Report into BAA’s crisis preparedness is a must-read for reputation protection

Report into BAA’s crisis preparedness is a must-read for reputation protection

The report into Heathrow’s crisis management response to pre-Chrismas snow has just been published. It makes me weep.

Organisations like BAA should not require a major crisis to introduce professional, thorough and up to date crisis management processes. And if these were not in place for an organisation at the very hub of the UK’s infrastructure, then how many other businesses are operating without the requisite crisis preparedness?

Key observations and recommendations in the report include:

The potential impact of bad weather was not fully anticipated - avoid this by conducting a thorough reputational risk assessment which considers the worst case rather than hopes for the best

There was a failure of communication within BAA and with the airlines – work out who your “partners” would be in a crisis and meet with them beforehand to agree how your crisis communication can be clear, consistent and aligned

Crisis management procedures were not clear and required simplification – first off, ensure that crisis management procedures exist and then audit them for clarity and simplicity. Brief them in and test them with desktop exercises and then simulations

Messages to passengers were confused and contradictory – make sure you develop communication channels and approval procedures beforehand. Align messaging with those of your partners.

There was inadequate resource planning – crises demand extraordinary amounts of human resource. Anticpate this and have contingencies in place to add additional people to your normal team.

There was insufficient testing and training of the crisis management processes and team – centuries of experience have shown that being taught a skill and then practising it leads to better performance. Crisis communication is no different

BAA has committed £50 million to implement the recommendations contained in this report. Its chief executive, Colin Matthews, called it “a pivotal moment for the airport and its reputation”.

But BAA doesn’t really need to read this report – its painful experience in December would have been catayst enough for a changed approach to crisis communication. This report is much more relevant to all those organisations who have not suffered a crisis in the last couple of years. So, here’s my heartfelt request: please read the BAA report; please act on it.

There’ll be a number of businesses who fail to do so and we’ll be reading the reports outlining their crisis management learnings in a year’s time. A copy and paste of the BAA version should probably do the trick.

5 steps to online reputation management

As we enter the final five days of our 28 day look at organisations in crisis and issues management mode, it’s clear that online and social media has made a huge difference to the escalation, spread and management of incidents. So what do you need if you want to be geared up for successful reputation managment in an online world? Here are five key elements:

1) Established online relationships and reputation

Just like conventional crisis communication, it’s a massive headstart to have built up relationships and reputation beforehand. It emans that you’re not coming from a standing start in the event of an incident and you will be attuned to the way that social media works.

2) Pre-prepared platforms and channels

Make sure you have defined and created your online crisis communication hub (maybe your existing corporate blog or a darksite) ahead of time. And ensure that other channels such as Twitter are set up and ready to go.

3) Online monitoring

When Dominos was hit by a YouTube crisis last year, one of its main problems was that it failed to identify that a crisis was playing out online until almost too late. Make sure your own early warning systems are working effectively in the online space.

4) Pre-agreed approval processes

The beauty of social media is that it enables you to get messages out quickly to your stakeholders. But only if you have agreed a clear and swift approval process beforehand.

5) Pre-identifed, pre-trained resource

Social media demands frequent and inter-active communication. So make sure you’ve identifed and trained the people who will be responsible for manning these channels before the crisis breaks.

Social media presents both opportunity and threat in crisis management: make sure you’re geared up to minimise the downside and maximise the upside.

Organisations managing on and off line crises and issues today include:

Eurostar: transport; industrial action in Belgium

Dolce & Gabbana: fashion; tax investigation

Pingyu Coal & Electric Company: mining; underground accident

Businesses in crisis management mode to avoid Sunday roasting

Sport, travel and oil – very different businesses, but linked today by the fact that an organisation in each is managing a crisis or issue. It just goes to show that even on a Sunday businesses need to be ready to act quickly to protect their reputation whether from newspaper investigations, pressure group protests or simply poor customer service.

FIFA: sport; corruption allegations

STA: travel/financial services; serious customer service issues

Petroplus: oil; blockade of oil refinery

Calibrate crisis communication response to avoid under – or over – reaction

This 28 day review of organisations in crisis management mode has laid bare the sheer number and diversity of incidents, issues and crises affecting businesses every day of the year. Learning number one from this exercise is that organisations must prepare plans and people beforehand so that they can respond quickly and professionally to protect reputation.

The sheer quantity of crises occurring every day highlights the fact that these are not unusual events. But when the crisis affect you, it all becomes very personal, intense and pressurised. Maintaining perspective, objectivity and calibrating your crisis communication response accordingly is essential to avoid over (as well as under) reacting. Over-react and you can escalate the situation bringing it to the attention of stakeholders previously unaware of it. Under-reaction though is even more dangerous, creating an impression of an oragnisation that doesn’t care , is hiding the facts or has simply failed to get its act together.

Organisations calibrating their crisis and issues management response this weekend include:

Tesco: supermarket; fined after mouse droppings found in store

Severn Trent: utility; burst water main leaves 17,000 homes and businesses without water

LibDems: political party; website hacked

Fraught Friday as three more enter the media spotlight

As we enter the final week of our 28 day review of organisations in crisis management mode, it’s a fraught Friday for the organisations in the spotlight today:

Reckitt Benckhiser: household products; £10.2 million fine from Office of Fair Trading for abuse of market position

John Radcliffe Hospital; health; report recommends that heart surgery should stop at the hospital (recommendation follows previous safety concerns)

London Fire Service; emergency services; firefighters vote for strike action

Effective communication and issues management will be essential for all three if they are to avoid reputational damage.

Chile and BP: altogether different crisis management challenges

As we start to look back on the rescue of the Chilean miners, comparisons are being drawn between the crisis management approach to this incident and that of BP. The inference is that if BP had applied the same crisis management principles as Chile then they would not have suffered such enormous reputational damage. I absolutely endorse the view that Chile managed the rescue well, and BP managed its crisis badly. But to think that it would have been possible to transpose the Chile approach to BP and arrive at a postive outcome is much too simplistic.

Here are 5 reasons why:

1) BP’s crisis involved the deaths of eleven men: no one died in Chile. Imagine that eleven miners had died in the original mining incident: all of a sudden, the story and the crisis management challenge would have been very different.

2) BP’s crisis caused significant and very visible damage to the environment and wildlife: Chile’s caused none. After harm to people, damage to the environment is the second most emotive topic in a crisis. The only damage to the physical environment in Chile was underground.

3) BP’s crisis affected jobs and the economy: Chile’s did not. Whilst 33 Chilean miners have lost their jobs, it seems that there will be many alternative ways for them to make money in future. In the US thousands of ordinary people had their livelihoods threatened by the oil spill.

4) BP’s crisis got worse over time: Chile’s got better. As more and more oil leaked out and the impact became clearer, so BP’s crisis grew. The worst day for Chile was the day of the accident itself: once the miners were known to be safe and well, the news naturally began to get better.

5) The people factor: as any PR or media person will tell you, news is all about people. In BP’s case, the story was of the enormous harm that BP had done to many thousands of people in many different ways. It was by its very nature a negative story about the big company doing bad things to “small people”. In Chile, the people factor was, of course, the 33 miners and the heroic efforts of the rescuers to bring them up alive: it was a good news story of hope and the human spirit. The dynamic of the story was completely different and so the perception of the effectiveness of Chile’s crisis management is very different.

The rescue of the Chilean miners has been one of human endeavour and resilience. The global feelgood factor has relegated issues such as the safety record of the mine, its financial problems and the role of the government in failing to enforce better working conditions to a footnote.

Chile has indeed managed its crisis well. But let’s not pretend that it would have found it quite so easy to turn BP’s crisis into a good news story.

Crisis media training essential for reputation protection

Today’s post about organisations in crisis or issues management mode will be shorter than usual, but for good reason. Today I am media training an organisation’s senior management team in case they ever need to face the media in the event of a crisis. By the end of the day their reputation will be better protected as a result of their experience. Which is very prudent given that one of their competitors featured prominently in one of this month’s postings about organisations in crisis – and their response was less than perfect.

Today’s organisations in the spotlight are:

Quangos: abolition/re-organisation

Nestle: confectionary; criticism over involvement in anti-obesity campaign

Citigroup: financial services; lawsuit alleging sex discrimination