Author: Tom Curtin, with Daniel Hayman and Naomi Husein
ISBN No: 1-4039-4322-2
Review date: 13/12/2025
No of pages: 180
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year of publication: 11/09/2012
Brief:
Whether you are a security company, or in an organisation’s security department, a crisis can hit you. How do you spot a crisis coming; and if it hits, what to do?
Looking at the list of 19 chapters, which include two on the media and one on ‘managing politicians and the public’, my fear was that Managing a Crisis was about soothing the media and your worried local MP, rather than picking the injured and dead out of wreckage. And while there is a tinge of that, the book does have plenty to tell security and other managers about what to do in case of, and during, a crisis.
Getting involved
First, for good and ill, security staff may have to roll their sleeves up in the crisis. An early case study covers the Brent Spar oil rig (remember that in 1995?), what the authors describe as damaging for Shell. The oil firm sent security staff on board the rig, to evict the Greenpeace campaigners, to no avail. There is this paragraph on tighter security in a crisis: “The company can still remain open, friendly and caring through its external responses and the decisions that it makes regarding employees, stakeholders and the media. In particular, front reception needs to be strengthened and the crisis area [where the management team works] needs to be sealed.” Security staff need to let authentic reporters into a press conference, and keep activists out – difficult if the activists make enough fuss, the authors admit.
Rumour mill
There is one instance of how doing the sensible security thing – keeping the banner-wavers and chanters out – can be bad during the crisis, if TV is there to show you man-handling protesters. Equally, the book has valid points about internal communications in a crisis, a topic arising from 9-11 and 7-7. There is what you could call the water cooler effect – people gossip. And if you don’t give any info, people assume there’s something seriously wrong and being hidden. So there is wise advise about beating the rumour mill.
About business
Largely the book covers private business crises, with exceptions (the Spanish government after the Madrid bombs, the US postal service during the 2001 anthrax scare). If the book is light on anything, it’s a crisis hitting a public or semi-body body, such as the police; or a security or other company doing a public sector contract. When something goes wrong (and the book quotes Murphy’s law), where does the flak land? and how heavily? The book is strongest on media relations, wise to the real workings of TV and the press. The Alton Towers exercises in case of worst case scenarios (featured in our July 2002 issue) come to mind. The media can be an ally, neutral, or part of the problem. It depends partly on who is the spokesperson for the crisis-hit company. The authors define a credible face, who could be any sort of manager – a ‘straight shooter’, not arrogant or over-honest or timid. Could it be you? A security firm’s cash depot could suffer a £50m robbery, the asylum-seeker detention centre could burn, the prisoners you are escorting under contract could escape.
Unfair
The book is set in the real world throughout; a crisis can be unfair, and manufactured. No matter. The book has a motto: if you think you have a problem, then you probably have one. And if someone else thinks you have a problem, you definitely have. As the authors spell out, the worst crisis on paper – an aircraft crash, say – may well not turn into a crisis, because the media and public will more happily accept that such things happen. But, the book stresses, you can stay in control even during a media frenzy, as in the US after 9-11. The book praises the US Postal Service’s response; it sent 145m postcards advising on how to avoid exposure to anthrax. Instead of being part of the hyped-up problem (mailmen delivering powder), it was part of the war on terror. As for fraud, the Allied Irish Bank is praised for curtailing a crisis when a ‘rogue trader’ threatened to be the ‘next Nick Leeson’ and bring down the bank.
Business continuity
The authors end with some wise pages about business continuity (BC) – setting up a team, drawing up plans, including basics like attending to IT and physical security (no computer passwords taped to PC monitors). In a line, crisis management is fire-fighting, while BC is rebuilding for survival. It’s a useful book that can get you thinking about where you are vulnerable to a crisis. Manage a brand well, you can even enhance it. The ostrich approach – hoping something will go away – will not work, the book warns.
