Your Inevitable Next Organizational Crisis: What It Will Be and How to Respond

Face it: odds are quite good that there is an organizational crisis in your future. If you’re not worried yet, then here are a few likely scenarios to keep you awake at night:

• If your headquarters is anywhere near an earthquake zone, seawater, or parched vegetation, chances are you’ll be a victim of some sort of a climate-derived crisis.
• If you have women and men in your workforce, there’s a 38% chance that the women have experienced sexual harassment.
• If you have an office or plant in the U.S., given the ratio of guns to people and the proliferation of hate speech and violence, the odds are good that you will deal with work-place violence.
• If your CEO has any combination of ego, big mouth, unbridled libido, or political ambition, chances are you will face a self-inflicted organizational crisis.
• You might even find yourself fending off competitors’ attacks from fake social media accounts produced by Polish troll farms.

According to Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) there are three basic types of organizational crisis:

1. Victim Crisis—when your organization is perceived to be a victim of the crisis.
2. Accidental Crisis—when your organization is perceived to be at fault, but the action was unintentional.
3. Preventable Crisis—when your organization makes a decision or takes an action that caused the crisis.

SCCT recommends a variety of crisis responses, based on the situation. The bad news is that most of those probably won’t work anymore, thanks to the cynicism and skepticism of today’s audiences. So not only are your odds of facing an organizational crisis increasing, but your bag of tricks for dealing with that crisis may come up empty.

What’s a conscientious crisis communicator to do? Below we offer some suggestions for effective responses, and also some ways to avoid shooting yourself in the foot. Take heed and be prepared.

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Thanks to wolfblur on Pixabay for the image.