How do you manage your own stress and emotions when dealing with a media relations crisis?

One thing I've always found helpful is to understand the difference between my advisory role and the decision-making role that our business leaders play. This helps me to provide the best advice based on my skill set, expertise and past experience while also allowing me to quickly move in a different direction if that is what leadership decides.

1?? **Separate Opinions from Facts:** Remember, in a crisis, the public's opinion isn't always rooted in fact. 2?? **Don't React, Respond:** Emotions can run high during a crisis. Before communicating, absorb the information and process your emotions. Formulate reasoned responses instead of reacting impulsively. 3?? **Take Pause:** Allow yourself short breaks amid stress or chaos. 4?? **Stay Organized:** Having a crisis communication plan in place can reduce the stress of not knowing what to do. 5?? **Utilize Stress Management Techniques:** Practices like mindfulness, yoga, and meditation can help maintain your calm. 6?? **Seek Support:** You're not alone in this situation. Engage your team, seek counsel from mentors or professionals.

It is important to stay true to your values and make sure decision makers share and support them. This helps not only for how the crisis situation will end, but also how much energy you will lose on your way out of it. And how you will feel afterwords.

Exactly! Preparing for a possible crisis, watching the issues, and being at the C-suite table to create a solid and clear plan is crucial. There is always a reactive component but well laid plans will minimize confusion.

I have found that most companies, including prominent industry leaders, are typically ill-prepared for crises. Being proactive and having media protocols and Q&As ready can make a world of difference when a crisis hits. It’s the role of a media consultant to work with the C-suite to identify potential issues. From there, develop solid plans with messaging that can be approved and simply tweaked accordingly when it’s time to use it. I’ve worked with several companies that found themselves in hot water when dealing with a media issue simply because key messages had not been approved ahead of time. It’s a mistake to get a crisis specialist involved only when the crisis hits!

I picked up a role at one point in a relatively small organisation that had a robust risk register and a pretty large pool of well trained media gatekeepers and spokespeople.... but we still struggled during the school holidays when the majority of our senior people all disappeared on leave at the same time. Making sure we always had someone on call for media interviews was key.

Facing a media relations crisis can be quite overwhelming. It's crucial to approach it with a well-rounded perspective. Rather than just a "plan," I believe it's important to view it as an ongoing process that is continuously reviewed and tested against the real world. This ensures that strategies are adaptable and effective. I find that staying proactive, keeping open lines of communication, and seeking continuous learning and improvement are key strategies in handling media relations crises. Never put your plan in a drawer and wait for a crisis. Schedule regular evaluations and see if your plan holds up before it's needed. #mediarelations #crisismanagement

Building good media relations is a huge part of this. If journalists have positive experience with you (know you are available, honest with them, reliable, trustworthy, able to give them main points fast) it will be easier for them to understand the issue from your perspective, to understand and report on your role.

To avoid stress paralysis, I consciously slow down and do one thing at a time -- for a few minutes. I've found that this approach leads to greater productivity and creativity.

If you can't take days off, then at least try to drop the multitasking mode. I find this a very efficient battery charger (if you can afford to do it).

Taking care of yourself in times of crisis is very important. You have to distance yourself from the company you work for and the crisis at hand and say "this is my work life, and not my personal life." This disassociation will allow you to do your job better without worrying all the time and incapacitating yourself. There was an accidental death at a prior company I worked for and I was in the hot seat. But we had a great plan that was updated every year, and we practiced announced drills, and unannounced drills, so we had prior experience handling this type of tragedy. We did have to vary from the plan a bit because of where the death occurred but because we had that thorough plan, it made it easier to improvise.

In my experience, PR professionals have no problem communicating to the media effectively during a crisis. It’s communicating with the client and becoming codependent with them that causes a lack of clarity in the communication. A crisis for your client is not a crisis for you. Yes, there are protocols and you’ll be prepared (hopefully!) and maybe put in some overtime - however, you do not have to emotionally absorb the storm. I put space in between myself and my client’s emotions and I have my team to do the same. I am there to sanely guide the process - NOT to get sucked into the emotional tornado with them. This means having boundaries. This means knowing what you will do and what is out of scope (and frankly out of line).

And don't forget to communicate timely and effectively within the organization as well. Everyone from the organization should get the important information from senior staff, as soon as possible, and shouldn't be forced to rely on what the media is reporting or the gossip is saying.

I find companies who are able to apply the learnings from a previous crisis will find themselves in a better position when dealing with a new one. When a company goes through issues management, it’s a good idea to refresh media protocols, update key messages and have open dialogue about what worked well and what didn’t. Companies can look at whether or not spokespeople need additional media training, if internal policies need to be tweaked, and what areas of their comms and marketing plans should be modified to avoid a crisis in the future. As well, if the crisis reached the public, can the company be transparent with their audience about what happened? There are often great opportunities for visibility following a crisis.

Agree! Post-mortems provide perspective. You don't see the forest for the trees when you're in the war room. After the swirl, it's a good practice to gather inputs from the team and do a full debrief of the full campaign. In my experience, I like to hash out the learnings first with the comms team and then the full stakeholder group. We win or we learn, hopefully, both.

In my experience, when emotions run high, we have a tendency to either hide or blame. Neither one works well. Using the guidance of #cywakeman, I've learned to take ego out of my analysis and response. This way, I can respond with more clarity and sincerity while also considering differing points of view.