Crisis Communication

If the af­fected or­gan­iz­a­tion is not ready to speak im­me­di­ately after an event oc­curs, it of­fers plenty of room for spec­u­la­tion. This is the breed­ing ground for ru­mors, blame and sus­pi­cion.

"Guilty to the Proof of the Con­verse" - this re­versal of the rule of law jur­ist­ic prin­ciple is often found in the media cov­er­age until the final cla­ri­fic­a­tion of the facts. This is all the more true, if those re­spons­ible "wall" or with the state­ment "no com­ment" in front of the press

Ru­mors and spec­u­la­tions can only be countered with timely in­form­a­tion. This ap­plies in­tern­ally to our own em­ploy­ees as well as ex­tern­ally to a wide range of stake­hold­ers. It is cru­cial for crises that the in­sti­tu­tion is ready to speak with­in a very short time after the event, sig­nals open­ness and trans­par­ency to the media and un­con­di­tion­al co­oper­a­tion with the re­spons­ible au­thor­it­ies.

So that com­mu­nic­a­tion does not end in crisis, it does not mat­ter what has happened, but how to deal with the event and its con­sequences: show­ing that the situ­ation has been iden­ti­fied and cared for, edu­ca­tion is being sought, and the au­thor­it­ies are sup­port­ing it who re­view their own se­cur­ity con­cepts and en­sure that sim­il­ar in­cid­ents can not be re­peated at human dis­cre­tion. Cred­ib­il­ity and trust - oth­er­wise you run the risk that the built up over many years pos­it­ive image of the or­gan­iz­a­tion and the repu­ta­tion of those re­spons­ible in the shortest time com­pletely des­troyed.

The acute crisis is then fol­lowed by the far great­er crisis - the crisis of com­mu­nic­a­tion or trust with un­fore­see­able con­sequences.