Crisis Communications

FACC Institutional Advancement Commission

Conference

Ken Warren45th Space Wing

Public Affairs Office

OverviewOverview

• What is a crisis?

• Can you plan effectively for crisis situations?

• How should an organization respond to a crisis?

• How do you know if your response was adequate?

• Summary

What is a crisis?What is a crisis?

Crisis: Crisis:

1. An unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a 1. An unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending—with the distinct possibility decisive change is impending—with the distinct possibility that a highly undesirable outcome has occurred, is that a highly undesirable outcome has occurred, is occurring or may occuroccurring or may occur

2. The critical phase of a situation that threatens the 2. The critical phase of a situation that threatens the integrity, reputation, viability or stability of an organizationintegrity, reputation, viability or stability of an organization

3. A legal dispute, accident or manmade disaster that could 3. A legal dispute, accident or manmade disaster that could be attributed to your organization and requires it to respond be attributed to your organization and requires it to respond in some fashion.in some fashion.

What is a crisis?What is a crisis?

4. A situation where in the eyes of the media or general public your organization didn’t react in the appropriate manner.

5. When the excrement hits the fan and there are TV cameras and microphones pointing in your direction, congressional staffers are calling and there’s no place to hide

What is a crisis?What is a crisis?

What can prompt a crisis:

Accidents Hostage Taking

Acts of God Indictment

Aircraft Crashes Labor Problems

Bankruptcy Lawsuits

Contamination Layoffs

Cost Overruns Pollution

Death/Injury (employee/customer)

Rocket/Satellite Failures

Discrimination 60 Minutes, 20/20, Nightline

Downsizing Congressional Inquiry

Hazardous Material Spills Unethical Behavior

Recent Crises Recent Crises

•Delta II/GPS explosion, January 1997•Debris rains down on Cape

•Cassini protest at CCAFS, October 1997•Hundreds march in protest of nuclear-powered spacecraft launched on Titan IV rocket

•Titan IV explosion, August 1998•Billion dollar rocket & satellite explode over Cape

•Titan IV Centaur Upper Stage failure, April 1999•$800 million dollar satellite placed in useless orbit

•Titan IV Inertial Upper Stage failure, April 1999•$250 million dollar satellite placed in useless orbit

• Water leaks into launch complex; damages $60 million GPS satellite, May 1999• Sparked questions about AF’s stewardship of critical space

assets at CCAFS• Civilian dies in plane crash at CCAFS, June 1999

• Raised security issues• Patrick AFB pararescue specialist dies after heroic rescue at

sea, December 2001• First 920th Rescue Wing member to die in line of duty

• A1A closed due to terrorist concerns, Sept 2001-Jan 2002• Put squeeze on businesses and commuters

• Seven astronauts perish in Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, February 2003• Put DoD’s recovery operations under international spotlight

Recent Crises

Can You Plan Effectively for a Crisis?Can You Plan Effectively for a Crisis?

• Two postures you can be in when a crisis occurs• Prepared or unprepared…so PREPARE!!• Develop and rehearse a crisis management plan that involves the senior leaders of your organization and all who might be involved in a wide variety of crisis situations that might be general in nature or peculiar to your organization• That plan should include written guidelines on how you’d respond to specific types of contingencies• You need to determine what types of crises you’re most likely to face and go from there

• We have “crash kits” with blank news releases and checklists covering actions for the various contingencies we’d expect, as well as generalized situations• Hurricanes, rocket mishaps, plane crashes, terrorist

attacks, bomb threats, on-base disturbances, etc. • Fact sheets, bios and phone numbers are also included • We have four of these crash kits because during a crisis,

we normally send PA reps to three locations• The Battle Staff in the Wing Operations Center• The Disaster Control Group or Initial Response Force

at the scene of the mishap• The Unit Control Center in the PA Office• And a spare kit, just in case

PlanningPlanning

PlanningPlanning

• In the Air Force, we believe that practice is the best way to prepare• We have about one base-wide exercise a month to rehearse

our crisis management procedures• Nobody likes it, but we all know it’s worth it• Many of these exercises involve recalling personnel after duty

hours• Recall rosters and knowing how to contact people are

critical—you never know when a disaster might occur• We simulate as little as possible because we want to keep it

real as much as possible• Most recently we had a mass casualty exercise at our

Tracking Annex in Palm Bay

PlanningPlanning

• We aced that exercise because we were prepared

• Our crash kits were up-to-date with fresh recall rosters, key phone numbers, fact sheets, etc.

• We’d conducted media training for key people

• In the Air Force we conduct training locally or send senior leaders to the Pentagon or AF Academy

• We’d previously determined where we’d have a media operations center—not always necessary

• It’s all about developing guidelines and procedures and practicing them regularly.

PlanningPlanning

Key items to remember when planning:

• 1st and foremost goal is to account honestly to the American people

• 2nd goal is to protect the integrity and reputation of the U.S. Air Force

• Never lie, deny or try to hide your involvement

• If you ignore the situation, it will only get worse

• Keep in mind that people tend to remember what they heard first and last

PlanningPlanning

• Always admit mistakes up front and begin doing whatever is necessary to re-establish credibility and confidence with internal and external audiences

• One of the first responsibilities of crisis communication team should be determining the appropriate message to address the situation—ID potential crises and have some canned messages ready to go

• If you don’t communicate immediately, you lose your greatest opportunity to control events.

PlanningPlanning

A crisis situation is always tough when dealing with the news media. Therefore, tough questions and rehearsals are necessary to help the spokesperson(s) prepare. We call it a “murder board.”

PlanningPlanning

It’s better to over prepare than be surprised by the

depth of questioning from the news media.

Planning Planning

Tips for Working with the Media

• Always do what you can to make a complicated issue as simple as you can for reporters.

• All media should be treated equally. Remember, they’re all after the scoop. They all want a different angle than the reporter standing next to them.

• Develop strong relationships with the media before a crisis happens.

• Always return their calls promptly.• Let them talk to the people in charge.

PlanningPlanning

Picking and Training Right Spokesperson(s) is Critical

• Should be vitally involved in the situation• Knowledgeable about the organization• Comfortable in front of TV cameras and with reporters• Articulate, able to speak without using jargon• Projects confidence, sincerity• Able to remain calm during stressful situations• Respectful of the role of reporters

Remember Sheriff Moose!

PlanningPlanning

• Can’t stress planning and practicing enough• In today’s world, it’s not a question of whether a major crisis will strike an organization. It’s a matter of when, which type and how.

As depressing as it may seem, there is no alternative but to prepare for

crises.

Anticipate and prepare for the worst.

The worst crisis is the one you’re not prepared for!

Responding to a CrisisResponding to a Crisis

Generalized Checklist

• Form your crisis management team

• Come up with plan of action

• Detail your messages and who needs to hear them

• Identify and train spokesperson(s)

• If necessary, set up a 24-hour news media ops center and a crisis hotline

• Give info about the situation to state, local and other officials responsible for informing the public and media

Responding to a CrisisResponding to a Crisis

• Anticipate public concerns and issue news releases and/or have news conferences before such concerns distort public perceptions and reality

• Maintain a central log to track all events

• Alert switchboard to direct all media and public calls to the media center

• Drink lots of coffee and keep the No-Doze handy

Responding to a CrisisResponding to a Crisis

• The good news is that it’s great to be prepared, the bad news is that no matter how hard you prepare you’ll never be able to anticipate everything.

• Nevertheless: prepare and practice, practice, practice.

• In the Air Force, our goal is to have our messages prepared and our ducks lined up so we can make an initial release not more than one hour after the mishap or situation occurs that creates the crisis.

• We strive to be proactive.

• We view crisis management as a strategic necessity.

Responding to a CrisisResponding to a Crisis

• In the tape I played for you, you saw how the 45th Space Wing responded to a Delta rocket blow up

• That happened about three months before I got here, but what I want to do is a brief case study on a crisis that we faced in April 1998—the failure of a Titan IV rocket’s upper stage to put an $800 million dollar military communications satellite into its proper orbit…

Mission Failure—April 30, 1999Mission Failure—April 30, 1999

• Titan IV-B launched from CCAFS that morning carrying an$800 million satellite• About five hours into the flight, controllers noticed that a scheduled burn of the Centaur Upper Stage did not occur• This left the satellite in an unplanned, useless orbit• The news media was standing by for confirmation that themission was successful

Crunch Time!

What we did at “Crunch Time”What we did at “Crunch Time”

• This crisis scenario already envisioned• Fill-in-the blank releases already done• Senior spokespersons already trained; still did quick

murder board to go over specifics of this situation• Unit Control Center set up in PA Office• Initial news release distributed within an hour

• Phone calls made to key media reps• Handled more than 100 media queries

• News conference done within four hours• Logistics for news conference already planned, no

hassle getting it set up

What we did at “Crunch Time”What we did at “Crunch Time”

• Set up media ops center in Building 401

• Hosted 20 reporters who filed stories from there

• Got word out to global audience that although this mission failed, the MILSTAR constellation was still healthy and capable of supporting America’s warfighters

• Ultimately responded to over 250 media queries

• NY Times, Washington Post, major TV networks, Orlando Sentinel, Miami Herald, Florida Today, Aviation Week, Space News and more covered this

What we did at “Crunch Time”What we did at “Crunch Time”

• Exposed media reps to most senior AF spokespersons available throughout the process to maintain credibility

• Generated follow-up news releases almost daily for the first week after mishap—even if there wasn’t really anything new to say

• Ensured that efforts to include perspectives of potential stakeholders were focused on in our communications• HQ Space Command, 45th Space Wing, SMC,

Lockheed Martin, TRW all had input—helped convey message that America’s aerospace team was strong and united in spite of this major setback

How did we do?How did we do?

• In planning for this contingency, we asked ourselves how we’d measure success in terms of crisis communications

• Among other things, we decided that these were the primary criteria we’d look at:• Did our messages get out quickly to all those

affected/interested?• Were all the appropriate players involved? Did we

use the right spokespersons?• Were the ensuing reports accurate and widespread?• Were the news media reps (our customers) satisfied

with how we handled things?

How did we do?How did we do?

• Did the story grow legs, take on a life of its own, or go on longer than it should have?

• How did our employees rebound from this crisis?

• Was the American people’s trust in us to perform our mission irreversibly damaged?

• How much harm did this failure have on the Air Force’s standing with Congress?

Be Honest in Your Self-Evaluation: We tried to be!

Report CardReport Card

• In the final analysis, we did pretty good• Messages got out very quickly, within an hour• Top leadership involved from the start; spokespersons

performed admirably• Reports were widespread, fair and balanced• Media reps told us prompt and proactive handling of

situation provided them opportunity to hit streets running with official info from the start; dramatically mitigated potential for reporting errors and unbalanced reports.

• Actions defused another potential negative media frenzy within 48 hours and shifted some focus from negative “Lost in Space” types of reports to the effectiveness of the constellation already on-orbit

Report CardReport Card

• Our employees responded well to our communications and what they saw in the media; rededicated themselves to proving they were the world’s finest space launch team

• While we lost some of the public’s confidence, ultimately we believe by being up front about the mishap and later its causes, that the public stuck by us

• Congress commissioned several studies, but continues to provide adequate funding

A great deal of our current success is based on the fact that we were open and up-front

about the mishap.

SummarySummary

• Defined crisis• Talked about planning and practicing

• Ask yourself: What are the three most serious potential crises my organization could experience?• Then come with guidelines and procedures and practice, practice, practice.

• Discussed responding to crisis situations• The initial responsibilities for crisis managers are fact finding, analysis, damage control and communicating.• If you don’t communicate immediately, you lose control. Never try to hide anything.

• Touched upon analyzing your crisis communications• Take your lumps and put lessons learned to work

Questions?Questions?