Unleashing Media’s Power: How to Use a Crisis to Stand Even Stronger Afterwards

A story on how difficult it is to find the perfect moment in time for communication with the media, based on a real-life example

Crises come, crises go: There is no way you can avoid crises.

And there is no way you can predict crises. The difference between a crisis and an emergency is that you cannot predict and therefore prepare for a crisis. For an emergency, you can prepare checklists and handle the emergency without wasting time and energy to think what to do next.

Every crisis is different, and that’s why you can only develop possible solutions during a crisis and not before. Using a sound and simple framework for planning and leadership helps to react to all sorts of crises?—?I learned such a crisis management framework at the Swiss Armed Forces.

In our volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, most crises are multi-faceted. Therefore, the media will become attentive to your crisis at some point?—?multi-faceted crises make for good stories, and that’s often all journalists are looking for. And just like many other components of crisis management, you cannot entirely control the perception of your crisis in the media.

But you can influence it by being proactive. However, being proactive with the media means walking on a fine line.

Here is a real-life example from a reputation crisis I was recently part of.

In Switzerland, we cherish our active reserve system, which we don’t just use for defense and politics, but also for schools and associations. In this context, I serve as the president of a local school.

Just like in many other walks of life, the world of schools changes rapidly, and nothing can be taken for granted. So when our local government announced a new subsidy model some two years ago, we decided to merge two schools in adjacent territories. As enshrined by unwritten laws in Switzerland, we informed all stakeholders proactively, built consensus around the preferred option, and put that option to the vote of our members. So far, so good. We got it approved and started to work on the merger.

What nobody noticed at that time: we underwent some formal errors in the decision-making process. Because nobody intervened during the legal delays, the decision came into force anyway.

But literally 5 minutes to twelve, out of nothing, a former president of the school stepped out of the dark. Instead of talking to us, he launched a full-scale attack against the school council and went to the local press immediately. I’ll spare you the details.

We were completely overwhelmed, and first needed to make sense of all the allegations. So we made a crucial mistake: We decided not to react to the media coverage straight away. The reasons for our decision were two-fold: First, we didn’t know yet what this whole crisis was all about. Second, we didn’t want to escalate the crisis (remember, we’re Swiss, and it’s not our nature to escalate things if there is a way to de-escalate or muddle through).

Although it’s a good idea not to talk about stuff you don’t know anything about yet, we lost the upper hand in the critical early phase of this crisis. And our opponent escalated the situation more and more.

After a few weeks of ever-increasing escalation, I decided to contact the local press and put a few things straight. My reaction was well received by both the media and the public, but frankly speaking, it was too late. We should have taken the initiative around two weeks earlier, and we could have prevented a lot of doubt amongst the parents of our pupils, and through this prevented a lot of damage done by this crisis.

How did the crisis end? Well, I don’t know yet. What I do know though is that we regained the upper hand by communicating proactively through the media. And luck wanted it that just at the moment when we regained the upper hand, the proposed subsidy model by the local government went into the second round of consultation.

What can we learn from this? Even if it’s a fine line to walk, and even if you don’t know yet what a crisis is all about, it pays off to proactively talk to the media. It’s harder to gain the upper hand later on during a crisis than to say that you don’t know everything yet early on in the crisis.

And last but not least, even if crises are unpleasant, they let you emerge stronger than you were before. The crisis described above has helped us to sharpen our offering and strategy, and to bond the team of the school council. As strange as it sounds, this wouldn’t have happened without the crisis. So every crisis is a chance to emerge better and stronger from it?—?even when you don’t realize that perspective at the height of the crisis.

Growing a company ?? in uncertain times ???? is like running a marathon?—?it demands grit, strategy, and resilience.

As a tech entrepreneur ??, active reserve officer ??, and father of three ??????, I share practical insights and experience on entrepreneurship and resilience in The Resilient Entrepreneur, my weekly newsletter.

When I’m not solving problems, I recharge and find inspiration in the breathtaking mountains ??? around Zermatt ????.

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