PROA's managing partner, Lucía Casanueva, reflects on Confilegal on crisis management from a strategic communication perspective.
In an ever-changing world full of loudspeakers through social media, crises have become a daily threat to organisations, institutions, companies and individuals.
Their management and digestion are a matter of life and death for any reputation, and that is why they have become a speciality of corporate communication where expertise, jurisprudence, experience and a skill that is increasingly powerful in fast-paced societies: mettle.
Reputational crises of companies and professionals are occurring in a context of journalism crisis, social crisis, economic crisis and at a time of hyperactivity of social networks, where hysteria has become a hook, whoever it disembowels.
Normally, acute crises are like a traffic accident: they happen suddenly, they are spectacular, they explode at unpredictable moments and require urgent intervention by a team of firemen, policemen and health professionals, all of whom are used to working with the serenity, fortitude, tenacity and energy of a good surgeon.
Like any healthcare professional, we communication experts know that the best medicine is prevention. That is why, when we take the reins of communication for a company, brand, institution or organisation, we start by building the pillars of foresight, the foundation of any clinical history.
90 % of the heart attacks that occur are associated with known classical risk factors, such as hypertension, high cholesterol levels, smoking, diabetes or obesity.
This is why it is essential to gather information and perform analyses of the patient subject of a hypothetical reputational infarction at the first consultation.
Since then, we have been studying bad and good cholesterol. We look at the red numbers with a magnifying glass and search for triggers. We pull the healthiest markers to enrich the rest of the body with that plasma.
We do X-rays, ultrasound scans, electrocardiograms, CAT scans. We measure. All diagnostic tests that help us to know the patient to the millimetre are essential to hit the target when the gale is unleashed. We ask questions. We palpate. With realism, we propose a diagnosis and a treatment.
And we are the first to know which foreseeable pathologies may break out sooner or later. Even if a specific crisis comes out of the blue later on, controlling in depth the body of the epicentre of a possible massive attack is a fundamental tool to face the war against that tumour, which may be a hoax, an attack, an irresponsibility, a mistake, a revenge or a clamorous dysfunction.
THE MATURITY OF EXPERIENCE
When a communication crisis comes to our company, we defuse the tension, because we have experience. The maturity of our professionals generates an atmosphere of security, and that peace in the midst of the battle is a great treasure that sometimes young multimedia, multilingual and multiplatform people are not able to offer, also because it is easier for them to catch the hysteria of the climate, setting the issue on fire more than necessary.
With all the scenarios clear and among the professionals best suited to operate on that unwelcome bulge that has just surfaced on the skin of the subject of a crisis, the dance begins.
Work gown. Prophylaxis. Gloves. Trust and maximum collaboration between the surgical team. The right doses of anaesthesia and discretion and the permanently open dropper of prudence marking the intervention to get it right.
The decisiveness to handle the scalpel. The decisiveness to call a spade a spade.
Blind trust in the experts and their readiness to help us come out of this sudden cardiac arrest and leave the hospital more rejuvenated, healthier, more aware, more experienced.
In crisis communication, speed, truthfulness, transparency, humility, empathy, constant monitoring and unity of action are essential.
Afterwards, an authorised (and qualified) spokesperson will pass on the report to the family with the best possible communicated report to portray the situation hyper-realistically, but without stifling hope.
Communication professionals will need to be able to convey more credibility to relatives than is offered by digital media, sometimes with impunity.
They, of course, will be shocked by the virulence of the reaction against a loved one, and we must put things in their place, tell the whole truth, put the ball down, prick the balloons, isolate the feelings of the metaverse of the networks, put the focus on what is important and thus prevent the viruses that swarm around the hospital to which we come to heal from doing more damage than necessary.
No crisis lasts forever. Leadership, experience, accurate communication and determination will bring down the inflammation.
The patient will probably suffer for a few days, like anyone in a post-operative context, but he or she will walk again, smile, live. And he will do so with more antibodies than before the accident.
The environment will also end up putting this episode in its place, guided by the "modus vivendi" of many media, where epic crises that last only a few hours are baptised, because what rules is not rigorous and objective information, but the interest of capricious and amorphous audiences.
When the "trending topic" relaxes, they will focus on other crises elsewhere on the planet, in a loop, like an addict without methadone. That is why sometimes journalism tells us the echocardiogram of a predominantly tachycardic society, even though in our streets the number of people without cardiovascular problems prevails.
Prevention. Training. Measurement. Prudence. Teamwork. Professionalism. Experience. Maturity. Realism. Sound techniques and principles in the face of the tsunami. We will stop hearing the hyperventilation of ambulances and the beeping of the ICU.
The rhythm of the clogs of the clogs of the sanitary staff in the emergency communication will slow down. The viruses, the dangers, the enemies, the murderers will move away. A stronger body will emerge if it is able to learn from this crisis of supposed failure.
We will draw conclusions.
We will breathe deeper, because we will be better.
In Spain there is no speciality in Emergency Medicine. This is a notable shortfall that many doctors have been calling for for years and which distances us from European healthcare standards, for example.
Experience in crisis communication is a mature speciality at Proa, where we are used to analysing risks and addressing them with the expertise of a neurosurgeon.
Does a neurosurgeon in the midst of the storm of a nervous system in urgent need of intervention enjoy it? Yes, probably, especially when the operation ends with another success.