Managing Communications in a Crisis

The difference between a drama and a crisis is down to good management - or more specifically, good communication. How you communicate with everyone: shareholders, other business partners, employees, the press, and so on, in the hours and days following a potential business crisis is critical. Get it right and the crisis may even strengthen your corporate reputation. Get it wrong and you can imagine the consequences for yourself. Managing Communications in a Crisis details how crisis situations can be identified and dealt with, ensuring the risk to the organisation's financial well-being and reputation is minimised. The book deals with all aspects of communication management in a crisis. Part I considers definitions of a crisis and the theory behind dealing with crisis communications, both externally and internally. Part II explores the practicalities of crisis management communications, the identification of audiences and how each should be dealt with and by whom. The third part of the book contains valuable checklists and succinct supporting information for the key aspects and roles of the communication process. The combination of these three approaches will help you to develop your own crisis strategy, tailor-made for your organization. The text is supported by a wide range of case histories. Some of these you will recognise and others, perhaps through good management, never entered your radar. The authors are highly experienced advisors to companies of all sizes in the demands of crisis management communications. Their company, The Aziz Corporation, is the UK's leading executive communications consultancy, specialising in presentation skills, media handling and crisis management.

Peter Ruff's media career began at a local newspaper, then onto local radio and into the BBC, where he worked for 18 years on news and current affairs for both radio and televsion. For four years he was the BBC's Moscow correspondent and, in 1986, informed the world of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. After leaving the BBC he became Director of Communications for a major international waste company that was under pressure from environmental campaigners. Later he took charge of media relations for the chemical industry, dealing with environmental crises involving the chemical, oil, pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Through The Aziz Corporation, he advises major FT 250 companies on crisis management communications. Khalid Aziz spent the first twenty years of his career in the media. Trained by the BBC, he went on to work for a range of news and current affairs programmes from Newsbeat on Radio One to Panorama. He worked extensively as both presenter and producer, receiving industry awards for his broadcasting excellence. Khalid founded The Aziz Corporation in 1983 and today it is the UK's leading spoken communications consultancy. Crisis management is a key element in the company's consultancy portfolio, along with other areas of communications such as media handling and presentation skills.