Crisis Management and Communications for Today's Funeral Service Professional
By Richard Wm. Brundage
As with any good speech or article, there is a "what" and a "so-what." For me, the "what" is a good crisis management plan, and the "so- what" is the crisis communications plan. One is not much good without the other.
Yet when I travel around the country teaching crisis management and communications, I generally find that only a small percentage of professional organizations even have a crisis management plan that is a "living," workable document, and almost none of them have thought about how to communicate it to their various publics when a crisis happens!
Crisis Management
To assume that a crisis is not going to happen in your funeral profession is an invitation to disaster. It's like being a bull rider: It's not a matter of "if" you're going to get hurt, it's when and how badly.
So, let's start with the crisis management plan for your own funeral organization. This plan develops strategic planning considerations for major crises that could occur in your organization, creates a model outline for your professional staff to follow, identifies major "disaster" areas and creates internal staff actions for any potential disaster.
Any crisis can be looked at either as a potential disaster or as an opportunity to tell the "rest of the story." The universal factor governing all crises is that they all require detailed and continually updated preparation, as well as practice sessions involving key members of your staff.
The Crisis Management Team
The stakes are much too high today for any funeral director to put aside, or overlook, preparing a crisis management plan. Those funeral homes that do have a crisis management plan, also have a highly placed staff member whose principal duties include preparing the plan for the organization and staffing the crisis management team (CMT).
The first step is the selection of personnel to serve on the CMT. This team should have members from every area that you consider vulnerable to a potential crisis. The team should be small, but complete in its coverage of your activities. The second step is the preparation of the crisis management plan.
This team should then establish what some call a "crisis management culture" within your organization to continually evaluate and make recommendations to the president, attempting to solve problems before they become crises.
This CMT prepares the crisis plan, which, depending on the size of your organization, should include but is not limited to the following members:
- The president;
- The selected public information officer for your funeral services organization;
- A few selected staff members;
- The senior legal counsel for your organization;
- A grief counselor; and
- A crisis management and communications expert.
Don't limit your members of the CMT; but at the same time don't make the numbers so large that the team becomes unwieldy and has problems exchanging ideas and coming to conclusions. The optimum number of people is probably less than 10 and more than five.
The Plan's Components
Before the CMT prepares the plan itself, it must consider the components that make up a good crisis management plan. Obviously there are many different management philosophies and styles, but most plans should consider the following:
- Your mission statement and crisis management philosophy.
- What crises are likely to occur, i.e.: The CMT must do an internal crisis audit.
- The duties of each CMT member.
- Emergency procedures that cover each identified potential crisis situation, where CMT members should assemble and priority steps to be activated.
- A list of each CMT member's business phone, mobile phone, fax and home phone numbers.
- An updated list of all significant "stake- holders": e.g., civic leaders, business and community leaders, political leaders, and emergency services personnel with current telephone numbers and addresses.
The key to a successful crisis management plan is simply to carefully develop it, and then practice it and update it regularly. Some organizations go to the trouble of developing a crisis management plan, and then put it in a drawer and it's never seen again. I can assure you that if you have a well-conceived crisis management plan, and a CMT that meets regularly and adapts the plan to changing environments within the funeral profession and the community, not only will you be able to effectively manage a crisis, but you will greatly diminish it's effects on your operations. It must then be rehearsed with all concerned, from staff to any other emergency services personnel who might be involved.
Proactive or Reactive?
When a crisis occurs, your organization only has two choices to make: It can be "proactive" or it will be "reactive." If you have a crisis management plan that is a living, working document, one that truly reflects how your management feels about its staff and clients, and if it is practiced and updated regularity, the results during any crisis will mirror that honest integrity through both words and deeds. It will be "proactive."
Also by creating your own crisis management plan, you automatically minimize your litigation exposure, educate and safeguard your staff and employees, and at the same time maximize your opportunities for proactive media exposure even during a crisis.
And, finally, in your preparations for staffing and preparing a crisis management plan and your CMT, consider retaining a professional crisis management and communications firm to assist you. Remember, it's best to retain this type of expertise re a crisis occurs because this "up-front" investment will always be more cost effective than the considerable expenses an unprepared for crisis will incur.
The "So-What"
What many organizations fail to do right away is to communicate with their own staff and officers. Communicate internally! Your staff are your most valuable assets, and they must be kept abreast of any developments during a crisis. They probably helped during the audit, determining what areas were vulnerable to potential crises, and they may be asked questions by the media, family members, city officials, other community leaders. "Uniformity of response" is absolutely key here. To have your public information officer interviewed saying one thing and then have a staff member or someone else in your organization saying another makes you not only look disorganized, but in many ways appear "trying to hide something."
Crises almost always generate a significant media response. The manner in which your funeral service spokesperson or the key staff of the CMT handles the crisis and media will often cement the image of that funeral professional in the public's eye. The image is what drives public perception, and ultimately the success or failure of any funeral director's role in the community.
In your area of funeral service, you should demand that crisis communications take a "proactive" approach. It is neither philosophically nor practically feasible for you, as funeral service professionals today, to suppose that a crisis will not happen.
We are what we project . And in a crisis situation, what we project because of the emotions of the moment, is often unrelated, or at the very least not an accurate image of what we are. "What we are" is a mosaic, an amalgam of everything we do, have done and intend to do. Our public perception must be an honest portrayal of our internal image. If it is not, it will often appear staged, pretentious and "framed for the occasion."
Your crisis communications plan should be part of the overall crisis management plan, and is a working, living document, and one that truly reflects how you and your staff feels about its operations, employees and clients. If it is practiced religiously, the results during media exposure will mirror that honest integrity through both words and body language.
By creating and practicing your own crisis management and crisis communications plan, you automatically minimize your litigation exposure, may even qualify for reduced insurance premiums, educate your key staff, and at the same time maximize your opportunities for pro-active media exposure.
Develop a Philosophy
As part of your crisis communications plan, your funeral home should have a "philosophical statement of policy." This is the "culture" that you must cultivate throughout your organization from top to bottom. What is your statement of policy? It should reflect exactly what you feel in regard to crises. For instance, a philo- sophical statement of policy might sound and look like this:
We know that, in our an emergency situation can and will arise at some point in time. When it does, we must be committed to notifying the proper authorities at once, immediately undertaking a thorough investigation, and making this information widely available so that a similar incident will not occur within our profession again. We must have all of our various publics view us as concerned and com passionate about our staff, employees and our community.
That is just one example of a philosophical statement that could be incorporated into any funeral service professional's operation. It is not a mission statement, but rather a short statement of exactly how your organization views itself in relation to its staff and other interested publics.
There are four basic sequences for communicating this "crisis culture" within your professional organization. You can do this on one page. Written in plain, understandable language, the four steps might appear like this:
Step 1. Crisis Preparation. Each one of us must know our individual responsibilities as outlined in our crisis management and crisis communications plan, and we must train those under our supervision to under- stand the importance of knowing and being able to take the correct, complete and immediate action to safeguard staff and other personnel, mission-critical data, information, and facilities should an emergency or crisis occur.
Step 2. Minimizing a Crisis. We are convinced that to eliminate the potential for a crisis, or at least to minimize one that has occurred, we must have a crisis management and crisis communications plan that is a "living,'' working document that all of our staff and employees are aware of and have practiced.
Step 3. Investigating a Crisis. We must expendevery effort to find out why it happened, and if at all possible to share that information with other funeral service professionals so that we can minimize it's happening anywhere else. Although resolving a crisis may seem the most important priority at the moment, how fast we move at crisis resolution must NEVER compromise a thorough, detailed, systematic approach to solving the cause of the crisis.
Step 4. Crisis Communications. We are what we communicate. It is virtually impossible to put a good face on bad facts. But it is possible to place all things in perspective and to give the "rest of the story," which is our responsibility both to the press and to our various publics. We must pledge our- selves to giving as much information about a crisis situation as we do during times when we want the media to cover a positive story about us. Our integrity must never be questioned concerning the timely release of accurate information.
As you can see, the "philosophical statement of policy" and these "four steps for communicating your crisis culture" are clear, honest, understandable and achievable goals for any funeral service organization. There can be no doubt when reading these that this is an organization that wants all of its employees and staff to be concerned and competent. Having created this type of culture in your organization may not prevent a crisis, but it will go a long way in minimizing it.
Time for Action
Now, how do you respond to a crisis when the media arrives? Most of us cringe when the reporter calls--if only because we're probably on the spot. Something "newsworthy" has happened involving our organization, and "newsworthy," which always means "outside the limits of normal activity," usually also means bad. What will we be asked? How will we look when we answer? What will the viewing audience think? And will we be taken out of context?
Let's look at the three sets of techniques to ensure a successful media interview:
- How to anticipate the questions you'll be asked;
- How to prepare for the interview in advance; and
- How to control the interview.
Anticipating the Questions
What to do. List the eight to 10 "Achilles' heels" in your organization--weak spots you're working on to address, potential dis asters waiting to happen or vulnerabilities that go with being a funeral services provider in today's environment.
How to get results. Be honest! Don't ignore problems you don't want to face. Review the list regularly with your staff. Have you missed anything? Keep the dialogue open so that your list is current and you and your staff agree about its contents. Then, if a staff member has to pinch-hit for you, his or her message will be consistent.
Preparing for the Interview
You wouldn't make a Super Bowl half- time appearance without preparing for it. Yet every time you appear on television for example, you will reach enough viewers to fill four or five Super Bowl stadiums.
Preparing for an interview, particularly a televised one, long before you even know you'll be called, ensures success in three ways:
- You'll know what to say
- You'll know how to say it.
- You'll have confidence in your performance, so you'll appear relaxed and authoritative.
What to do: Learn the facts. Stay current.
How to get results:
- Know what's "hot" in your own profession, nationally and locally.
- Know each of your goals and the progress in achieving those goals.
- Study your professional literature. Learn how others are addressing similar challenges.
- Know how your organization compares nationally and locally. Be able to explain the national significance of a local story or the local significance of a national story.
- Never guess, and never, never lie. Having to retract or alter your comments is awkward at best and impossible most times. Your comments on tape or in print are the essence of your reputation...and its image.
What to do: Bridge from each weak spot, potential disaster or vulnerability to two positive themes. For each of your eight to 10 weak spots, disasters-waiting-to-happen or vulnerabilities, identify two or more strengths in your organization that put the weakness in proper perspective.
How to get results:
- Review the themes regularly with your staff. Are they current? How do they compare to national and profession- wide efforts?
- Practice bridging to these themes in response to hypothetical questions posed by your staff. Hold a mock interview on a different weakness with your staff once a month. Rehearse your comments during your drive to work once a week.
- Practice speaking at 150 words per minute ("broadcast rate of speech"), and limit your answers to 12 seconds. This will virtually eliminate your being taken out of context.
- Prepare a fact sheet about your part of the funeral service profession and give it to the reporter. They will use this fact sheet as "backgrounder" material for their narrative part of the story.
- Prepare a fact sheet about yourself (including title, experience and community service), the facts about your background that define your expertise.
Controlling the Interview
The more control you feel in an inter- view, the more in-control you will appear to be, and that translates to trust and likability for the viewer, even if you're having to talk about bad news. Remember, you are the authority, and 100 percent of the time you will know more about the story than the reporter. After all, that's why the reporter is coming to you! You are the expert.
What to do: Help set the "ground rules" by providing fact sheets before the interview. This helps the reporter bring the story in on time and increases the chance that it will be your story.
How to get results: Suggest interview locations that put your profession in a positive light, whether you stand in front of your building or sit in a neutral, tastefully deco- rated office or conference room.
Insist on a "pre-interview" before the on- camera interview. Find out exactly what the reporter is after. Help the reporter; volunteer one or two questions you'd like to answer by saying, "You know, the questions I'm most frequently asked about that are...." I can almost guarantee you'll hear those questions asked of you during the actually interview. (No reporter wants to miss asking the questions "most frequently asked".)
Never decline to be interviewed or say "no comment." Fifth Amendment rights aside, refusing to comment is usually perceived as an admission of guilt--or at least ignorance. Ask for five minutes to gather your thoughts while the crew sets up. Then go on with confidence and a warm, compassionate face, and relate to the viewer not the interviewer.
There are a multitude of techniques to learn. I would also suggest that you practice with a video camera, letting your staff ask you the tough questions as you respond to them. Make your responses 12 seconds long, and bridge to two themes and then stop. Before long, both you and your staff will have developed what I call "mental muscle memory," which is nothing more than the ability to organize your thoughts in "sound bites" and deliver them with confidence and warmth. Remember, the manner in which you as a professional funeral service provider respond is often more important then the words you are responding with.
Compassion is Key
Compassion is the key word for all funeral service professionals in media responding. The position you have and the situation will usually lend the authority look to the visuals, but the warmth and compassion shown by your and your staff's response will result in trust and confidence from the audience, regardless of the situation. Best wishes to your team of professionals.
Richard Wm. Brundage is the president of the Center for Funeral Media Studies, Inc., a Florida-based organization specializing in media relations and response training today's funeral service professionals. Brundage has been a television anchor, producer, director, and media response and crisis management trainer. Before his career in broadcast journalism, Brundage was a licensed funeral director and embalmer, and grew up in a family with over 100 years of funeral service tradition. Having trained thousands of professionals world- wide, Brundage currently travels the country preparing funeral service organizations to 'Meet the press.." He can be reached at (800) 550-8978 or at www.funeralmediatrainers.com.
Reprinted from THE INDEPENDENT JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2000
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