Are You Ready for a Crisis?
This week …
Are you prepared for a crisis? Here is a check list.
What the what with the Kyte Baby Controversy?
Mailchimp rated the 'skimmability' of my last newsletter as 0 out of 3. Yeah, so, I am playing with length. I am curious if we are getting so brief, we aren’t saying anything? Feedback welcome.
Crisis Communications Planning Checklist
In today's unpredictable world, preparing for a crisis is essential for any organization. A Crisis Communications Plan is vital, offering a guide to not only handle crises but also to recover effectively. This article provides questions — in the form of a metaphor — to encourage a review of your plan, tools, strategies, insights, and philosophy to standardize procedures and incorporate best practices.
Crisis Management Plan: Questions Checklist
Review your current crisis communications plans through my Crisis Communications metaphor:
TEFLON
Definition: To withstand criticism or attack with no apparent effect.
T - Team
E - Education
F - Functions
L - Leadership
O - Objectives
N - Network
TEAM
Who are the members of your crisis communications team?
Form, train, and maintain a Crisis Management Team
Define Roles: fact-gathering, official spokesperson/s, key stakeholder communication, media relations, media monitoring and social media listening etc.
Develop a comprehensive contact list for the Crisis Management Team and senior leadership, including work, mobile, and home phone numbers, as well as email addresses. Ensure each team member adds these contacts to their primary phones.
Do you have a relationship with a Crisis Communications Consultant?
When a crisis hits, you need a trusted and experienced colleague to call and get immediate support.
EDUCATION
What is a Crisis?
A crisis is an unplanned event impacting normal operations with potential for significant consequences.
What are Crisis Categories?
Disaster (Weather, accident)
Issues Management (Focuses on the present, addressing current or imminent issues. Proactive approach to prevent issues from escalating into crises.)
Risk Management (Forward-looking perspective, focusing on what could happen in the future. Minimize the probability and impact of adverse events. Proactively anticipate and reduce uncertainties that could harm the organization.)
Reputation Management (Actively build and maintain an authentic and positive public image that aligns with the organization's values and goals. When the time comes, handle negative perceptions or events that place the organization at risk.)
Health and Safety (injury, loss of life)
Organizational (leadership decisions, work culture, incompetence)
Other (Always be alert to any situation that can escalate into a public-facing crisis.)
What are the Phases of a Crisis?
According to Timothy Coombs and Sherry Holladay in The Handbook of Crisis Communication, you are always in one of three phases of crisis:
Pre-Crisis Phase
In the pre-crisis phase, crisis communication concentrates on locating and reducing risk.
Crisis Response Phase
In the crisis response phase, the “how” and “what” an organization communicates has a significant effect on the outcomes of the crisis including the number of injuries and the amount of reputational damage sustained by the organization.
Post-Crisis Phase
Post-crisis communication covers the time period after a crisis is considered to be resolved but managing the effects of the crisis continue.
FUNCTIONS
What are the main organizational functions of handling a crisis?:
Small to Midsize Organizations:
An Emergency Preparedness Plan is the organization’s playbook for what to do in different types of emergencies, focusing on actions like evacuation, shelter in place, and safety procedures.
A Crisis Communications Plan, usually integrated within the Emergency Preparedness Plan or as a complementary document, is about the responsibility and process to pull together the team, fully understand the crisis, determine a plan to inform key audiences, like employees, the board of directors, donors, the public, and the media, focusing on sharing accurate and authentic information, maintaining trust, and managing the organization's reputation by showing your organization’s mission and values in action.
Large Organizations:
Large organizations that are directly involved in public safety and emergency response should also have an Incident Command System (ICS). An ICS is like a special team that handles the immediate response to big emergencies. Some crises are not large enough to trigger the use of an ICS.
LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY
Develop a leadership philosophy that guides all decisions in a crisis. Examples include:
Guard organization’s integrity
Show your mission in action
Everyone is a Chief Reputation Officer
Leave nothing to chance
OBJECTIVES
What are your objectives in a crisis? Pre-plan and prepare accordingly. Examples include:
Protection Priorities:
Focus on people, and then property, reputation, and operations.
Communication Culture:
Build trust and credibility in communications – internally and externally.
Ensure the organization has well-established and well-utilized digital channels (Website, social media channel/s, way to reach all employees etc.)
Prioritize sharing information on the organization’s formal channels to reduce misinformation and to eliminate reliance on informal channels (word of mouth from one employee to another).
Ensure consistent communication across the organization.
Official spokesperson/s handle all communications.
Media Relations
Proactively establish effective media relationships
Be available to the media
Templates
Think through all of the various scenarios that could occur, and build out templates for official statements.
NETWORK
In crisis communications management, a connected network of internal and external audiences is crucial for effective information flow and coordinated action. Examples include:
Identify all Key Contacts: Who are they? Where are they? How do you get a hold of them quickly?
Build Relationships: Continuously cultivate and strengthen relationships within your network to ensure trust and collaboration during crises.
Post-Crisis Analysis: Engage your network after the crisis to gather insights and lessons learned, strengthening future response strategies.
If you are missing any of the actions on the checklist, find time to add this to an agenda this week! Ensure your organization’s Crisis Communications Plan is in place, trained on, and ready for effective crisis communications management.
If you are interested in a one-day Crisis Communications Workshop, please send me an email: erin@claritychannels.com.
The Message Microscope
Yikes: The Kyte Baby Controversy
The Background
Kyte Baby, a woman-owned baby clothes company, faces backlash the past week after its CEO, Ying Liu, denied a remote work request from an employee, Marissa Hughes, whose baby was in neonatal intensive care.
Hughes, a marketing employee at Kyte Baby, requested to work remotely due to her adopted baby's critical health condition. This request was originally accepted, and then denied, with the company suggesting Hughes should resign.
A Hughes family member started a Go Fund me page to support the family, and the story came out.
Liu made two public apologies on TikTok, acknowledging her initial insensitivity. Neither attempt #1 nor attempt #2 helped decrease the public outrage about the treatment of Hughes, particularly from an infant clothing company.
The Message
Both of Liu’s “apology” videos on TikTok were filled with actions and language that made the ongoing incident worse, not better for the CEO and company. Here are some highlights:
Starting from Behind:
As Liu released her initial apology video, the rapid pace at which the news and public reactions were unfolding was evident. It was crucial for her initial public address to not only acknowledge the situation swiftly but also to effectively establish a positive direction for the recovery process, particularly for the impacted employee.
Liu had a lot of responsibilities in order to establish crisis recovery including:
Acknowledge the situation (sincerely)
Express (believeable) concern and empathy
Restore trust (quickly)
Outline immediate actions (to make things right)
Own the errors (clearly without excuses or legalese)
Too Scripted:
It’s good to be prepared, and yes scripted with key points, on a public statement. But there is a risk of being too scripted and appearing inauthentic. In video #1, Liu stiffly read what appeared to be a written script with her eyes darting from left to right with language that sounded legal.
In her second video, Liu went too far the other way: she “went off script” and didn’t seem to have a handle on why apology #1 hadn’t gone so well.
Insensitive language:
“We treat biological and non biological parents equally.”
The term ‘non biological parents' alienated some adoptive, step-, and foster parents.
"We treat all parents equally" would have solved this slight and embraced all forms of parenthood without unneeded distinction.
Signs of Micromanagement:
According to Liu, she denied the request to let Hughes work remotely— after — Hughes had been told something could be worked out. Then, Hughes was encouraged to resign. The whipsaw changes in the plan, with a mom in crisis, seem to point to either micromanagement or a work culture that has communications challenges and a disconnect from the company’s purpose to “care about people.”
The Microscope
Here is analysis — and consequences — straight from the comments section of the company’s TikTok page:
Lack of Sincerity in Apology:
"I like how your lawyer prepared that statement. So sincere."
"So insincere. We bought SO much kyte baby for our first and will NOT for our second or third."
"So disheartened by this. You made this statement bc you’re under heat…not bc you’re sorry."
"This literally feels like a kidnapping ransom video 🙄"
Delayed Response and Motivation:
"She communicated to you the situation and it took the public finding out for you to try to make it right. This is a statement out of fear."
"Too little, too late. You're done."
Concerns About Company Practices and Ethics:
"Non biological parent! Seriously as an adoptive mom that hurt! 🥺"
"What’s gonna happen when it’s an employee who doesn’t have a good social media presence and is working in the warehouse?"
"You have two work from home positions on your website right now. Was she offered either of those?"
Call for Genuine Action and Repair:
"Ying, mama to mama, human to human, there’s much more you can do. Repair is with actions, not words."
Customer Disappointment and Shift to Competitors:
"SIGH ✨places order from Kate Quinn✨"
Hughes told Today she will not return to Kyte Baby. As she put it, "I don't think that's a healthy work environment for me."
I’d love to know if Kyte Baby worked with a crisis communications consultant? Lots to study on this incident!
Sight Delight
While enjoying a meal at Lola's on Dodge Street with Hank Robinson from Full Value Agriculture Powered by Aksarben, our discussion about Nebraska's leadership in agricultural innovation took an amusing turn when we noticed Hank's cornbread was shaped like … Nebraska.
