3 Keys for Crisis Communications

If it is a recall, the announcement of an unexpected departure of a key person or even internal communications of bad news: there are a few key aspects to get right to avoid making things worse than they are.

A crisis can be big or small in scale. In Medical Technology it can be caused by something as fundamental as a product recall, a user presenting bad data about your device or as small and personal as the exit of a key person from your team.

Irrespective of the specificities of the crisis, getting the communication right is fundamental to avoid adding gas to the fire.

Create clarity, share facts

One of the most common mistakes in crisis communication is to confuse the recipients of your message or to muddy the waters. If you want a non-MedTech example of how much pain and anger this can produce, please read a bit on the communication of the Malaysian authorities during the disappearance of flight MH370, or watch the Netflix documentary about it.

Do share facts and data which you are completely certain of and stick with it. It will help create clarity and will add to your credibility.

Think further

Any statement you make if you are involved in a crisis will lead to questions, responses or opinions. Be prepared for it. A good exercise in this situation is to put yourself or members of your team into the shoes of different stakeholder groups and have them react accordingly. It will equip you with a strong bases to answer questions and will guide you to areas of your communication that might need more or less attention.

Thinking further also relates to the timing of the communication and your ability to anticipate how the situation continues to unfold. E.g. in a very dynamic situation you should fill in your stakeholders rather often with smaller more concise updates in order to continuously shape the emerging story.

First things first

Do not surprise your internal stakeholders. If you comment on an unfolding crisis which affects the entire organization, you should make sure everyone in the organization gets the communication before it goes public. Also in a smaller crisis this holds true: If a member of your team is leaving your company, then you should make sure that their immediate colleagues are informed about the exit before an announcement is sent out to the rest of the company.

We are not talking about days in advance but at a long enough time to give everyone a fair chance to receive and comprehend the communication.

How not to do it: OpenAI ousting their CEO

MedTech AI applications become more relevant by the day. So I followed what unfolded at OpenAI in October. It's an example for how not to handle a crisis (like firing the company's CEO):

• Create clarity: The press release was not concrete at all. Sam Altman was said to have been "less than candid" with the board. Whatever that means?!

• Think further: The board definitely did not expect the backlash from the public, they did not expect all employees publicly threaten to resign and they did not expect their biggest shareholder (Microsoft) immediately coming to help Altman.

• First things first: Several OpenAI employees reportedly learnt about their CEO's departure through the board's press release.

I hope these three aspects are helpful to you. I'd be keen to learn how you have managed crisis communications in the past and what you have learnt from it.