5 Critical Crisis Management Skills
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When a crisis happens, companies in the greater Los Angeles area often look to a California public relations agency to manage the situation promptly and professionally.
Managing difficult situations after a crisis arises demands providing expert communication with media, government entities, customers, and company employees when a sticky situation arises. To handle any crisis properly, businesses must possess the following five critical management skills.
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5 Essential Crisis Management Skills To Handle Situations Well
Anticipate
The first rule for Los Angeles Public Relations agencies is to be honest about the facts and to anticipate what’s to come when a crisis occurs. This means that you have to be mentally prepared, keep calm, and effectively relay your communications plan to the entire team and all stakeholders.
Initially managing their anxiety and being the voice of leadership and reason will calm the situation. Avoid being reactive or blaming others for the mistake. Also, be humble. An arrogant attitude can be extremely toxic in a crisis and won’t be conducive to solving the problem.
You need to anticipate what the media response will be ahead of time and favor a logical, analytical approach instead of being emotional. In doing so, you will prevent misinformation . You can establish the narrative before the media has a chance to run away with the story.
Communicate
The ability to communicate clearly, especially when dealing with a crisis, is a skill that can only be mastered over time. This includes being able to communicate with your employees as well as customers and the general public.
When a crisis arises, you need to communicate clearly, concisely, and in a timely manner. This helps to prevent panic and provide pertinent information to all the parties that need it.
Not communicating with all the people that will be affected by a crisis, will likely lead others to come to their own conclusions. This is never a good thing when trying to contain the situation.
Make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to new developments. Release internal communication before anything is announced to the public. Finally, make sure that you provide everyone with updated action plans.
Listen
Before jumping headfirst into managing a crisis, it is important that the public relations agency you hired fully understand the crisis at hand. This means that you have to be willing to first listen to what your PR agency has to say and then listen to what the wronged party has to say.
This process will require you to actively listen, not only to what is being said but also to what is not being said. To truly make everyone feel like they are being heard, you need to first know what you did wrong and why this is so upsetting. Empathy and listening to understand, rather than to respond, will go a long way to achieving this goal.
Learn
Any Los Angeles public relations agency will tell you that managing a crisis gets easier the more you do it. In other words, there is a lot of room to grow in this area and to learn from your mistakes.
If it’s possible, take the time to learn from other businesses in similar industries to see how they handle sticky situations. By learning from other’s mistakes, you can avoid making them yourself.
However, if you find that you didn’t manage a crisis effectively, it’s not the end of the world. Just be sure to learn from your mistakes. Analyze your decision-making process and determine where exactly you went wrong.
Any Public Relations agency worth their salt will tell you that this is a learning process. So, don’t be too hard on yourself or your employees.
Lead
As a business owner, your schedule is probably full. However, when it comes to managing a crisis, your employees will still expect you to take the reins and control the situation effectively. This means you have to be proactive and not be afraid to call in help when the situation calls for it.
By hiring a great PR agency, you can keep any crisis from escalating and make sure that everybody stays on the same page. In situations like this, it is vital that you explain the reasoning behind your strategy to your employees ahead of time. This helps you gain their backing and their support.
Key Takeaways
By mastering these five critical crisis management skills, your business will be able to impress your employees and retain your clients during any crisis. And, with the expert help of a California public relations agency, you never have to be caught off guard when a less than ideal situation unfolds in the public eye.
Founder and President at The Hoyt Organization
With over 25 years of experience, Leeza’s campaigns have garnered over 150 awards from top public relations organizations nationwide. Additionally, THO serves as the Los Angeles area partner of the Public Relations Global Network, granting clients access to over 50 global markets. The agency was also named to one of the top 200 firms in the country by Forbes magazine in 2021, and she has been named by Globest.com as a Woman of Influence and a Woman to Watch, among other designations.
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