By: Brett St. Clair, APR, Western Skyline Marketing & Communication

Across the nation (and the world) both governments and private and public sector organizations are scrambling to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the request of Maureen Leif, a board member of the Western Intergovernmental Child Support Engagement Council, I recently led an online workshop for WICSEC members on crisis communication strategy in an effort to help them in their response to the coronavirus pandemic.

As background, I am an accredited public relations practitioner with more than 25 years of experience working with clients in a broad range of industries including private sector, government and nonprofit organizations. I’ve helped my clients develop crisis plans and respond effectively to crises, and I’ve taught crisis communication management as part of my professional association’s accreditation program.

I’m currently helping one of my clients—a continuing care retirement community on Long Island with more than 500 residents—that unfortunately last week began to have several of its residents test positive for COVID-19.

Here are a few key points. I outline more in my presentation which is available on the WICSEC website. Details on that below.

1. IF YOU DON’T HAVE A PLAN, THEN YOUR PLAN IS TO INNOVATE

First, an important definition: crisis communication is very good communication done very quickly.

Crisis Communication is good communication done very quickly

By good communication I mean clear, concise, accurate messaging to your key audiences through the best communication channels that you have at your disposal.

Your best shot at being able to communicate effectively and quickly is to have a plan and protocols developed in advance. Your plan is best developed by visualizing scenarios that could seriously disrupt your normal business operations and figuring out in advance how your organization would best handle those.

“Your goal is to maintain their confidence in your ability to continue to meet their needs. ”

Then (again, in advance) develop a framework for what you’ll say and how you are going to communicate that to your key stakeholders. Your goal is to maintain their confidence in your ability to continue to meet their needs.

The more you can figure this out in advance, the more effective you’ll be when your ship hits an iceberg. You can always fine tune your plan and messaging more quickly than you can develop it from scratch.

So what’s plan B?

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Just like most of us know we should eat a little better and get more exercise—but somehow we don’t—most organizations don’t have a crisis communication plan in place for when something goes sideways.

But here’s a positive thought. I was listening to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air recently. Her guest was outlining why some countries have been better at responding to the coronavirus pandemic than others. It basically comes down to culture.

Countries that live, as he put it, “in the shadow of war” like South Korea, Taiwan and Israel, are constantly under threat. So to act decisively (for example, to close their borders and order their citizens to stay home) is no big reach for their leaders and their citizens, are culturally conditioned to follow instructions in a crisis.

Terry’s guest then went on to say that our problem in the United States is that we keep getting “sucker punched.” He used Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and a slow national response to this pandemic as examples. And we are not culturally inclined to be rule followers, even in a crisis.

However, he noted, our strength is that after getting hit, once we know what needs to be done, we are exceptionally good at innovating and getting that stuff done effectively.

So, if your agency kinda got sucker punched by the pandemic and you don’t have a crisis plan, you are Americans, right? So start innovating.

2. ESTABLISH A CRISIS TEAM

If you don’t have one, establish a crisis response team comprised of key leaders in your organization. Given the current closure of offices and disruption of normal work routines, you should include HR representation on this team. Make sure you also include representation of your caseworkers and other employees who are closest to your customers.

If crisis communication is very good communication done very quickly, then crisis management is very good decision making done very quickly. Ideally, once the initial bleeding has been stopped, you’ll anticipate other problems you know will surface and will then troubleshoot those ahead of time.

Your most important audience?

It’s always your employees.

Your crisis response team’s most important responsibility is to identify problems your caseworkers and other front-line employees are having in answering your customers’ questions and meeting their needs. It’s leadership’s job to use your organization’s resources to get those problems solved. Period.

Avoid surprises

Make sure you tell your employees first about any new developments or changes in procedures. Then roll out that information sequentially to other key stakeholders like customers or agency partners in order of importance.

3. ASK “HOW CAN I HELP?”

As you know, the Hippocratic Oath taken by physicians states, “First, do no harm.” That’s a good motto for your crisis team too.

A friend (who is also my primary care doc) recently reposted a Facebook essay from pandemic front-line emergency room physician Josh Lerner, MD which sums up the importance of making sure your plan and your response are relevant.

Lerner said, “I don't want talk. I don't want assurances. I want action . . . I want non-clinical administrators in the hospital lining up in the ER asking if they can stock shelves to make sure that when I need to rush into a room, the drawer of PPE equipment I open isn't empty. I want them showing up in the ER asking ‘how can I help’ instead of offering shallow ‘plans’ conceived by someone who has spent far too long in an ivory tower and not long enough in the trenches. Maybe they should actually step foot in the trenches.”

Obviously, your front-line employees are not facing the same level of risk as Dr. Lerner is, but the point is the same.

4. ELIMINATE BOTTLENECKS

Dealing with this pandemic effectively requires speed. Be on the lookout for members of your team who are beginning to slip underwater because their voicemail, email, and text message boxes are filling up so fast they can’t keep up with the decisions they need to make or the information requests they need to respond to.

Establish a norm that it is okay for people in that situation to ask for help and figure out a way to get it for them. Bottlenecks and delays in decision making are always a problem, but they are a killer now. Be quick.

The old maxim “A good plan today is worth a great plan tomorrow” is especially apropos now. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

5. USE PEOPLE’S TIME TO MAX ADVANTAGE

While we are on the subject of bottlenecks, make a special effort to use people’s time effectively. Anyone who has operational responsibilities in this situation is already highly stressed and short on time. There are not enough hours in a day to keep up.

Don’t waste any of those by making them attend a meeting in which 50% of the time spent, or 50% of the meeting agenda, is irrelevant to them and is not going to help them solve their immediate problems.

Work expands to fill the time allowed to do it. Most of your meetings run an hour? Try cutting them to 30 minutes. Or cover the stuff that your operationally-oriented team members need to give input on first, and then excuse them from the meeting once their time is better spent elsewhere. If they missed anything important, someone can fill them in later (usually in about 2 minutes).

6. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO OVER-COMMUNICATE

In these situations the problem is always under-communication. If you don’t give people good information they fill that void by making up their own information. And the stuff they make up is never helpful to you. It just makes the hole you are trying to dig yourself out of deeper.

Finally, don’t be afraid to say, “We don’t know yet.” Follow that up with, “But we’ll tell you as soon as we do know.” And then deliver on it. (Simple, but it really works.)

For more detail

I outlined specific crisis communication strategies and tactics in the workshop I led recently for WICSEC and my slide deck and the recording of the presentation are available on the WICSEC website. For more information on how we can help you draft a Communication Plan/Crisis Communication Plan, or for the possibility of a free half hour consultation, please contact us!

COMMUNICATING IN A CRISIS - Six tips to help you and other public sector leaders do this effectively