Crisis Communication #1
Page 1
Chapter One— Why Crises Are an Inevitable and Permanent Feature of Modern Societies
''There are no whole truths; all truths are halftruths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil."
Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues, 1953.
C o p y r i g h t 2 0 0 0 . A M A C O M .
A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r ,
e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .
EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/14/2020 1:02 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV AN: 50485 ; Mitroff, Ian I..; Managing Crises Before They Happen : What Every Executive and Manager Needs to Know About Crisis Management Account: s8862125.main.ehost
Page 3
Since 1900, twentyeight ''major" industrial accidents have occurred worldwide, with "major" meaning fifty or more deaths. 1 The most disturbing part of this statistic is
that half of the twentyeight have occurred in the past fifteen or so years. There has been a sharp increase in the sheer number of accidents, and the time between them
is shrinking dramatically.
In 1982, five persons died from poisoned Tylenol capsules. It was a landmark event because it was the first time that a major pharmaceutical product had been
poisoned without prior warning. The perpetrators were never caught. The parent company, Johnson & Johnson, handled the situation so well that they became the
standard for crisis management (CM). Indeed, the modern field of CM is generally acknowledged to have started with the Tylenol poisonings.
Crises have become an inevitable, natural feature of our everyday lives. Hardly a day goes by without the occurrence of a new crisis, or the unfolding—better yet, the
"dragging on"—of old ones. In other words, crises have become an integral feature of the new information/systems age.
EBSCOhost - printed on 1/14/2020 1:02 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
Page 4
If there are any doubts whatsoever that crises have become a permanent and a prominent feature of our lives, they are quickly dispelled by the following list. The
names and the particular crises with which they are associated have become so familiar by now that it is no longer necessary to spell their exact details:
• Mad cow disease
• Nike
• Kathy Lee Gifford (child labor)
• Orange County
• ValuJet
• Columbine
• TWA Flight 800
• Swiss Air 100
• President Clinton's impeachment
Although these recent crises are important, the names of some crises that occurred even earlier have become so well ingrained in our collective psyche that they have
become icons:
• The Three Mile Island nuclear disaster
• The Challenger explosion
• The Tylenol poisonings
• The explosion of Union Carbide's chemical plant in Bhopal, India
• The Exxon Valdez oil spill
In short, crises are no longer an aberrant, rare, random, or peripheral feature of today's society. They are built into the very fabric and fiber of modern societies.
EBSCOhost - printed on 1/14/2020 1:02 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
Page 5
Crises are no longer an aberrant, rare, random, or peripheral feature of today's society. They are built into the very fabric and fiber of modern societies.
All of us everywhere are impacted daily by crises large and small. As a result, all of us, whether we work in large organizations or not, need to understand why crises
have become integral features of today's world, and what, if anything, can be done to lessen their impact. We also need to understand what can be reasonably
demanded of large organizations so that they can be made as safe as possible, and hence, lower their potential for major crises as much as possible.
While not all crises can be foreseen, let alone prevented, all of them can be managed far more effectively if we understand and practice the best of what
is humanly possible.
This book is the result of my more than thirty years' experience in studying complex systems and applying that knowledge to messy problems in business and notfor
profit organizations, as well as numerous government agencies. 2 In particular, since the Tylenol poisonings in 1982, my colleagues and I have helped to found the field
of CM. 3 We have studied virtually every kind of crisis imaginable. In addition, we have also advised American and European companies, as well as major
government units around the world, on how to prepare for and manage crises more effectively. In the process, we have become privy to some of the most critical and
reveal
EBSCOhost - printed on 1/14/2020 1:02 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
Page 6
ing information about leading organizations and institutions around the world.
What Is Crisis Management?
In contrast to the disciplines of emergency and risk management, which deal primarily with natural disasters, the field of CM deals mainly with man made or human
caused crises, such as computer hacking, environmental contamination, executive kidnapping, fraud, product tampering, sexual harassment, and workplace violence.
Unlike natural disasters, humancaused crises are not inevitable. They do not need to happen. For this reason, the public is extremely critical of those organizations
that are responsible for their occurrence.
As a result of our work, my colleagues and I believe that we have developed one of the best and most powerful frameworks for understanding why crises occur in the
first place, and what can be done to manage them better before, during, and after their occurrence. (This framework is the subject of Chapter Three.) Nonetheless,
even with the best of frameworks and the best of preparations, it is unfortunately still the case that not all crises can be prevented. This even holds true for those crises
that we know with almost complete certainty will occur. But the impacts of all crises can be lessened if one has a thorough understanding of the ''essential basics" of
CM. While not all crises can be foreseen, let alone prevented, all of them can be managed far more effectively if we understand and practice the best of what is
humanly possible.
What Is Different about Today's World?
What is it about our modern information/industrial society that makes it more prone to crises? And, in particular, why
EBSCOhost - printed on 1/14/2020 1:02 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
Page 7
have humancaused crises escalated especially in the last twenty years?
The vast majority of organizations and institutions have not been designed to anticipate crises or to manage them effectively once they have occurred. Neither the
mechanisms nor the basic skills are in place for effective CM. Most fundamental of all, the managers and executives of most organizations and institutions still do not
understand the ''new management and thinking skills" required to head off crises.
What's tragic is that these new skills are not esoteric. They can be taught directly and simply. They are also some of the very same skills that are needed for success in
the new global economy.
CM is broader than dealing with crises alone. It provides a unique and critical perspective on the new management skills and the new types of organizations that will
be required in the twentyfirst century.
Many organizations still think of CM primarily as an exercise in public relations. They feel that the media unfairly manipulate unfortunate events, thus making them into
major crises. More to the point, they feel that the media are actually a cause of crises for organizations. From this perspective, the problem is to communicate
effectively with the media after a crisis has occurred. These same organizations feel that preparing for the media is all the protection they need. While "crisis
communications" is certainly an important aspect of effective CM, it is not the whole of it. Effective CM involves much more.
Signal Detection
For instance, signal detection is one of the most important components of CM. Long before they actually occur, vir
EBSCOhost - printed on 1/14/2020 1:02 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
Page 8
tually all crises send out a repeated trail of ''early warning signals," announcing the probable occurrence of a crisis. If these early warning signals can be picked up,
amplified, and acted upon effectively, then many crises can be prevented before they occur, which is the best possible form of CM. As a result, all organizations need
to constantly scan their entire operations and internal and external environment for early warning signals of potential "ticking time bombs" (latent defects) before it is too
late to correct. In short, they need to shift from being reactive to being continuously proactive. The slogan "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" needs to be replaced with a
new attitude: "If it ain't broke, it soon will be; therefore, fix it now when you can still be the good guy, or fix it later and risk being labeled the bad guy."
Denial
In the end, the main enemy, the main barrier to be overcome, is denial. Far too many organizations mouth the cliche´, "It can't happen to us; therefore, we don't need
to spend the money to prepare for crises." They are wrong, dead wrong!
The main enemy, the main barrier to be overcome, is denial.
But denial is being overcome by the steady increase in the number of crises, which makes it harder and harder to put our heads in the sand. To those of us who work
in the field of CM, the issue is not whether an organization will have a string of major crises, but rather how, when, and why a string of crises will occur, what form
they will assume, and how prepared an organization is to handle them.
Denial is also being overcome by the growing number of model organizations that are doing their best to be better pre
EBSCOhost - printed on 1/14/2020 1:02 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
Page 9
pared for major crises and thus to manage crises before they occur.
Strategy List for Chapter One
• Recognize that crises are an inherent part of modern societies.
• Realize that manmade crises are avoidable.
• Contemplate forms of signal detection to constantly scan the environment.
• Overcome denial—the worst enemy of crisis management.
EBSCOhost - printed on 1/14/2020 1:02 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use