Monthly Archives: June 2009

Crisis Management Guidance

Published on 29th June 2009 by . Leave a Comment

Every crisis management expert has their own guiding tenets – principles and ideas they use to shape their strategies and responses. Leadership coach Dan Greer today shared some advice gleaned from legendary GE PR man Jack Welch’s book “Winning,” on his top five guiding assumptions. One of my favorites:

There are no secrets in the world, and everyone will eventually find out everything—Information that you try to shut down will eventually get out, and as it travels, it will certainly morph, twist and darken. The only way to prevent that is to expose the problem yourself and tell the truth.

Transparency is the name of the game these days. Between traditional journalists and the new breed of I-Reporters brought about by the Internet era, nothing stays secret for long.

The next is Welch’s most positive assumption:

The organization will survive, ultimately stronger for what happened—There is not a crisis you cannot learn from, even though you hate every one of them. After a crisis is over the tendency is to put it away in a drawer. Don’t, teach its lessons every chance you get.

Strong organizations find ways to use crises to better themselves; even in the worst situations there are opportunities to be seized.

JB

Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

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Crisis Simulation

Published on 27th June 2009 by . Leave a Comment

One of the best ways to learn how to handle a crisis is to simulate it. This way, you can identify gaps in crisis preparedness and work to close them before a real event occurs. To this end, the Kansas Emergency Management Agency has built “Crisis City,” a serious staging ground for some hands-on crisis management training. A Chicago Tribune article describes the facility:

Crisis City covers 40 acres and was built by the Kansas Emergency Management Agency near the Smoky Hill Air National Guard Weapons Range, with $9 million in state funds and $30 million in federal…In the coming years, there will be venues at Crisis City for responding to agriculture accidents, a permanent rubble pile, vertical tower, urban village and tanker truck.

Although it certainly helps, you don’t need a facility worth $40 million to walk through crisis management simulations. One your organization has crisis communications and business continuity plans, putting your plans to the test should be a no-brainer.

JB

Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

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Solving Online Crises

Published on 26th June 2009 by . Leave a Comment

In allowing people to easily make their opinions extremely public, the Internet has created an entirely new type of crisis management. The problem with this is that many execs, secure in their ways, have a hard time taking this to heart. The latest Crisis Manager features an article by guest author Will Critchlow, online reputation management expert, who shares the critical elements he uses to choose response strategies and hammer home their importance.

The board wanted to know what was being said. The corporate communications guys wanted to know what was being said. But they couldn’t read it all – there was a large volume of discussion and they had important decisions to make.

Often, the people in charge don’t have time to sift through the discussion. They need to know which information is important, and what your crisis response plan is, as fast as possible.

JB

Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

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Surviving Attacks

Published on 25th June 2009 by . Leave a Comment

Penny Sansaveieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. In the latest Crisis Manager newsletter, she shares with us how to survive an online attack on your reputation.

With all the ways to get media these days, you want to know what people are saying about you. Keeping track of the conversation will not only help you ward off an attack if one should ensue, but it will help you get to know the people who are important to your message.

Her article is full of crisis management strategy for the online arena, including tips on relationship building, word choice and making your voice heard. With more and more people using the web to voice their opinions, Internet reputation management should be a daily task.

JB

Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

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All New Crisis Manager

Published on 23rd June 2009 by . Leave a Comment

We’ve just finished uploading a new issue of the Crisis Manager newsletter to the website! Thanks to feedback from you, the readers, our focus on online crisis management continues in this issue. As usual, the main features are a couple of articles from some incredibly talented guest writers. Our first piece is a great guide to surviving an online attack on your reputation, written by marketing CEO and internationally acclaimed author Penny Sansevieri. In our second, Will Critchlow, director of London-based online reputation management specialists Distilled, shares some tricks of the trade used to monitor and respond to breaking Internet crises before they get out of control.

Want to have Crisis Manager delivered straight to your inbox? All you have to do is click here!

JB

Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

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