Crisis Communication: Balancing Consistency with Delivery

One of the challenges of communicating effectively in times of viral issue and crisis management is ensuring that your brand's communications are consistent across every stakeholder group, region and department. In other words, you don't want one team of people saying one thing, while another team says another.
Depending on the size and structure of your organization, this can be a challenge that leads to leadership strategizing ways by which they can add a security measure of 'control' to the message's delivery.
But, if you aren't careful, that added layer of attempted control can be your downfall.
Crisis communication is complex, dynamic and critically important to get right. After all, one of the Crisis Ready Rules is: The longer you take to effectively communicate in times of viral issue and crisis, the more control over the narrative you lose, the more trust and credibility you lose with those who matter most to your brand, and the more Crisis Response Penalty* (CRP) you suffer.
So, while message consistency is essential, it is only one of the many aspects you need to get right in order to successfully manage high-stakes situations. You, therefore, don't want the processes and controls you put around ensuring your message consistency to hinder the delivery of those important communications.
And yet, this is a mistake that can be easily made.
In the following Crisis Ready Video, I share an example of a company who is getting this wrong, the reason behind why it's wrong, and the ways by which you can make sure that your organization doesn't make the same critical mistake.
* The Crisis Response Penalty (CRP) is the needless reputational and financial impact of a crisis on a brand as a direct result of mismanagement.

[@TonyCecala]

I can't imagine which store would have products so juicy that people would run by and pick them off like that.

[@MelissaAgnes]

Tony Cecala lol