In his Crisis Guru Commentaries, Jim Lukaszewski provides real answers to real questions about your most critical communications problems and issues.

To submit a question, please direct it by e-mail to crisisguru@e911.com.  Be sure to include your full name, affiliation, address, and telephone number.  All published questions will be identified by title and industry only.  Your confidentiality will be protected.

Question:
 
Dear Crisis Guru:

My boss tells me most of his peer organizations don’t spend a lot of time on crisis planning.  Is this true?  How can I convince my boss we really need to spend some time and focus on getting ready for crisis?

Thank you.

Corporate PR Manager

Answer:

Dear Manager:

During one of my recent international teleconferences, I was asked:  “What are your current crisis planning activities?”  All of the attendees were learning about designing and developing crisis plans.

Here’s how the answers broke down:  8% were thinking about getting started, 17% were starting from scratch, 20% were picking up somebody else’s work, 19% were checking their own competence, 44% were updating existing plans, 46% were critiquing their readiness, 17% were auditing all plans, 53% were looking for good tips, 2% were completely lost and adrift, 8% were partially lost and adrift, and 20% ignored the question.

The total is more than 100% because individuals within the same group were allowed to vote separately.  The responses clearly fit with the information your boss is sharing with you.  This rather informal and qualitative information can perhaps help you better frame where you are compared to your colleagues based on 80% of more than 200 possible responses.

Cordially,

Jim Lukaszewski