Fuel protests: business continuity lessons from 2000 Probably the two overriding lessons arising from the fuel protests in the year 2000 were the vital need for contingency plans and the importance of getting communications right, especially when trying to convince an antagonistic audience. However, beneath these two 'big picture' observations lie a number of specific 'learning points'. What were the key points that business continuity managers learned five years ago which should be informing their current contingency preparations? • The first point has to be one of speed: how quickly industry can grind to a standstill when its fuel lifeblood is removed. Delivery to customers, receipt of raw materials and key staff getting to work were all in jeopardy within 48 hours of large-scale protests starting. The lesson is never to delay on activating contingency plans because any delay can make it too late to recover. Always imagine the worst and begin to put measures in place - you can always scale down again if things don't get that bad. • Another point is that a crisis, at the peak of its intensity, can be relatively swift - maybe only a few days. But the recovery period can linger on much longer and needs to be anticipated and managed with as much focus. Following the 2000 protests, it took many days for the fuel supply situation to return to anything like normal, affecting flexibility and feasibility of products and people for a lot longer than anyone might have guessed. • It is important that businesses make prior contingency plans for corporate communications in crisis situations. Those must take full account of the influence of pressure groups, however small, bearing in mind how easily they can drown out any authority point of view. Corporate messages need to be tailored to these groups. Directors need to understand the pressure groups' more emotive point of view and the sympathetic response this can engender in the public - not refuse to give it credence or stick stubbornly to their own logical agenda. This doesn't necessarily mean compromise, but it does mean dialogue and it does mean doing plenty of research to work out who are your key audiences and how to form some sort of workable partnership with all of them, based on common ground. • If it's a battle between facts and emotions, emotions always win. It's a mistake to base your corporate crisis communications on logic, such as statistics or intellectual principles, when the emotional aspects of the risk situation can be much more dominant. In 2000, anger at fuel taxes far outweighed logical arguments about conserving fuel usage to reduce emissions. • Logic can falter again when inviting consumer audiences to assess relative • When dealing with risk or crisis issues with the media and the public, above all, behave as a human being first (so you can empathise with your Chris Woodcock is director of Razor Public Relations, a communications and specialist consultancy which advises on crisis, issues and risk communications around the globe. Contact Chris on chris.woodcock@razor-pr.com. Tel +44 (0) 1869 353803.
•Date: 13th September 2005 •Region: UK •Type:
Article •Topic: BC gen. / Crisis comms |
