By Todd Von Deak and Brendon Shank
As association and nonprofit leaders, we are under near-constant pressure to improve the metrics that end up in board reports and performance dashboards. So it’s understandable that we focus on revenue drivers rather than a crisis our leadership doesn’t believe will ever happen.
The truth is, most organizations do experience a crisis at some point, and those that are prepared cannot only survive, but will thrive.
Richard Levick, president and CEO of Levick Strategic Communications, said it best: "Every second counts. Stakeholders are demanding new levels of transparency and accountability. Every company is or will be in crisis. Those that answer the call transform crisis into opportunity. Those that don’t risk everything."
Define Crisis
In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to rationalize away a crisis. If you do, odds are the crisis will escalate before you look up. That’s why the best professionals get their leadership to agree on the general definition of a crisis well before one happens.
For example, a medical society found itself in the midst of a crisis when it received a phone call from a national media outlet about the organization being named in a governmental investigative report. Fortunately, they understood that that crisis wasn’t the article itself; the article was an indicator that the organization was in danger on numerous fronts.
Tomorrow: Initiate a dialog with colleagues and executive staff to define what a crisis would look like in your organization. Look past the bad article to consider things like brand reputation, revenue, and membership satisfaction as possible indicators of a crisis.
Don’t Neglect the Signs
Once you have established or validated your definition of a crisis, make sure you are set up to monitor potential problem areas on a regular basis.
Tomorrow: Take a look at your listening posts to make sure you are getting the information you need to spot a crisis before it blows up. Spend time talking with colleagues in other departments to better understand the data they regularly gather. Could existing reports be re-purposed as monitoring tools for the communications group? You’ll get new intelligence, and your colleagues will be excited to see their hard work used in a new way.
Be Prepared
The actions you take long before a crisis will significantly impact how you come out of the crisis and whether you thrive or simply survive. Build a bank account of trust when times are good, and you’ll have good options come crunch time.
Tomorrow: Think about where your association may be vulnerable. For medical societies, for example, the vulnerability may center on how the public perceives your relationship with industry partners. Once you’ve identified the vulnerabilities, ask yourself whether or not your organization is a positive example of how to conduct business and what else you might do to be seen as a leader on the subject.
Whether you’re a medical society or a manufacturing trade association, it’s not enough to join a third-party organization with a strong code of conduct. Make sure to audit yourself against that code to make sure that you are walking the walk of a strong corporate citizen. Do that, and you will have a compelling story to tell when the media calls.
After you’ve identified your vulnerabilities and taken steps to strengthen your story, make sure you have the basics covered. They include:
- Identifying your crisis management team and making sure the members know they are on it;
- Mapping out how you will handle the first 24 hours of a crisis with members of your team; and
- Having bridging messages ready to go (e.g., "We are aware of the concern raised by X and are actively looking into it. We will have additional comments as soon as we have the facts in hand.).
Obviously, these three things are not a roadmap to help you navigate the tactical decisions inherent in a crisis. But they will put you in a much better position to handle the peaks and valleys that come from being in the media spotlight.
Todd Von Deak is the owner of TVD Associates (www.toddvondeak.com), specializing in helping associations overcome membership and marketing challenges. Brendon Shank is associate vice president of communications at the Society of Hospital Medicine. He blogs at http://brendonshank.com.