The email usually arrives late in the afternoon. A journalist has a document, a source or a set of allegations, and they’d like your comment by 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.
What happens next depends far less on the allegation than on the preparation. In our experience, most reputational damage is done in the first 48 hours, before the organisation has even agreed what it thinks. Silence gets read as guilt. Panic gets read as guilt too. And a hurried statement that later turns out to be wrong can do more harm than the original story.
You can’t choose when a crisis arrives. You can choose whether you’ve rehearsed it.
Here’s the checklist we give boards, split into what to agree now and what to do when the phone rings.
Before the phone rings
1. Name the team
Decide now who sits in the crisis room: usually the chief executive, the chair, general counsel, the head of communications and one operational lead. Keep it small. Name deputies for each, because crises have a habit of arriving when someone is on a long-haul flight.
2. Agree who signs off
The single biggest cause of delay we see is confusion over who approves a statement. Write it down. Two people, not seven. Agree what legal review looks like and how fast it can happen.
3. Map your risks honestly
Every organisation knows its soft spots: the disputed contract, the difficult market, the former employee with a grievance. List them, draft holding lines for each, and review them once a year.
4. Know your audiences
The press is only one audience. Staff, funders, lenders, regulators, partners and the communities you work with may matter more. Keep a current list of who needs to hear from you, and in what order.
5. Rehearse
Run a simulation at least once a year, with a realistic scenario, a ticking clock and someone playing an unhelpful journalist. It’s uncomfortable. It’s also where you discover that nobody knows the password to the corporate X account.
When the phone rings
6. Get the facts before the lines
In the first hour, establish what you know, what you don’t know and what you can find out quickly. Resist the urge to start drafting before this is done.
7. Call your lawyers and your communicators together
Legal and communications advice work best in the same room. Your lawyers will protect your position; your communicators will protect your reputation. You need both, and they need to hear each other.
8. Issue a holding statement, if you need one
A short, accurate holding statement buys time without conceding anything. It should say that you’re aware, that you take it seriously, what you’re doing and when you’ll say more. Then keep that promise.
9. Tell your own people first
Staff who learn about a crisis from the news feel betrayed, and some of them will talk. A brief, honest internal message, sent before or at the same time as any public statement, is one of the most effective things you can do.
10. Watch, don’t feed
Monitor coverage and social media closely, but think hard before responding to every post. Engaging with bad-faith accounts often amplifies them. Correct factual errors with journalists privately and firmly.
11. Pick one voice
Choose a single spokesperson and prepare them properly. Consistency matters more than seniority, and a well-briefed communications director is better than an unprepared chief executive.
12. Plan for day three
By the second day, start planning the recovery: what you’ll change, how you’ll show it and who needs to see it. The story will move on. Your stakeholders’ memories won’t, unless you give them something new to remember.
A final word
The organisations that come through a crisis well aren’t the ones that never make mistakes. They’re the ones that respond quickly, honestly and in one voice, because they agreed how they’d do it long before they needed to.
If your board hasn’t had this conversation yet, we’re happy to help you start it. Talk to us about crisis preparedness and simulation exercises.