• Prevention- issues management; environmental scanning;look for prodromes
• Preparation- planning for crisis (ie. safety drills); need to know public expectations
• Response- trying to return to stability
• Revision- learning step; living document

• Signal detection- warning signs identified and acted upon
• Probing and prevention- evaluate risk factors and work to reduce potential for harm
• Damage containment- try to prevent crisis damage from spreading
• Recovery- organization works to return to normal business
• Learning- review
  • cyclical- goes back into signal detection

Fink's taxonomy

(elaborated by Sturges)

• Prodromal- clues or hints of potential crisis about to emerge
• Acute or Crisis Breakout- triggering event and resulting damage
• Chronic- effects of crisis linger as efforts to fix it progress
• Resolution- there is some clear signal that the crisis is no longer a concern

• Pre-Crisis
  • Signal detection
  • Prevention
  • Crisis preparation
• Crisis
  • Crisis Recognition
  • Crisis Containment
• Post-Crisis
  • make organization better prepared for future
  • retain positive impression with stakeholders
  • ensure crisis is actually over

• Identification and actions taken to affect issues
• Lessen negative impact of an issue
• Shapes how issue develops and is resolved
• issues can be cyclical; re-examine

Risk Assesment

• Identify risks or weaknesses in organization
• Attempting to assess what kind of risk or aversion is possible
  • Risk aversion process- actions are taken to eliminate or reduce risk (ie. policies)
  • Risk aversion evaluation- periodic review of risk to determine effectiveness risk aversion program

• build and maintain a favorable perception of an organization among stakeholders; reflection of organization and stakeholder (primary and secondary)
• Build more favorable perception

• Primary- people or groups whose actions can be harmful or beneficial to an organization (ie. Employees, customers, investors)
• Secondary- people or groups who can affect or be affected by the actions of the organization

• Power- ability of stakeholder to make the company do something it would not normally do
• Legitimacy- actions that are considered desirable, proper, or appropriate (having a legitimate concern)
• Willingness- stakeholder's desire to confront the organization about the problem

• Specific stakeholder concerns 
• Expectation Gaps
  • Perception gap- stakeholder perception is wrong
  • Performance gap- organization is not meeting expectations of stakeholders

• natural disasters
• workplace violence
• rumors
• malevolence- product tampering, kidnapping, terrorism, computer hacking
• challenges
• technical error accidents
• technical error product harm
• human error product harm
• human error accidents
• organizational misdeeds- mgmt places stakeholders at risk, knowingly (illegal)

• Cross-functional
• Good media relations
• Reflect the nature of the crisis
• Group decision making
• Function as a team
• Enact CMP
• Handle stress
• Team players
• Decision making ability
• Listening skills
• Cooperative
• Ambiguity tolerance
• Argumentativeness
• Low communication apprehension
• Willingness to express opinions and ideas

• Intuitive- gut decision based on experience
• Rule-based- follow procedures
• Analytic- focusing on identifying and evaluating options
• Group

• Orientation- overview of CMP
• Drill- only practices one part
• Tabletop- guided discussion and analysis of crisis situation
• Functional Exercise- simulated interactive exercise in real time
• Full-scale exercise- completely acted out; best option for preparedness

• Manage accuracy and consistency of messages from organization
• Does not need to be one person, but one united voice
• Must be able to work with media, able to listen and respond to questions, be comfortable in front of the camera, and look the part (appropriate)

• Cover page- confidential, last updated, who has a copy
• Introduction- written by CEO
• Acknowledgement forms- turned into HR
• Rehearsal date page
• First Action page- incident commanders, how and when to activate CMP
• Crisis management team contact information
• Crisis risk assessment section
  • Crisis inventory (likelyhood/impact)
• Incident report section- accurate records of what has happened
• Proprietary information- things not to reveal to the public
• Communication strategy worksheet
• Secondary Contact sheet
• Stakeholder Contact sheet
• Business Continuity Plan- what to do if crisis damages vital equipment to conduct business
• Crisis Control center
• Post-crisis evaluation forms
• Crisis Appendix
  • pre-collected information
  • background information
  • templates for releases

• Meeting place for CMT
• Information collection center
• Place to breif media
• Dedicated completely to crisis
• Equipped to meet needs of CMT
• Either on-site or off-site
• Able to be set up quickly

• Perceived importance
  • likelihood and impact
• Immediacy
  • how quickly can something blow up
• Uncertainty
  • degree of ambiguity

• knowing background of top management to get their attention

Information Processing

(problems/mechanisms)

• Information processing problems
  • Serial reproduction errors- distortion of truth through multiple people
  • Mum effect- withhold negative info completely
  • Message overload-people are given more info than they can manage
  • Information acquisition bias- people naturally use selective perception
  • Group decision making errors-fail to use critical thinking skills- incorrectly identify cause of problem; improperly evaluate alternative solutions
• Information processing mechanisms
  • Internal Stakeholder Network
  • External Stakeholder Network
  • Crisis Information logs
    • Systematically collect and process information
      • Clarity
      • Timeliness
      • Depth

• Deny
• Redefinition
  • organization did not intend to commit the misdeed
• Dissociation
  • organization might seem to have committed the misdeed, but did not
• Conciliation
  • accept responsibility and appologize

Situational Crisis Communication Theory 

(SCCT)

• Maximizing- evaluate benefits of all alternatives and choosing the best
• Satisficing- coming up with the first thing that seems to satisfy minimum requirements

• Ultimately want employes to buy into organization and be invested
• Control
  • Simple- the use of direct open power
  • Technical- use of machinery
  • Bureaucratic- procedure/rule based
  • Concertive- interpersonal communication and teamwork
    • Unobtrusive- replaces explicit rules of an organizations operation with an implicit set based on a common understanding and deep appreciation of the organizations "mission" or goal

• Put statistics and knowledge down before you forget so that new people can be aware
• Utilize knowledge and experience

• Data Collection
  • crisis records, stakeholder feedback, performance measures, internet comments, and media coverage
• Organizing and Analyzing the Crisis Management Performance Data
  • Crisis type- allows for comparison
  • Crisis phases
  • Systems
    • Technology- organize work;specific tasks; means to complete tasks
    • Human factors- examines fit between people and technology
    • Infrastructure- connection of CMT to functioning of organization
    • Culture- extent to which organization is oriented towards crisis preparation
    • Emotions/Beliefs- dominant coalition mindset
  • Stakeholders reaction

• Likelihood
  • 0= Impossible
  • 5= Highly Probable
• Impact
  • 0= No Damage
  • 5= Devistating
• create a graph

• Credibility- attitude toward communicator
• Emotion- how message is presented
• Reason- rational appeal, stirs intellect