Simulation in retrospect- Crisis Comm reflection 9

Last week our class participated in a crisis simulation. After seven weeks of learning about how to deal with a crisis, you would expect our reactions and plans would come easily in the face of disaster. However, our human instincts seemed to kick in and lead us astray in some ways. All in all, it was a great learning experience – and a perfect way to apply what we have learned and gauge our application abilities. In some ways, we succeeded, and in other ways we hit walls.

There was definitely a sense of in trepidation as the simulation unfolded. We were split into groups that specialized in certain areas. Via social media, email, and phone calls the various groups learned of a snowball of events that followed the initial crisis. For one hour we had to navigate our way through the complex waters of the unknown. The terrain was chaotic.

Once a piece of information was learned, we weren’t sure what to do with it, shout it out for everyone to hear, write it down, act on it, or delegate to another team. We needed to develop a filter that could disseminate useful information from extraneous . We never did. Instead, as news was acquired we chose the more counterproductive option of interrupting whatever was going on to yell out the latest. In retrospect, we should have named a representative from the media team to monitor social media and respond to the pressing news matters versus having 15 people weigh in on each tweet and post.

Additionally, there was hesitation in responding to the media inquiries. I think that some of us felt that we needed to address the press with an initial acknowledgment. We didn’t need to accept blame, but we needed to take the opportunity to have a voice and show general concern for the matter at hand. Our group was divided on some things, which took time to wrestle through. Should we be using social media to respond? How many press conferences should we call? In a real crisis, a great deal of time would have been wasted while trying to react. We did create a list of key stakeholders that was quite useful, but we didn’t do so quickly enough to proactively reach these audiences. We needed a proactive plan.

Another shortcoming was the silos that we created for ourselves. Each team sat in separate areas of the room. The only interaction we had was yelling out over everyone- making the entire room stop, listen, and respond. The teams needed to sit close to one another and work together to protect the stakeholders that we each represented.

Unfortunately, I think we needed a few resources that were missing. I think having a company profile would have been helpful. It had been some time since we had discussed the Kick Car and a refresher of the company’s information would have come in handy- especially for those who may not have been there in the class we first discussed it. Additionally, I think giving each team 10-15 minutes to self organize would have been ideal. We were hit with a bombshell crisis and without having some time to think through our strategy as a team, we were expected to jump in. In most real life cases, teams are aware of who their contacts are, what their goal is, etc. Had we as a class been given a little time to self organize and craft our strategies prior to the start of the simulation, I think we would have been better suited to act based on our learning's.