Abstract
“No company or organization is immune from crisis,” regardless of size, industry, structure, and so on (p. 3). This is, in my opinion, the core idea in the extraordinarily useful bookChief Crisis Officer: Structure and Leadership for Effective Communications Response, and the reason to read it through. In fact, the author of this book keeps repeating that all businesses must be prepared and practice facing crisis when—not if—it comes their way.
James F. Haggerty is certainly an expert on this topic: He is an attorney, writer, and communications consultant with over 25 years of experience as a trusted advisor on sensitive management crisis, and not just in the United States. Furthermore, he foundedcrisisresponsepro.com, a software company that brings together a crisis communications team and provides tools and resources for effective response. His web page (jamesfhaggerty.com) shows some of his successes and the degree of his capabilities and expertise.
This hardbound book includes an introduction, eight chapters, an afterword, acknowledgments, notes, and an index. The chapters cover the essentials any book on crisis management should: anatomy of a crisis, the chief crisis officer and the team, preparing a crisis communications plan and its rapid response, sending the right message, litigation communications, crisis management and technology, and putting it all together. Additionally, the sequence of topics seems to follow a chronological pattern, as if the book content reflects real-life crisis situations. To top it off, the author includes an afterword, where several other key experts on the topic offer their own points of view and recommendations, thus affording the reader and any interested party a treasure trove of essential information that further reinforces and clarifies what Haggerty points out in his book. The resulting effect is that the book does a full circle, leaving nothing behind that is worth covering. It is also worth mentioning that there are plenty of footnotes with sources of data that are cited and used, to allow the interested reader further documentation.
Its pages are easy to read and understand, even for a layperson on the topic, with easy-to-follow language and ideas. Haggerty offers many real-life examples of successes and failures (more evidence of the honest treatment of the topic by the author as he admits things do not always work as planned, crisis teams do fail, etc.) of companies as they try to control a crisis. At the beginning of each chapter, the author identifies the main ideas he will expand on in the following pages, which is similar to what he does at the end of each chapter, as he presents a capsule with key information in the chapter. As a final testament to its worthiness, the book is published by the American Bar Association, a hallmark of prestige.
In the introduction, the author argues for the need to have a crisis team/leader and all the necessary preparation tools and protocols. This will ameliorate and lessen the negative consequences should a crisis impact more than just corporate image. Haggerty asserts, “Crisis communications planning and executions are vital for every company that . . . worries about the negative implications of unforeseen events on their organizations and its reputation” (p. xii).
Chapter 1 does what a first chapter should do: provide the reader with the broadest brushstrokes on the topic at hand, so the reader will have a clear view of what lies ahead. As such, “Anatomy of a Crisis” tells us a few basic things: Every crisis follows similar patterns regardless of size, location, industry, and so on; what is important is the swiftness to respond very early into the crisis; there must be a structured plan in place and a way to respond to the crisis according to that plan; any situation can become a crisis, even when labeled as just an incident or an issue. In a nutshell, again, all businesses must be prepared and have all pieces in their right place, because when the event becomes a crisis, any wasted time will only make things worse such that “it is not the crisis but the response in the initial stages that determines whether the event will cause long-term damage” (p. 9).
Given the relevance of facing a crisis successfully, the need for the right leader is stressed in Chapter 2. Who that person is “should depend not on that person’s title, but on a particular set of abilities, temperament, and experience” (p. 39). Furthermore, he or she must have the authority to make important decisions quickly, without having to ask for clearance from “above.” More important, perhaps, that person must bewillingto act and to face the consequences; finally, he or she must have a strong professional background, experience, and communication skills. All of these features are key as, again, time is important when it comes to responding to a crisis. One more idea must be repeated here: “A company’s Chief Crisis Officer must be able to deal with the unexpected, because . . . the unexpected has to be expected” (p. 40).
Preparing a crisis communications plan that really works is developed in Chapter 3. Haggerty warns that up to 46% of global business leaders admit their businesses do not have a crisis communication plan. He recommends that this “roadmap” must make it clear how to proceed, how to communicate to the press, who will speak on behalf of the company, what resources to use, and so on. The author hammers this very often throughout the book, to train the core team so they function asoneteam and not just a bunch of people seemingly working together. He even includes templates wherein the importance of visual elements (e.g., color) is emphasized as a quick, easy way to attract the eye’s attention to key information.
A paramount chapter, Chapter 4 showcases real-life examples—for instance, where British Petroleum (BP) and Target went wrong by fumbling their responses in times of crisis—such as BP’s oil spill in 2010 and Target’s data breach in 2013—and where you can go right. The author blames the poor response from these two companies on the fact that they did not have a crisis communication plan prepared and that there was not an adequate spokesperson who knew what, when, and how to communicate: “A constant theme throughout this book is that preparation is key when confronting the inevitable crisis” (p. 86). The trademarked “control, information, response” model by Haggerty is a protocol to avoid these pitfalls: There has to be control over who communicates what and to whom, there must beunfilteredtruth in the information that is shared (“In the midst of hurried phone calls, emails, Facebook posts, and Tweets, how can you be sure that the information you receive is accurate?” (p. 97), and the response has to abide by the established crisis communication plan. By showing how to effectively tackle a crisis by using recent scenarios that truly pique our interest, the author approaches the readers and their uncertainties and shows how to proceed firmly.
Further advancing his purpose in Chapter 5, “Sending the Right Message: Strategy, Words, and Actions,” the author stresses the importance of coding our messages in a way that is easy to understand and void of complex legal parlance that obscures the very same ideas we seek to communicate. As the author says, “Most of us are far better atgeneratingmessages than we are atcraftingthem” (p. 105). He provides the reader with real-life examples, the Volkswagen emission scandal and the Mexico Walmart bribery allegations. He then uses these examples to attack what he labels theostrich syndrome, that is, pretending there is no crisis with the hope it will all just go away as if nothing had happened.
The legal side of tackling crises is a bit more arid than the others, but it is nonetheless essential in books of this matter. Consequently, Haggerty devotes Chapter 6, “Litigation Communications: Managing the Legal Crisis,” to this important perspective, as “virtually all crises are now legal crises” (p. 130). This perspective deeply affects how companies respond in the multitude of platforms (papers, TV programs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) with the very many stakeholders, as it affects the corporate image. Finally, communication in a jury room is so very different from communication outside that same room: The crisis communication team and lawyers must communicate often so as to not let “the other side frame the issues” (p. 147), which would make surviving the crisis so much more difficult.
Chapter 7, “Technology and Crisis Communications,” focuses on how technology can be employed to better handle crisis communication. For instance, the author argues that technology can be used to create and to continually adjust the company’s crisis communication plans, monitor social media, facilitate communication among the team’s members, and deliver their message to the required audiences. In fact, nowadays, technology must be utilized to gather and analyze all the data, to test the public’s opinions on a company or on a crisis, and certainly also to create and maintain the so-calleddark site, a hidden page or collection of web pages wherein a company keeps all information, plans, communication templates, and much more, ready to make public when the crisis sparks; as the author says repeatedly, the plan must be ready beforehand.
In a totally useful way to round out his ideas, the author uses Chapter 8, “Putting It All Together: The Chief Crisis Officer in Action,” to bring all relevant ideas together. Again, the author emphasizes the importance of a leader, a communicator who knows what to do, when, and how; who has the authority and will to make hard decisions; and who understands the need to be proactive, honest, and fast. The briefest chapter by far, this one is an application of the ideas previously detailed on a hypothetical crisis; this allows the author to show the reader how his several concepts, perspectives, and techniques come together. The reader learns firsthand how to conflate it all, step by step; reads various dialogues by the actors in the crisis, including their fears, hesitations, and troubles; and notices how they deal with the ever-changing environment to achieve success. As readers proceed through this chapter, they live the situations as more than just stories but experience them as real-life situations, allowing them to learn more easily and successfully.
Haggerty’s book is clearly an asset for anyone who views crisis management as an indispensable resource for any company. It is a must-read book for any professional who wants a current source on this topic, with real-life examples and real-life proven ideas, and likely a helpful tool for the professional readers ofBusiness and Professional Communication Quarterly. This book does not deal with numbers (at least not directly), finances, statistics, or many other areas that seem to relate to businesses very strongly; however, underneath those numbers, statistics, and so on, lie the crude reality that any business that is ill prepared to face a crisis will suffer. And its numbers (now directly) will tumble down. Crisis management, as we discovered in the book, is all about business, professionals, and communication.