Tag Archives: lessons learnt

Crisis communications under “rain and fire” (Part I)

08 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Cases, Crisis

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Crisis communications in natural disasters has a vital importance for social, political and economic reasons. Both theory and experience have shown that some crises are in fact communications crises (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2007). The Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and fires in Peloponnese in Greece in 2007 are two examples of crisis communications failure. Bureaucratic deficiencies, lack of preparation and inexperienced staff have led to communications disaster.

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The selection of this cases was made for the following reasons:

  • There were casualties
  • There was a strong reaction of public opinion
  • There was lack of preparation by the government
  • There was a lack of coordination at both operational and communication level

Pre-crisis phase

The hurricanes in the US and the fires in Greece are natural phenomena with frequent occurrence and they cannot be considered surprising when incurring. What characterizes the two cases is the paradox that while there was awareness of the risk, both government mechanisms in the US and Greece seemed unprepared to meet the expectations and the requirements. The early symptoms of the upcoming catastrophe were disregarded.

Conclusion: The lack of preparedness and readiness are shaky foundations for crisis management.

The difference between the two cases is that the risk in Greece was permanent but not geographically specific whereas in the US there were official warnings days before the disaster for specific geographical areas in clearly defined time perspectives. What emerges through the elements of the research is that there was a strategic plan in the US to deal with natural disasters as opposed to Greece where the risk of fires seemed to be treated at the tactical level. As a result, we can distinguish a timeless deficit of preparedness by the Greek authorities to manage natural disaster crises. In New Orleans, the story could have been very different if the federal and local authorities had implemented the crisis management plans considering that both the state and federal authorities had already been on constant alert because of 9/11.

Conclusion: Preparedness and readiness are necessary in strategic and tactical level.

The appointment of unqualified people to manage crises leads to failure as it was apparent in the US during the Katrina hurricane. The failure of the inexperienced director of FEMA to meet the demands of the occasion preparing the state apparatus before the crisis demonstrates the importance of the proper selection of the right professionals.

Conclusion: Preparedness and readiness for crisis management require professional and experienced staff.

Conclusions about the Crisis and Post-Crisis phases of those two crises will follow in the coming days.

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Lessons learnt about crisis communications in Greece during the last years

25 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Crisis

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During the last 7 years, the companies operating in Greece, Greek or foreign ones, have to deal with a continuous crisis. The difficult fiscal situation in combination with a social unrest has created a challenging environment for the private sector. Several companies faced a series of communication challenges which evolved into crises. The most notorious example is about one of the biggest FMCG companies in Greece that a few years ago decided to close down one of its production lines in the country. The labour union politicized their struggle against the company demanding from the management of the company to reconsider its decision.  The company’s management kept a hard stance against the labour union which took advantage of the political status quo.

This is just one of the many examples of crisis communications cases for businesses in Greece during the last challenging years. The Greek crisis has made us a bit wiser about handling crisis communications and the lessons learnt might apply to other environments in international level.  So, what have we learnt so far?

  • Any crisis communications plan must be flexible in order to adjust it in any case especially in an unstable external environment.
  • The worst case scenario is the base of a crisis communications plan. We may pray for the best but we need to be prepared for the worst. Unfortunately several Greek companies just crossed their fingers in order to deal with situations that eventually damaged their reputation.
  • In order to reduce costs, several Greek companies decided to weaken their communications teams. They may have achieved savings but they left their companies without the necessary and experiences human resources to deal with a crisis.
  • A crisis communications plan might include the opportunity to strengthen the reputation of a company.
  • A company has to be sincere, honest and apologetic if necessary. It’s a common mistake that companies fear to admit wrongdoing because they consider it weakness.
  • Greek companies followed the trend of social media in order to enhance their reputation but they discovered, sometimes the hard way, that communications are a two-way street and they might have to deal with a wave of negative comments and they were not ready for that.

These are some indicative lessons learnt about crisis communications in Greece during the last years. It would be great to have your views and thoughts about them