Practical Skills Training
Crisis Leadership
Sea-Change Crisis Leadership training is designed to help leaders within organizations “weather the storm” in several ways:
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By developing a framework for diagnosing crises that will enable clients and their teams to make systematic sense of any crisis situation, to manage each aspect of the crisis effectively, and to delegate specific, productive tasks to appropriate members of your team. Why? Because when a crisis hits, people often make one of two critical mistakes; they either respond with inaction or they react. We train people to be good “crisis doctors,” so that instead of reacting in ways that will make a situation worse, they can diagnose what is happening and take more purposeful action.
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By helping participants to understand how crises happen, how to scan environments, organisations, and people in order to prevent crises where possible, and minimise the damage, and helping participants to understand how most crisis management mistakes are made that make a bad situation worse, and
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By identifying ways in which organizations can “make their ship more sea-worthy” through more effective crisis preparation,
Understanding Crises and the Critical Elements of Crisis Leadership
This module helps people to understand the importance of Crisis Leadership capacity, and where it fits into an organization’s needs. Participants also learn what mindsets and strategic approaches are necessary to deal with crisis situations purposefully, rather than reacting and making the typical mistakes that can be fatal to an organization when dealing with a crisis.
Crisis Anatomy 101: What Makes a Crisis a Crisis?
Step one in coping with crisis situations is making useful sense of what is happening and its implications. Participants will learn what makes a crisis a crisis, and how to be a good crisis doctor, in any situation. “Crisis Anatomy 101” begins the process of identifying key variables that distinguish crises from business-as-usual. These variables will serve as a framework for productive diagnostic thinking during a crisis.
“What Could POSSIBLY Go Wrong?”
Those who are vigilant and well-prepared are less likely to be taken by surprise. The fact is that crises that seemed — at the time — to come out of nowhere often appear inevitable, in hindsight. Skilled observers of markets, environments, trends, and people – those who are not blinded by wishful thinking or other cognitive blind-spots – can anticipate most crises and act early enough in the cycle to prevent the worst damage and to mobilize resources in time to cope. An essential part of an organization’s conflict management capacity is knowing what to look for.
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Scanning the Environment – Trends, Bubbles, Black Swans, and Bullets Dodged
One way in which crises threaten organisations – and communities – is for a sudden incident, or long-simmering pressures, to upset the normal course of events; whether a natural disaster, a major accident, an act of terrorism, a shocking scandal or crime, or an environmental catastrophe. While it is nearly impossible to anticipate every threat, there are trends, stresses, and risks in every external environment that bear watching. Some risks are the result of visible trends. Others are the result of pressures that build-up over time (“bubbles” and “powder kegs”), and are not adequately dealt with at earlier stages. Some incidents are “black swans;” rare, often disruptive, events that cannot reasonably be predicted. And some crises are a repeat of events that have happened before, but that previously proved less costly – and, therefore, less instructive. Vigilant observers — who know what to look for — will be less surprised than most people when a crisis occurs…and they will be more likely to learn from their past mistakes and the mistakes of others. And those who are most responsible for dealing with crisis situations (or those who are most expected to deal with them) must understand how their stakeholders are likely to be affected by threats.
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Scanning Your Organisation – SWOTs and Scenario Planning as an Organisational Stress Test
While “learning-on-the-job” is often an effective way to improve your skills, and there is no substitute for experience, you don’t want your organisation – and the people in it – learning about crisis management the hard way. No organisation can be totally prepared for every possible eventuality, but well-run, resilient organisations are better able to withstand the stresses and survive the dangers of crisis situations. In other words, well-built ships that have been put to the test are better able to “weather a storm” than those that are unprepared and/or untested. “SWOT” Analysis, developed at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and scenario planning are two of the most common, and effective, tools used to test the resilience of an organisation and its systems – particularly in times of crisis.
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“Scanning Your People” — Typical Crisis Behaviour: Avoiding the Traps
Not surprisingly, people make critical mistakes in dealing with crises; they overreact, miss opportunities, strain internal and external relationships, and – most importantly – contribute to the crisis unwittingly with natural reactions. In this module, participants will analyse some typical “natural reactions” to crises such as “mirroring,” ”single-loop learning,” blame, and taking a “lone warrior” approach. We question many of the underlying assumptions that constitute current “conventional crisis wisdom.” And we use this critique to design better ways to handle crisis situations and to help organizations think about building their own “crisis capacity” through enhancing the skills of – and instilling better habits in – its people.
Understanding and Managing Crisis “Doom-Loops”
Doom-loops are the downward spirals or “tailspins” that occur when a crisis situation worsens, or begins to spin out of control. Skilled crisis managers understand that there are several doom-loops that can threaten a crisis situation and attempts to cope with crises. This module, based on our proprietary diagnostic tools, helps crisis managers identify exactly what elements can create, feed, and accelerate doom-loops. Just as importantly, this module helps participants learn what to do to counteract those doom-loops. Many of the traps in which ineffective crisis managers find themselves are both recognizable and avoidable; if you know what to look for and what elements to manage.
Application: Video Case-Studies
We use a selection of video case-studies and documentaries of real crisis situations in order to illustrate the principles of Crisis Leadership. Video case-studies allow participants to apply tools and concepts to actual crisis situations, with the benefit of expert facilitation.
Application: Crisis Analysis Tools
Participants are also given a set of diagnostic tools, based on the “anatomy of crisis” framework. These tools allow participants to conduct systematic diagnosis of a crisis and to delegate useful tasks accordingly. Participants can apply the tools to their own crisis situations or to other case-studies and simulations. Sea-Change Partners’ Crisis Analysis Tool is used by several police forces, militaries, and other government ministries, as well as corporations and international organizations around the world.
Crisis Communication
Sea-Change Crisis Communication training helps those responsible for designing and implementing an organizations communication strategy in the following ways:
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By providing critical communication tools to help those dealing with crisis situations interact more efficiently and productively with each other and with actors, such as the media, outside of the organization,
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By providing a comprehensive set of skills, tools, and strategies for crisis communication and addressing the media throughout a crisis.
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By facilitating practice sessions for press conferences, interviews, and handling tough questions.
Critical Communication Tools for Crisis Managers
“Truth vs. Perception” – Understanding Partisan Perceptions and the “Path of Reasoning”
Before taking participants into the tools and strategies of Crisis Communication, we first put in place a foundation of understanding of two critical areas of basic communication; understanding “partisan perceptions” and navigating the “path of reasoning.” This module, though also useful for external communication, is intended to equip crisis managers with essential skills to improve internal communication under pressure. Debates, arguments, and misunderstandings are common communication problems whenever people disagree. They become obstacles to effective influence and problem-solving, and they cause friction in relationships. In times of crisis, however, unproductive debates, arguments, and misunderstandings can be particularly costly. Good crisis managers are good communicators. And the tools provided in this module are essential to navigating challenging conversations, improving understanding, soliciting multiple perspectives, and to turning potentially destructive debate into more constructive dialogue.
Managing Difficult Conversations
One characteristic of crisis situations is that they tend to provoke high emotion in those responsible for dealing with them – and in those who suffer their consequences. One result of the stress caused by crises is that even conversations that would otherwise not be difficult often become so, under pressure. There is both an art and a science to having “difficult conversations” skilfully, in ways that do not add more friction to an already-volatile, or pressured, situation. Based on the pioneering work of the Harvard Negotiation Project and the acclaimed book, Difficult Conversations, to which senior Sea-Change professionals contributed, this module helps crisis managers build this critical skill set.
Crisis Communication: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies
Crafting Messages
One of the main purposes of crisis communication is managing the narrative that observes perceive about what is happening throughout a crises. People within the organization dealing with a crisis must be proactive in shaping that narrative, to the extent possible. This module trains participants in a critical list of questions they must ask themselves. The answers will guide then the organization’s crisis communication strategy.
Crisis communicators need discipline and a systematic approach in order to ensure speed, accuracy, and alignment in their communications and to help them overcome one of the major challenges of a crisis; having imperfect information. Participants will also learn how to balance the need to maintain a consistent message with the need to adapt it to various platforms and media; both mainstream and social.
Participants will learn to put their information into a “map.” This map gives them structure that flows, has precision, and is relatively easy to recall. Participants will be given a set of tools that will help them through the process of answering tough questions and that will serve as a source of confidence throughout the crisis.
Application: The Messaging Exercise
Participants are asked to nominate a crisis scenario and are then asked, in groups, to answer the critical list of questions and to draw their message map. Participants will be given illustrative examples in order to help them to develop their own message maps. They will learn about talking points and the introduction to a media conference. They will be asked to prepare and deploy question-answering tools and all communications applications.
Media Awareness and Media Relations
Knowing how the media works and what matters to them is essential in crisis communication and has practical consequences. It shapes critical decisions like; who should speak on behalf of the organization? Should engagement with the media be done via a press conference, press release, blog, interview, or, perhaps a combination? Participants are trained in the following media strategies and crisis communication principles:
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The Cornerstone Principle – Giving the media the content you want, and in a form they can use, quickly and easily,
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The Material Priorities – Understanding which materials to offer first, and why,
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The Big Decisions – The “who, how, and when” – of planning media interaction,
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The “Nudge” Tactics – What can be done to make materials more attractive to the media and therefore, more likely to be used as you would like; “story types,” “use of ambassadors,” “sidebars,” pictures, graphics, quotes, numbers, and specific ideas on what can be done to influence outcomes; from management of the crisis site, to management of a press conference.
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The Rules of Engagement – Taking calls from the media, handling requests, talking “off the record,” and other distractions.
The Performance
Two of the most important factors that will influence external perceptions of what is happening to an organization during a crisis are the ability to answer questions and what the spokesperson looks and sounds like. Both are central to credibility and authority. Even if you are never going to be a spokesperson yourself, feeling what it is like to be a spokesperson, has an enormous impact on how you shape inputs for use by others.
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Answering questions – Six core techniques that will equip participants to handle any question, in interview — and in all other occasions,
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The Delivery – Participants will learn how to move, what to do with their hands, where to look, how to structure their sentences, how to select phrases and wording, how to project, how to create vocal variety – all to come across as credible in the most difficult of circumstances. This module will include opportunities to practice coaching others in delivery.
The Crisis Scenario Exercise
Participants will experience a two-part simulation of a crisis situation that will test their abilities as crisis communicators. They will role – play participants in the incident and also play the role of reporters at a press conference. The spokespeople will be given an outline of the facts for the crisis scenario. They will be told that they will face a media conference on short notice. The media conference they host will be recorded on video. During the simulation, other participants will be interviewed in role, on camera. They will be briefed on how to behave/what to ask in the media conference.
After a break, the roles are reversed for a different fact situation, and participants will switch roles. The same exercise follows, with a second media conference and set of recorded interviews. Videos are then reviewed, and participants are given feedback and suggestions for further improvement.
