In a crisis delegating media interviews to spokespeople lower down the organisational hierarchy is rarely a good idea. Even if those spokespeople are well trained, highly experienced and used to dealing with journalists on a day to day basis, leaders should avoid the temptation to leave it to them. Why? Because the public expects to hear from someone at the very top when things go wrong. And that expectation translates into intense media pressure to deliver more than just a talking head. They want the head head as it were.
But here’s the rub. Because many leaders delegate the routine stuff to internal or external comms professionals they often don’t have enough practice. So when it comes to handling tough questions in an emergency it’s hardly surprising that, at the very least, they feel wretched and at worst lose control of the message. Public eye rolling can lead to heads rolling. Jobs are very much on the line.
Which is why rigorous testing of media handling skills is increasingly becoming an important and integral part of the recruitment process. Not necessarily as a pass/fail binary but to identity otherwise suitable candidates so training and support can be put in place as part of the on-boarding process if they pass muster in other respects.
As I write this we’ve been helping a blue light service stress test candidates for a senior leadership position. The applicants did well under test conditions. But to know they’re going to do equally well under the increased pressure of a real situation requires regular practice so that procedures and performance become almost automatic. That’s why here at ACM Training we recommend, depending on their risk profile, organisations of all sizes having at least two or three crisis comms exercises a year. They needn’t be time consuming. Often one or two hours online is enough to distil key messages from a realistic scenario and to practice delivering them in repsonse to a series of fast-paced, inquisitorial (and often adversarial) questions without sounding slippery, evasive or out of control.
Practicing giving media interviews in a crisis is a bit like an insurance policy. You really hope you won’t have to claim because nobody wants the organisation they lead to suffer some kind of reputational or other loss. But you’ll be pleased you got things in place beforehand if or when it does happen.