When crises arise

Most crises are within the following categories:

· Product: bad press, recall

· Personnel: labor conflict, racial/sexual suits

· Financial: sales failure, theft

· Natural disaster: floods, earthquakes

· Legal: litigation, regulatory action

· Violence: terrorism, sabotage, kidnapping, workplace acts

· Accidents: employee, customer, executives.

Crisis Management Stages

Before – focus on readiness, do your homework, anticipate, diagnose, develop a plan, and train your staff.

During – get back to normal a quickly as possible through intensive coordination, communication, and monitoring.

After – Assess damage: Plan for the future: Learn from your mistakes, and refocus.

Crisis Management Plan

· Assess your risk and prepare a list of who will have and who will need information in any crisis situation.

o You won’t be able to predict crises, but you can anticipate the most likely to occur.

o You and your colleagues already know many of the things that could go wrong causing a crisis situation. Use these thoughts to begin your list.

o When making your list of who will have information, realize that for the different scenarios, different people will be the ones with the information. Your CFO won’t have any information regarding an earthquake.

· Create a Risk Management Team and Plan; review the plan every 6 months

· Have two to three people who are trained in media relations ready to handle speaking with the media

o DO NOT put anyone in front of the camera who isn’t trained!

· When a crisis occurs, deal with it head-on! Don’t hide out. Quickly and openly deal with the crisis and the media so the public and your members will trust you.

· Make sure you have all of the facts

o Pre-assign two or three gophers to gather information. The designated spokesperson will be too busy to gather information.

· Respond to every media question.

o Get back to the press every 10 minutes during a crisis.

· Carry with you the local news radio station's Hotline news phone number.

Follow these rules when deciding whether the disclosure of bad news is needed:

· The more you want to withhold a piece of information, the more likely it is you need to disclose it.

· The more people will care, the more important it is to disclose.

· The more time it takes for you to make all the bad news public and fix the problem, the more you’ll ultimately have to pay to put the problem behind you.

· The more times the news media pull information from you that keeps the story alive for another news cycle, the more damage to your reputation.

When disclosing the information remember to:

· Show concern

· Stay calm and courteous at all times

· Set up a communications center

· Use your Web site to disseminate information quickly

· Monitor news coverage

· Use layman’s terminology

· Communicate with employees directly

· Never say, “No comment”

· Don’t speculate; never say more than you know or can confirm

· Don’t discuss cause or fault

· Remember that media lives for a crisis

· Direct legal inquiries to legal counsel

Review how-to sections:

Press Conference Checklist

Public speaking tips

Rules when speaking to the media

Sources

The Ohio Credit Union League is a state trade association whose mission is to foster
the success of credit unions, and the credit union philosophy, in Ohio.

e-mail the Ohio Credit Union System
The Ohio Credit Union League,
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Phone: (614) 336-2894, (800) 486-2917, Fax: (614) 336-2895
© 2003 The Ohio Credit Union League