Crisis communication training   

How to communicate in a crisis? 

No organization is immune to challenges, disasters, or misunderstandings that can crush years of progress in a few moments.  

As an organization or company, you can be successful and respected one day and the next day, you may find yourself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Mistakes, misunderstandings, accidents, natural disasters, or catastrophes can strike at any time and damage the reputation that you’ve worked hard to build over the years. 

Queries and comments are starting to cancel each other out. Moreover, every word you say – or withhold, or don’t say in time – can make a big difference to the course and outcome of the storm, its impact on the company’s or organization’s image, reputation, and future performance. Your partners, lawyers, experts, various public figures – everyone seems to know better than you what is happening and what should be done, but no decision seems to be the right one.  

Do you know what you would do first, how you would do it, and who you would talk to, if a thunderstorm suddenly came out of the blue? 

During a simulation, moderators lead the way. They introduce the crisis management team, which is made up of participants, to a hypothetical emergency through a series of events. Facilitators provide the crisis management team with different pieces of information and messages about the crisis, creating a sense of an actual communication crisis. The primary objective of the participants is to handle the crisis effectively. 

To achieve this, participants carry out individual and group tasks such as developing a crisis communication plan, planning crisis management measures and actions, commenting to the media, and learning how to conduct consistent crisis communication, presenting the organization’s position on social networks, etc. 

The actions and decisions of the crisis management team are discussed by looking at the simulated situation from different perspectives, discussing the various possible solutions and giving the participants individual experience in crisis management and communication.  

The training is an opportunity to test the effectiveness of the company’s crisis management processes. It helps to anticipate the procedures that the organization should take to manage the damage caused to its reputation, brand value, organizational performance, and business. The exercise covers the communication strategy that could be used in a crisis, including the information, messages, and presentations that need to be conveyed to the public and the media. 

The training can provide the organization with guidelines for improving the crisis communication process. The lessons learned from the training provide the basis for developing or revising the company’s crisis communication plan, and for assessing and planning other measures to prevent potential incidents and crises.