Bad news travels… FAST!

When the news is bad, and potentially a big story, it is crucial to move quickly. Get to the heart of the situation and have your plan ready and responses in place before the media have their questions. Drive the news agenda rather than react to it. Our crisis communications training and support services can help you achieve what you will need to do.

Good crisis management and communications won’t make a bad story into good, but through effective communication you can control the direction of the story, create balance where there might have been bias, fact where there would have been speculation and an appearance of order where they might have been a public perception of chaos.

Effective communications are essential to effective crisis management and because of the sensitive nature of this training we work only with in-house teams, usually those who will be responsible for the response of an organisation to a major incident. That’s why training sessions are practical, to develop the necessary skills, and for realism most usually run on-site around a developing scenario specific to each client.

The outcomes of our sessions are that participants have a far greater awareness of the pressures that will be placed upon them in dealing with a crisis, but feel far more confident in their ability to manage because of the communication skills they have learned from the session.

Speed is vital. Being structured to respond quickly to the situation is a clear advantage and our training will identify the processes that need to be in place to achieve this. Getting to the situation ahead of the media, controlling and directing the flow of information and beginning the process of giving a credible corporate response as the story breaks is a key element of successful crisis management.

Expertise in the field of crisis communication is an important aspect in effective management and comes along with our training. Positive Impact can help to translate the knowledge of senior managers and technical specialists into coherent and meaningful messages for the media. Having the understanding of the media agenda and the issues that are faced locally and nationally by your organisation gives our team a head start in knowing what needs to be communicated and how.

CONSULTANCY SUPPORT

Beyond training sessions some of our clients turn to us for hands on support should the worst happen. We can and will manage aspects of incident response. Talk to us to see how we might help.