Managerial Communication

Communication in a Crisis Situation

Abstract

This paper deals with the aspects of communication in a crisis or emergency situation. First, it defines a crisis, and then shows how communication in these situations should be different from day-to day communications. Effects of crisis on the basic communication model are discussed and in the end, an effective communication framework to deal with these situations is suggested.

INTRODUCTION

A crisis or an emergency can be described as an abnormal situation that requires prompt action beyond normal procedures in order to limit damage to persons, property or the environment. Most of these situations are characterized by a sense of negativity, stress, chaos and confusion in the team members. The people connected with the situation create improper and distorted perceptions about the outcome of the situation, and about the competence of the people handling the situation. This line of thinking demotivates them, which further results in more chaos and confusion. Thus, a cascade effect takes place and the situation becomes more critical to handle.

Crisis communication is the process of managing the strategies, messages, timings and distribution channels necessary to communicate effectively with the people inside and outside the situation. The focus of such a communication is to de-escalate the crisis. In an emergency, important things to consider are organizational systems, decision-making process, information sharing networks, and strategic approaches of the organizations. All these require an effective communication system. Unlike day-to-day communication activities, the differences in these kinds of situations are the speed, appropriateness and coordination of the communication process.

The speed of communication is very vital in these situations so that an information vacuum is not created. If information vacuum develops than there are more chances of rumors or incorrect information being circulated. This kind of information increases a sense of insecurity among the team members and demoralizes them. The people who created the emergencies take advantage of the information vacuum and circulate negative information, which escalates the situation.

The second factor, which is important in crisis communication, is the appropriateness and clarity of the information. The information communicated should be clear, concise and free of technical jargons and ambiguity. The language should be such that it is well understood by all the people connected with the situation. The information communicated should be true. This does not mean that it is necessary to disclose any confidential or competitive information, which may harm the feelings of the people and the organization. Most often, emotions of people are connected with the situation, and disclosing them can escalate the situation. Thus, the person communicating should recognize those areas and should handle them with compassion.

The third factor, which is very important in these situations, is co-ordination among the team members and various departments of an organization. Most of the crises are across departments and therefore there should be strong communication co-ordination among them.

Communication process in a crisis or an emergency has two parts in it. One part is that which facilitates flow of information among the team members who are present at the site of the crisis. This part directly deals with the mitigation of the crisis and for controlling the situation. The people who are present at the site of the emergency are the people who are the most affected by the situation and their very existence depends on effective handling of the situation. There is a very high chance of chaos and confusion present in these people. To handle these people in adverse conditions is very challenging job for a leader. The other part of the flow of information is that which takes place between the people at the site and the people not directly affected by the crisis. This can be with a crisis response or support team, with media, or with any other agency. Both the forms of communication require many crisis management skills in the leader or the manager.

Communication Process

A communication process is not only transfer of information from one person to another but also includes the understanding of the information by the recipient. A basic model of communication process has a sender who can initiate a communication process by encoding a thought. The message is the physical product generated by encoding, for example, speech, writing or the movements while we gesture are the messages. These messages travel through a medium known as channel and reach a receiver. The receiver does decoding of the message; understand it and the process of communication is completed. The final part of this whole process is the feedback loop, which determines whether the correct understanding has been achieved. There are some barriers present in the process, which distorts the clarity of the message. To make the whole communication process effective it is important to overcome these barriers.

In a crisis situation there is a high chance that the communication process breaks or might be having a number of barriers, which results in distortion of the information. For example, if the sender is under a lot of mental or physical stress while communicating than he might not be able to give a clear picture of the situation. During a crisis situation channels might be broken which will not allow the process to complete. The most important factors, which affect the communication process in a crisis, are the increased number of barriers, such as physical incapability, perceptual problems, information overload, stress, unprepared ness, confusion and absence of command centre. To overcome these barriers the leader or the manager should be able to identify them and address them effectively. Also in some of these situations, feedback loop might be absent which again aggravates the situation.

Framework of effective Crisis communication model

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