Crisis Communications: The Definitive Guide to Managing the Message by Fink, Steven;

Long description:

The Definitive Guide to Communicating in Any Crisis

?When facing an already difficult crisis, the last thing a company needs is to make it worse through its own communications ? or lack thereof. As one who has lived through a number of [business] crises and served as an independent investigator of the crises of others, I consider Steven Fink?s book to be an excellent guide to avoiding collecting scar tissue of your own by learning from the scar tissue painfully collected by others.??Norman R. Augustine, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lockheed Martin

There are few guarantees in business today. Unfortunately, one of them is the inevitability of a crisis having a potentially major effect on your business and your reputation. When your company finds itself in the midst of a crisis, the ripple effects can disrupt lives and business for the foreseeable future if public opinion is not properly shaped and managed.

Skillfully managing the perception of the crisis determines the difference between a company?s life or death. Because in the pitched battle between perception and reality, perception always wins.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Crisis communications and crisis management legend Steven Fink gives you everything you need to prepare for the inevitable?whether it?s in the form of human error, industrial accidents, criminal behavior, or natural disasters.

In this groundbreaking guide, Fink provides a complete toolkit for ensuring smooth communications and lasting business success through any crisis. Crisis Communications offers proactive and preventive methods for preempting potential crises. The book reveals proven strategies for recognizing and averting damaging crisis communications issues before it?s too late. The book also offers ways to deal with mainstream and social media, use them to your advantage, and neutralize and turn around a hostile media environment Steven Fink uses his decades of expertise and experience in crisis communications to help you:

• UNDERSTAND AND MANAGE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC
• PERCEPTION AND REALITY
• CHOOSE THE BEST SPOKESPERSON FOR THE CRISIS
• PROTECT YOUR BRAND AND REPUTATION THROUGH CRISES LARGE AND SMALL
• MAKE WISE, VIGILANT, AND DEFENSIBLE DECISIONS UNDER EXTREME CRISIS-INDUCED STRESS
• TELL THE TRUTH NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING IT MAY BE TO MISLEAD
• USE SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT A CRISIS

The explosion of the Internet and, especially, social media, has added a new layer to the business leader?s skill set: the ability to handle a crisis quickly and professionally within moments of its occurrence. Livelihoods depend upon it.

With in-depth case studies of Toyota, BP, and Penn State, Crisis Communications provides everything you need to successfully lead your company through today?s rocky landscape of business?where crises large and small loom around every corner, and the lives of businesses and management teams hang in the balance.

PRAISE FOR STEVEN FINK?S CRISIS MANAGEMENT
?Every major executive in America ought to read at least one book on crisis management. In this way, he or she might be better prepared to deal with the disasters striking organizations at an ever-increasing rate ... The question is: ?Is Steven Fink?s book one that busy executives ought to read?? The answer is a resounding yes.??LOS ANGELES TIMES, FRONT PAGE SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

The Definitive Guide to Communicating in Any Crisis

?When facing an already difficult crisis, the last thing a company needs is to make it worse through its own communications ? or lack thereof. As one who has lived through a number of [business] crises and served as an independent investigator of the crises of others, I consider Steven Fink?s book to be an excellent guide to avoiding collecting scar tissue of your own by learning from the scar tissue painfully collected by others.??Norman R. Augustine, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lockheed Martin

There are few guarantees in business today. Unfortunately, one of them is the inevitability of a crisis having a potentially major effect on your business and your reputation. When your company finds itself in the midst of a crisis, the ripple effects can disrupt lives and business for the foreseeable future if public opinion is not properly shaped and managed.

Skillfully managing the perception of the crisis determines the difference between a company?s life or death. Because in the pitched battle between perception and reality, perception always wins.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Crisis communications and crisis management legend Steven Fink gives you everything you need to prepare for the inevitable?whether it?s in the form of human error, industrial accidents, criminal behavior, or natural disasters.

In this groundbreaking guide, Fink provides a complete toolkit for ensuring smooth communications and lasting business success through any crisis. Crisis Communications offers proactive and preventive methods for preempting potential crises. The book reveals proven strategies for recognizing and averting damaging crisis communications issues before it?s too late. The book also offers ways to deal with mainstream and social media, use them to your advantage, and neutralize and turn around a hostile media environment Steven Fink uses his decades of expertise and experience in crisis communications to help you:

• UNDERSTAND AND MANAGE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC
• PERCEPTION AND REALITY
• CHOOSE THE BEST SPOKESPERSON FOR THE CRISIS
• PROTECT YOUR BRAND AND REPUTATION THROUGH CRISES LARGE AND SMALL
• MAKE WISE, VIGILANT, AND DEFENSIBLE DECISIONS UNDER EXTREME CRISIS-INDUCED STRESS
• TELL THE TRUTH NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING IT MAY BE TO MISLEAD
• USE SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT A CRISIS

The explosion of the Internet and, especially, social media, has added a new layer to the business leader?s skill set: the ability to handle a crisis quickly and professionally within moments of its occurrence. Livelihoods depend upon it.

With in-depth case studies of Toyota, BP, and Penn State, Crisis Communications provides everything you need to successfully lead your company through today?s rocky landscape of business?where crises large and small loom around every corner, and the lives of businesses and management teams hang in the balance.

PRAISE FOR STEVEN FINK?S CRISIS MANAGEMENT
?Every major executive in America ought to read at least one book on crisis management. In this way, he or she might be better prepared to deal with the disasters striking organizations at an ever-increasing rate ... The question is: ?Is Steven Fink?s book one that busy executives ought to read?? The answer is a resounding yes.??LOS ANGELES TIMES, FRONT PAGE SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

Table of Contents:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Chapter 1
- You Can?t Make This Stuff Up
Chapter 2
- Defining Our Terms
Chapter 3
- What BP Should Have Said
Chapter 4
- Attitude Adjustments
Chapter 5
- Toyota: On a Slippery Crisis Communications Slope with no Brakes
Chapter 6
- Understanding Your Crisis
Chapter 7
- Shaping Your Crisis Communications Message
Chapter 8
- Spokespersons
Chapter 9
- Social Media and Digital Communications Or, Truth/Lies at the Speed of Light
Chapter 10
- Shakespeare Was Right: ?The first thing we do, let?s kill all the lawyers.?
Chapter 11
- Protecting Your Brand
Chapter 12
- Telling the Truth
Chapter 13
- Say It Ain?t So, Joe! ? The Penn State Crisis
Chapter 14
- Dealing With Death: Fatality Communications
Chapter 15
- Crisis Communications Primer
Chapter 16
- The Good, The Bad, The News Media? Or, Juggling Chain Saws
Chapter 17
- Senior Management: Your Own Worst Enemy?
Chapter 18
- Take Your Own Pulse, Or, What Were They Thinking?
Chapter 19
- Internal Crisis Communications
Chapter 20
- External Crisis Communications
Chapter 21
- Reputation Management and Reservoirs of Goodwill
Chapter 22
- Issues Management
Chapter 23
- Crisis Communications for Publicly
-Traded Companies
Chapter 24
- Litigation, Depositions and Testimony
Chapter 25
- How to Break Bad News
Chapter 26
- The Blame Game
Chapter 27
- Crisis
-Induced Stress
Chapter 28
- Making Defensible Decisions: Crisis Communications Gold, Decision
-Making Under Crisis
-Induced Stress
Chapter 29
- Apologies: Shakespeare: Still right after all these years
Chapter 30
- Crisis Advertising: Does it Work?
Chapter 31
- Crisis Communications Plans
Chapter 32
- The Failing of Business Schools
Chapter 33
- Speed is of the Essence