Crisis Management and Communication in Organizations
1. Introduction
In the modern changing world a crisis can happen anywhere. It cannot be expected. And Effective Communication is really important when managing a crisis as one mistake done by the Organization can affect the whole Organization itself, its stakeholders and the Industry. It even could threaten public safety, the financial position of the organization and the reputation. It can lead to disruption of operation creating loss of market (W.T Coombs, 2007).
That’s where communication comes in handy as lack of communication between the Society and the Organization can lead to distress, this is the where verbal and non verbal communication is really important. Referring to the case of Dominos pizza (New York Times ,2009), when two employs of the Dominos franchise in Conover, N.C, played a video prank with the food and putting the video on YouTube, the Management waited hoping that it will blow away and that is what went wrong. There was no news from them in the first 24 hrs. Instead of answering the queries of the consumers and the media they waited in the hope that it will cool down which never happened (New York Times, 2009).
In a situation like this it’s really important to face the society and tell them what’s going on, should communicate with them verbally and non verbally or else the society will keep the image of the organization the way they want, good or bad. When in crisis after appointing a spokes person, it’s really important for the spokesperson to be calm and pleasant when confronting the media avoiding nervous habits ensuring the limit of disfluencies such as “umhs” or “uhs”, while avoiding fidgeting and pacing (W.T Coombs,2007).
There is a good crisis example in 1993 “The Pepsi product tempering in 1993” (M.Hubbard,2006).They proved that effective communication in the Organization and effective crisis public relations campaign combining various strategies can rebound the hoax(M.Hubbard,2006). When dealing with media
In the modern changing world a crisis can happen anywhere. It cannot be expected. And Effective Communication is really important when managing a crisis as one mistake done by the Organization can affect the whole Organization itself, its stakeholders and the Industry. It even could threaten public safety, the financial position of the organization and the reputation. It can lead to disruption of operation creating loss of market (W.T Coombs, 2007).
That’s where communication comes in handy as lack of communication between the Society and the Organization can lead to distress, this is the where verbal and non verbal communication is really important. Referring to the case of Dominos pizza (New York Times ,2009), when two employs of the Dominos franchise in Conover, N.C, played a video prank with the food and putting the video on YouTube, the Management waited hoping that it will blow away and that is what went wrong. There was no news from them in the first 24 hrs. Instead of answering the queries of the consumers and the media they waited in the hope that it will cool down which never happened (New York Times, 2009).
In a situation like this it’s really important to face the society and tell them what’s going on, should communicate with them verbally and non verbally or else the society will keep the image of the organization the way they want, good or bad. When in crisis after appointing a spokes person, it’s really important for the spokesperson to be calm and pleasant when confronting the media avoiding nervous habits ensuring the limit of disfluencies such as “umhs” or “uhs”, while avoiding fidgeting and pacing (W.T Coombs,2007).
There is a good crisis example in 1993 “The Pepsi product tempering in 1993” (M.Hubbard,2006).They proved that effective communication in the Organization and effective crisis public relations campaign combining various strategies can rebound the hoax(M.Hubbard,2006). When dealing with media
References: 1 Coombs, W, (2007), Essential Knowledge Project, Available from: , : http://old.instituteforpr.org/essential_knowledge/detail/crisis_management_and_communications/ [Accessed: Apr 4, 2012]. 2 Clifford, S, (2009), New York Times, Available from: , : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html?_r=1 [Accessed: Apr 7, 2012]. 3 Hubbard, M, (2006), Crisis Public Relations,. Available from: , : http://crisispublicrelations.blogspot.com/2006/03/history-lesson-part-ii-diet-pepsi-in.html [Accessed: Apr 8, 2012]. 4 Flandez, R, (2009), Domino’s Response Offers Lessons in Crisis Management, Available from: , : http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2009/04/20/dominos-response-offers-lessons-in-crisis-management/ [Accessed: Apr 3, 2012]. 5 Agnes, M, (2012), Domino’s Pizza: A Look at the Timelessness of a Social Media Crisis Plan, . Available from: , : http://www.melissaagnes.com/dominos-pizza-a-look-at-the-timelessness-of-a-social-media-crisis-plan/ [Accessed: Apr 12, 2012 6 Nowlan, M, (2012), How to save face in business crisis, Available from: , : http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/83710 [Accessed: Apr 8, 2012].