Crisis communication

When the crisis strikes, an urgent and appropriate response must be made.

Some businesses are more prone to ending up in the eye of a hurricane than others, but everyone can be affected by a crisis — whether their own fault or not. And if push comes to shove, it's better to be well prepared than getting caught with your pants down.

With this in mind, we helped the commercial real estate and investment firm CBRE with internal crisis training at their annual management seminar.

The crisis simulation consisted of training participants' crisis preparedness, mapping potential scenarios, stakeholders and spokespersons, rehearsing key messages, and communicating urgently and appropriately, both internally and externally.

In an interactive format with tricky choice options, challenging tasks and surprising crisis developments of the crisis — all under time pressure — participants got a tangible feel for how a fictitious, yet realistic crisis can potentially unfold and be handled.

The crisis simulation was supported by scenarios, theoretical work and ongoing feedback, so that the company's key personnel gained a good understanding of why and how a company crisis potentially occurs, how to best navigate it with appropriate crisis management, and not least what not to do in a difficult situation.