What Were They Thinking? Crisis Communication – The Good, the Bad and the Totally Clueless.
By Steve Aduabto. (Part II) – Our first response to Crisis.
When I think of crisis communications, I believe our first instinct is to “paper over” what has happened, to ignore, deny, or rewrite history. In the case of infidelity, when one partner has cheated on the other one of the things that the betrayed partner says: “I can’t believe he / she has been lying to me all the time”; or “He / She looked me right in the eye and lied to me”.
Unless we are experienced in dealing with explosive situations, we are over whelmed and terrified of the consequences of what will happen if the truth is found out. In Dr. A’s book when he talks about organizations, my guess is that the people who have handled the situation badly, (i.e. The Church’s Pedophilia Scandal or the Government’s handling of public relations during hurricane Katrina) were panicking that they would look bad and quite possibly lose their jobs and ruin their reputation. As a result of that fear they gave into the natural instinct to do whatever it took to make things go away quietly.
When I see couples when one person has lied, and that often happens, the person who has lied is terrified that if the truth is learned about their infidelity or addiction problem, that their partner will leave them. The problem is that they follow their first instinct and try and lie themselves out of the situation.
In my next blog, I will talk about some of the rules and Guidelines that Dr. Aduabto suggests when involved in a crisis communication situation.