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Crisis leadership and team building

These sessions are designed for senior management and/or crisis leadership teams and focus on how to lead an organisation as a united team through and out of a crisis. The focus is on becoming crisis leaders who nurture response teams by strengthening the relationships and trust necessary for effective decision making. Topics include leadership skills, decision-making under pressure, situational awareness, and crisis roles and responsibilities.

Using Preparedness Plan

These workshops guide your key business continuity, crisis management and crisis communication teams how to effectively activate and follow through on the organisation’s preparedness plans during a crisis. The course also covers how post-crisis debriefs and reviews should be staged to identify gaps or weaknesses in the existing preparedness plans, so pointing to essential amendments and improvements.

Crisis Communication Simulations

Simulation exercises for crisis communication teams give participants a realistic feel of having to communicate directly with multiple stakeholder groups in a highly stressful and escalating situation.

Participants in our crisis communication simulation exercises respond to different interested and involved parties as in a real crisis. They field telephone calls from reporters and other stakeholders, monitor and develop responses to online chatter, craft communication materials for various media channels, update talking points for crisis spokespersons, talk face-to-face with concerned stakeholders, and undertake media interviews.

The proliferation of online and social media changed the way in which an organisation-in-crisis communicates with its stakeholders, the media and observers. The speed and reach of online media mean organisations cannot expect to control the rapid and wide spread of news of a crisis. But social media also provide valuable channels for a company to use to quickly and directly engage with stakeholders during a crisis.

Many organisations do not plan effectively for the opportunities and threats that online and social media present for crisis management. Crisis communication simulations can be an effective test of the company’s strategy and capabilities for using online and social media in crisis management.

Media Training

When a company is dealing with a crisis, media representatives expect to interview spokespersons. Despite the popularity and influence of online/social media channels, the traditional media – newspapers, radio and television – also remain hugely important in reporting how an organisation crisis progresses. Crisis spokespersons, therefore, have to be ready to talk directly to reporters representing different media channels.

Our media training sessions strengthen spokespersons’ skills and confidence to handle stressful news media interviews on a developing crisis. To ensure the relevance of the training, the bespoke crisis scenarios used in the training are developed based on the company’s identified vulnerabilities or threats.\\

The workshops include rigorous and realistic simulated interviews in a variety of settings. Spokespersons learn how to adapt and deliver the most appropriate crisis messages to the media, even when under pressure, so as to optimise the chances of balanced media coverage. Participants receive individual feedback and recommendations on how to further strengthen their skills as crisis spokespersons.

Crisis media management

The news media are hugely important for organisations dealing with a crisis. Effective media communication may not guarantee positive media coverage for the company. But ineffective media communication will escalate a crisis and may hinder post-crisis recovery. Alongside traditional news media (television, radio and print), the emergence of a plethora of influential online and social media platforms has reshaped how companies are expected to communicate during a crisis.These courses enhance your crisis communication and/or digital media specialists’ knowledge, skills and confidence to fulfil their responsibilities during a crisis and so help protect your company’s reputation. Participants learn how to develop and adapt crisis communication strategies and craft response messages for the traditional and online media at the time a crisis hits and as it unfolds and further develops.

Training is offered at introductory level for executives with limited exposure to the subject, as well as at masterclass level for experienced crisis communications professionals who wish to deepen their knowledge and expertise.

Engaging with crisis stakeholders

During a crisis, organisations are expected to be accountable to all affected stakeholders, inside and outside the company. Stakeholder engagement during a crisis aims at acknowledging and addressing all stakeholders’ perspectives, through meaningful dialogue. Managers have to communicate promptly and appropriately, giving stakeholders the information they want and need. If this is not done, stakeholders may share their frustrations with the news media or social media platforms, so worsening the crisis for the company.

These courses give managers the knowledge, skills and confidence to engage crisis stakeholders responsibly, so helping to protect the organisation’s reputation.