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Corporate Communications Crisis Testing
When any unusual incident takes place within an organization, somebody will end up communicating with the public and the media regarding the incident.
In some organizations there are corporate communications departments that, often in conjunction with outside public relations agencies, are charged with all communications with the outside world. In many organizations, however, it is unclear who exactly should be speaking for the organization in specific circumstances.
Even in organizations with corporate communications departments, and with outside PR agencies, it is common to ignore crises until there is an emergency. This is particularly true in organizations that do not actively pursue vulnerability management. None the less, as infrequent as unusual events may be -- that's why they are called unusual events -- it is better to practice dealing with them before there is a network television news van in your parking lot.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that it is difficult to do crisis communications testing internally. When run by the security department, or the corporate communications department, or the outside agency, the people running the testing are also the people who will be part of solving the problem, and it is very difficult to wear both hats at the same time, to both have full knowledge of the changing details of the crisis and react to them. For this reason, outside help, experienced in dealing with crises and with training, can be invaluable.
Communications issues can be dealt with by a crisis communications team alone, or they can be enlarged and integrated with management, production, and security staff as part of a more comprehensive vulnerability management plan.
The LUBRINCO Group can work with your corporate communications group and outside agency, and with other staff as appropriate, to develop a set of potential problems ranging from moderate to worst case, running from fraud to violence to accident to executive problems to natural disaster. Then, using scenario-based role playing your people can learn to deal with these types of issues, real time, before they happen. This allows development of a cohesive team able to deal with a variety of complex incidents before they occur.
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