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Well, hello there. And welcome back to my little podcast, less Chatter, More Matter. It's the show full of practical tips to build your comms skills and to build your business, if that's what you keen on. In today's episode, [00:01:00] we're going to start to tackle a really big segment of comms - crisis communication.

Look there, there's absolutely a reason I can run a two-day training course on this topic because there is a lot to cover, a lot to think about. But don't worry. We'll break it down into a few smaller topics over the course of this series. I won't make this a two-day long podcast episode. But before we get into that, though, if you are a subscriber to my 12-month free comms toolkit, then you'll recall back in February that I shared a crisis comms framework with you. So you might want to whip that one out while we're listening to today's episode, just as a refresher. Of course, if you are listening to this while you are driving, don't do that. If you're not yet a subscriber head over to heymelcomms.training/freebies and sign up, you'll get access to the tools I've already shared. So including that crisis comms framework.

And you'll get a nice little gift in your inbox every month up until December this year. [00:02:00] Also, I have a special offer for everyone on this very topic of crisis comms, which I'll mention at the end of this episode. So stay tuned for that. Today, we're going to start with three key principles of crisis communication. These are the principles that no matter how little prepared your organisation is, these principles will help guide your communication when a crisis occurs.

Here's the thing. It is not a matter of if but a matter of when a crisis will come to your doorstep. It's a given, and I think it's worth pausing here to give a quick overview of what a crisis is versus what an issue is and what they can look like. So issues are essentially potential risks to your business. So we're aware that they're there. They could become a crisis. Issues management is a key part of many corporate affairs teams, especially in large organisations that inherently carry a lot of risk and typically have a really big [00:03:00] stakeholder base. So whether that's a lot of customers or a lot of investors, or a lot of families, whatever that looks like. So when an issue arises we work to mitigate it and ensure it doesn't turn into a crisis. So for example, uh, there could be a problem with how a business has been managing customer accounts or how they've been applying award rates to their employees pay.

Hopefully someone picks those up as issues and the company can work to manage them before there's any real damage to stakeholders or the reputation of the business. Now that is not always possible. A crisis can absolutely come out of the blue. But where it is possible, it's good to have people dedicated to raising and managing potential issues.

A crisis is an unchecked issue. Now, again, sometimes these things are out of our control, things like natural disasters, pandemics, or a fire or workplace incident as an example. [00:04:00] We often have very little warning of these things and you know, there's been some really terrible, violent examples of unexpected crises, too, like shootings and those sorts of things.

These are things that can't be managed as issues. They can typically only be managed once they are a crisis. Crises can also be problems that damage an organisation's reputation. So for example, major fraud at a bank, uh, individuals or groups tampering with an organisation's products like we saw with the Tylenol case back in the eighties.

Uh, court cases or public inquiries that bring your business into disrepute. They might also be a social movement that targets your business like the black lives matter, or me too movements. So while those movements are very well warranted, some businesses and individuals who weren't doing the right thing, very rightly found themselves in a crisis or reputational crisis situation.

A very real and very common crisis now is [00:05:00] hacking. So, if you think about just the last 12 to 18 months and some of the biggest businesses in Australia have been hacked and the data of millions of customers stolen or compromised. Companies like Optus and Medibank, for example, they've all experienced these crises.

And then for companies that run predominantly online services, when a platform like Google or Facebook goes into meltdown, that's not only a crisis for these companies, but for your business too, because you can't run your business. So what are you going to do in that situation? I don't want to scare you, because it, yes, it does appear that a lot can go wrong because there is a lot that can go wrong. But if you're aware of the risks and you're well-prepared, then you can confidently navigate a crisis when it does happen. A big part of crisis management is obviously communication. So that's where we're going to focus for obvious reasons. This is a communication podcast.

And as I said, at the [00:06:00] top of the episode, I'm going to focus on just one concept at a time as we explore crisis comms over the life of this podcast. So, if you aren't looking to do any training or you don't want to go any further down that track just yet, then this podcast is going to be a good place for you to start.

And today we're starting at a very high level with three principles of crisis comms you should apply when a crisis occurs. These three principles will ultimately help you achieve the overarching goal of crisis communication. And that is to maintain trust in your business and your leadership. So I'm going to repeat that again, because it's important. The primary goal of crisis communication is to maintain trust.

Trust in your business, trust in your leaders. This is different to crisis management because often the primary goal of crisis management is that's a broader piece is to keep people safe or support stakeholders' wellbeing. [00:07:00] Communication will form a part of that. Absolutely. But the comms goal is usually around the trust piece.

So the three comms principles that you need to apply to achieve your goal are what I call the three T's. Your comms must be timely, thoughtful and transparent. So again, timely, thoughtful, transparent. Let's break that down. Shall we? Okay, so timely. You need to get messages out quickly. Why? Firstly, it means you're in control of the narrative before anyone else weighs in.

You get the first word in and that's the one that people usually remember. Secondly, it shows that you're on top of things, that you're aware of what's going on and you're working to fix it. I mean, can you imagine being an employee and the first you hear about a crisis impacting your business is through the media or Twitter? Yeah. [00:08:00] Or as a customer, the first you hear about a product fault is through a community Facebook group. I kid you not, those are real examples. And it doesn't inspire trust in your organisation. So from the get-go you are on the wrong foot.

Thirdly, and most importantly, if there is any kind of safety risk, you need to communicate immediately. Being timely means there's no option for faffing around with reviews and approvals. Your key sponsors need to know that they can't get caught up on semantics and they have to drop everything else to review the content. This is a big part of prepping your crisis comms plan and training people in how to use it.

But that's a topic for another day.

The second T is thoughtful. So this means showing that you care, your message needs to resonate with people. You need to show empathy and understanding for what they're experiencing. Without empathy, you just won't connect with people. [00:09:00] And if people think you don't care, not only will they not trust you, they'll get angry. Trust me. I've seen it happen.

Again, come back to your primary objective of building and maintaining trust. You simply can't do that if you don't acknowledge the feelings of the people you're talking to. So, for example, imagine you're a customer of a bank whose data has been hacked. Understandably, you might be worried by a lot of things like: will, my hard-earned savings be taken? Will someone rack up a big bill on my credit card now? Will they impersonate me online using my ID details to rack up more bills elsewhere? Do they know where I live now? Like, those are very, very real and understandable fears, right? And if you're that person and the only comms you get from the bank says something like, "we're aware of the issue and we're working to fix it," rather than something like, um, "we understand how worried you must be. We're doing everything we can to resolve this as soon as we [00:10:00] can. And we're so sorry this happened." How would you feel? How much more likely are you to crack it deluxe on social media if you received the first message where there don't even say sorry, versus the second message where not only do they apologise, but they also show empathy, they show understanding? So being thoughtful will go a long way to maintaining that trust and reducing the risk of further issues. It's also the best way to build trust in individual leaders and help people feel comfortable in knowing the leaders of your business have their backs, so to speak.

The third T is transparency. Now, this is super important for a few reasons. Number one, if there is any risk to anyone's safety, wellbeing, or even their data, you need to be transparent so they can put mitigation in place to protect themselves as well. So think about that data breach, right. You need to be transparent about that. [00:11:00] So people can go in and change passwords, cancel cards, all those sorts of things.

It's their first line of defense. So absolutely need to be timely in order for people to be safe and well.

Lying or being intentionally vague, never works. Never, ever, ever. People see right through that crap. You will always get found out. It is just a matter of when. And if people know you're not telling the truth or you're fudging the facts or even just hiding information, you will hear about it. Things will only get worse. So being transparent is absolutely important in order for people to maintain that trust again.

The third reason that transparency is so important is that it's also an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise. So you can be really open about what you're doing to fix the problem. You can show how you have your smartest brains working [00:12:00] on the solution and take people on that journey with you. A really good example of this, um, is the comms followed the explosion at the Callide power station in central Queensland a few years back.

So just to do a quick Google for Callide power station. Go back through their media releases from that time, they're all on the website still, again, being very open, nothing hidden, nothing's disappeared. And you'll see, not only a great example of timely comms immediately after the incident itself, but also examples of them demonstrating their expertise as they worked to rectify the issue as well.

So there's loads of examples out there, but that's a really nice one that, um, I use in my own training, actually, as an example of what to do from a comms perspective. So to recap on today's episode, here are your key takeaways. Number one, an issue is a crisis that hasn't happened yet and can potentially be mitigated.

A crisis as on the other hand is anything that is negatively impacting your [00:13:00] business, including your stakeholders and your reputation. It's an issue that has been left unchecked. The goal of crisis comes is to maintain and rebuild trust in your business and in your leaders. And the three key principles of crisis communication you should remember are: timeliness, thoughtfulness and transparency. You can apply these principles to any type or size of crisis and they will lead you in the right direction. Even if you don't yet have a crisis comms plan in place. Now of course, the best way to manage a crisis is to be prepared for one.

So here's that special deal I was talking about.

I've run a lot of crisis training, crisis comms training. But I'm switching up the format. I've redesigned the training into a more accessible format. So introducing drum roll... the Crisis Comms Bootcamp! For five days in May you'll attend a [00:14:00] one-hour webinar each day so you can join from wherever you are. You'll get all the tools and templates you need And dedicated Q and A time with me.

And at the end of the five days you'll have a kickstart on creating a crisis comms plan for your business.

Now here's the deal: This is a beta test of this type of training so because of that i'm offering it at a significantly reduced cost. What I ask for in return is your participation and of course your feedback. Now there's only about eight spots left at the time of recording this so if you'd like to take advantage of this offer head to heymelcomms.Training and click on the link to training. Follow the links and you'll be on your way or just shoot me an email or DM me.

Phew okay I know that was a lot to cover so thanks for hanging in there and I really hope you got some inspiration to start your own crisis comms plan. As always thank you for your support of the show it does mean the world to me and if you have [00:15:00] any questions or ideas shoot them through. And of course please take just two seconds to rate, review and subscribe to the show it makes this all worthwhile because I get to continue sharing this content with you and with many others. That's it for today, keep doing amazing things, see you next week