CMT Preparation- Crisis Comm reflection 3

While reading Coombs Ch. 5, I was reminded of my former job on the property management team at the Bank of America Corp Center. As the management company for the world headquarters of the bank, we had to be poised to handle any number of crises.

Yearly we had an external agency come in and offer our team emergency preparedness training for natural and man made disasters that could impact the building- and more importantly, the tenants. We took this very seriously. It was a week's worth of crisis management training, in which we created plans in case any of these scenarios were ever to happen. Luckily, the plans have not been used to date. From bomb scares to tornadoes, we had to create communication and evacuation plans to manage the crisis.

We did a lot of role playing as a way to practice. Through these drills, we learned who relied more on instinct versus some of our team who were much more analytical and felt that following set instructions was best. It was quite interesting to see- even in these types of practice drills who works better under pressure and who seemed overwhelmed. These drills offered us the chance to work as a team to execute our crisis plan-something that isn't always easy to do.

Interestingly, my current role allows me to see the works of crisis preparation in a different light. While working for the property management company gave me the insight into planning for one type of crisis, working in corp. comm has given me an insiders view into handling organizational misdeeds and challenges.

This form of crisis also requires team work. Our media relations reps work together to craft messages that align with the company voice. There have been times when untrained persons have given the media information. This resulted in more chaos and a bigger mess to clean up.

Having a CMP is critical, but you also have to be prepared for those who don't follow it. There can always be a rogue team member- or someone outside of the team who can add impact by not understanding the plan or the nature of the crisis. it's quite scary to think of the limits of what we can really prepare for. We may have the first steps in place, but until the actual crisis unfolds, the team may not know what they are up against.

I have learned in my experience the importance of remaining in contact as a team during the crisis. Having a designated hub where the team can post themselves, or making mandatory time for meetings (virtually if necessary) will be a very critical practice in dealing with crisis. Remaining on the same page as a team isn't necessarily easy, but it is essential to making your CMP work.