Crisis management is one of my favorite practice areas.  I emphasize the word “practice” because during crises, a lot of what we do is to practice for the next.

Everyone has heard about the recent crisis in which Somali pirates kidnapped the captain of a U.S. freighter in the Indian Ocean.  Maersk is the company that owned the ship.

No one looks forward to a crisis, but many times an organization’s reputation can actually benefit from an incident.  In this case, Maersk did a nice job of improving its reputation in a time of crisis. 

How?  By maintaining from the beginning that the safe return of Captain Richard Phillips was “priority one.”  Who was there to back him up?  The U.S. Navy. 

 Thankfully, the result was good.  Now, everyone is a hero, including Captain Phillips, the Navy SEALs who fired the sniper shots and the crew of the MAERSK ALABAMA.

But what makes this uncommon is that it was a five-day crisis and that the climax of the crisis lasted nearly as long.  In my experience, crises often climax in a short period of time.Many times the climax occurs before the event is even reported, and at most after one or two days of being reported, then activity begins to diminish.

This particular crisis would have been tough to manage.  We know that crisis managers and public information officers for Maersk, the Navy and the FBI   were all on point for the duration of the incident, which is a grueling job in itself.  In situations like this, media are hungry for more information that is not available. A good crisis communicator will continue to disseminate information as he or she receives it.

In this case, the court of public opinion has spoken: all the players are heroes, except the pirates, and Maersk, the Navy and the FBI came out on top with better reputations than before.

In the everyday PR world, we deal with crises on a smaller scale.  The key is to use the information we have in a manner that helps the media educate the public while it helps us/our clients enjoy a responsible image/reputation. 

So, whether you have a pipeline with a small leak, or a hospital with a major outbreak, remember: safety and security are usually the top concern. Your job is to make sure your client is prepared to support and voice that concern because his or her organization’s reputation has a sensitive opportunity to benefit or suffer.

Follow the updates on the hostage crisis at the link below.  They’ll be busy updating this for a while.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/12/captain-richard-phillips_n_185983.html