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being crisis-ready and taking that cultural approach benefits the company , the brand and the people so much more on a day-to-day basis outside of any type of issue or crisis management . That awareness only comes by doing the work . Then you go , “ Oh , in the past , this would have been a crisis , but it wasn ’ t even an issue at this point because our team did X or because we took these approaches and embedded that into our culture , and now we have more efficient practices and a better quality of experiences with our clients .” Those are the things that come out of this work that people never expect . They don ’ t really grasp it until they experience it .

P : Why is it so important to involve team members at all levels in crisis planning and management rather than leaving it to executives and other leaders ? A : If it ’ s a crisis , if it ’ s an incident that has a material impact on people , environment , operations , reputation or the bottom line , it ’ s not just going to be the concern of PR or the social media team . It ’ s going to permeate to sales and

to customer service and operations and projections for next year . Crisis doesn ’ t happen in a vacuum , and that means that every single member of the team needs their role and responsibility in a crisis , even if it ’ s to conduct business as usual . That role and responsibility is still vastly important in that overall response .

Think of it like taking a giant jigsaw puzzle and throwing it into the wind in a field . You need to put together all those pieces , but you have to go and find them , and every piece has a role and responsibility attached to it , and that has a person attached to it . So , making sure your teams understand what their pieces are and how those pieces fit into the greater puzzle to create the whole is both challenging to do and important to achieve . In a really impactful crisis , leadership isn ’ t doing the operational management of [ the response ]. They have to keep their eyes on the horizon and be fed information so that they can continue to provide strategic guidance and then hand that down to the rest of the team . It has to be this seamless engine that works in the mission together . n

22 PULSE • MAY / JUNE 2022