Issues, Crises, and Reputation Management

What is the difference between an issue and a crisis?

No, it's not the letters 'u', 'e', 'c' and 'r'.

In short, an issue is something that arises when the company does something that doesn't match the public's expectations of the company. A crisis, on the other hand, is what happens when an issue (or multiple issues) are not adequately addressed and spiral out of control.

So, how does one deal with issues that crop up? One must first identify that the issue(s) or concern(s) are. This involves the company deciding if the issue in mention will hinder them in achiving their strategic goals. Next is issue scanning, which involves the monitoring or "scanning" of media for content. The advent of online media has both helped and obstructed this process. Issue monitoring follows, and is self-explanatory. It allows the organisation to monitor the issue as it progesses.

Heath (1997) states that an issue should be included in an organisation's issue management system only if:
- The journalists covering the issue believe it is legitimate and should be discussed in the public scope
- The issue threatens the organisation's reputation, operations, or provides the organisation advantages in the contested space.
- The issue is of concern to one or more key publics for the organisation and said key publics are able to motivate legislative agenda.

Issue analysis measures the impact of the issue on the organisation. Steps to take in issue analysis are:
- Describe the issue and come up with a definition.
- List all publics affected by the issue, and whether they have positive or negative responses to the issue.
- Decide on the possible timing and impact of the issue for the organisation.
- Provide the resources to undertake a thorough analysis of the situation.

So know that we know what an issue is and what to do when one occurs, what about crises?

What makes a crisis a crisis is that it must affect the organisation and prevent the organisation from functioning properly, and that it threatens the organisation's reputation and public's or audience's perceptions of the organisation.

There are many types of crises that run the gamut from technical or economic crises, to human or social crises, and they can be regular, relatively 'everyday' crises, or severe ones. Pauchant and Mitroff (1992) have a chart compiling and categorising the various types of crises.

Crises often follow a 'lifecycle', if you will.
Phase 1: Prodromal, signal detection, and detection stage.
Phase 2: Preparation, probing, and prevention stage.
Phase 3: Acute and containment stage.
Phase 4: Chronic, learning, and damage containment stage.
Phase 5: Resolution and recovery stage.

So, since a crisis has to be severe enough to impact an orgnisation's reputation, what is involved in managing said reputation?

Corporate reputation managemnt is multidiciplinary. There is no one way. Rather, it is based on the skill set of ethical corporate PR practitioners, but also involves the cooperative and coordination efforts throughout the entire organisation. This includes support and understanding from the organisation's CEO.

In focusing on the reputation of the organisation, as well as the relationships and communication involved in building it, a PR practitioner has to recognise that multiple aspects of what an organisation says and does contribute to reputation, and that organisations must have a clear vision of the reputation they want and the nature of the relationships they would like, and this vision must be clearly communicated wihin the organisation.