One very important skill to learn as an individual or a group is how to manage crisis because crisis is not expected at a particular time. On of the clearest elements of crisis is its timing which is sudden so it becomes paramount to plan or prepare for possible crisis as an individual or a group because as much as crisis can occur physically and cause clear destruction there are also crisis that don’t occur as so. So, let’s look at the different cases.
Physical crisis: this doesn’t much introduction because everybody knows one or two crisis that has happened before, take a simple example of the bomb dropped in Hiroshima during the war. They were not expecting a bomb of that magnitude even though they knew they were at war. So, in this case it was the first time such crisis was encountered. Now we can look at other examples like hurricanes and earth quakes and all of those crises that started as a natural disaster. Now in this case a natural disaster was the crisis where the effect is simply destruction of goods and properties so let’s look at the next
Brand crisis: This may also not need much introduction because many know one or more stories/examples of bad news costing brands. You may have heard about the shell blowout in 2006 where one of shells off shore oil wells exploded causing loss of lives and serious damage to the eco system where it was stationed. Now in this case the crisis if of a double nature: there was massive physical destruction such that it makes you wonder: isn’t that the main problem here? Well no, the biggest problem here occurs when the news gets out and narratives are drawn. That is also serious damage because this kind of destruction can cause more loss that the direct loss from physical damage. Now if you look up the story you will notice that shell dropped badly in company stock and had to face serious legal issues which further more damaged the image of shell and put the company on a black list for business partnership or investment. See here that the direct damage was not the only crisis and this is because news gets out and people talk and pictures regarding the incident are drawn even before shell gets to say a word about it and shell has to deal with. In fact, shell had to deal with public view issue before dealing with physical damages. See? Reputation crisis takes the center stage in today’s world.
Now if you look at it from a job market point of view companies and businesses are not the only cases of brand crisis; the average person is involved because he/she is a brand on the job market. And in today’s world, people market themselves and people are valued like assets. People are also valued in comparison hence the need to be aware, intentional and skilled with personal branding and value communication but above all, brand crisis management.
Silence isn’t Golden!