organization to successfully weather a crisis or emergency.
While effective communications during a time of crisis can positively reflect on an organization, ineffective communications during a time of crisis or emergency can surely endanger an organization and potentially the lives of an organization’s stakeholders. Ultimately, it is the organization’s responsibility to determine which communication path to take. This is why it is incumbent upon organizations to develop, train and exercise a crisis communications plan.
Four things to consider when building your crisis communication plan:
1. Crisis Decision Making
Stakeholders tend to simplify messages to match their belief system paradigm(s). Communication professionals should evaluate their messaging processes for clarity, conciseness, and relevance to ensure internal and external stakeholders recognize, synthesize, internalize and act on the message(s). During decision making processes, communication professionals should consider both intended and unintended consequences may occur due to underlying organizational and stakeholder issues. Awareness of underlying issues that may impact internal and external stakeholders should be considered.
2. Psychological Factors to Consider
Depending on the incident, psychological considerations can have tremendous impact on individuals and organizations by influencing how they process information. Selecting and structuring communication may vary based on the issue, impact (perceived and real), timeliness, etc., as well as the delivery mechanism, i.e., social media. Communicators should develop messages centered on what stakeholders might do to protect themselves and their families, i.e., call the doctor, check on a neighbor/elderly, etc.
Research by Dr. Vincent Covello, indicates that individuals can process up to three key messages in times of crisis. Use of a message map that can be integrated into your crisis communication plan is suggested to ensure your messages are hitting the mark and that your organization is not adding mental noise by providing information overload.
