Crisis Management: Importance of Effective Communication

Crisis Management
Name
Institutional affiliation Crisis Management
How to manage crisis
Arguably, decision making is the most important part of any organization. Policy makers are faced with this task every day, and it intensifies when they are confronted with a crisis. During a crisis, many people tend to panic and end up making rash decisions which mostly pose a negative impact on the organization (González Herrero, 2012). Crisis situations require sharp and adequate thinking that will minimize the effects of the catastrophe. When faced by crisis, decision makers are supposed to be on high alert and keen to make sure that the decisions they make will help the situations. Some decisions have been reported only to make matters worse. A good example is the Hillsborough stadium disaster in Sheffield in the UK. It happened in 1989 on a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, whereby the stadium collapsed, and 96 fans lost their lives. The police through poor decision-making skills did not allow ambulances to the stadium. Hence more fans died (Cocking & Drury, 2016).
It is essential for organizations to make sure that they have crisis management teams in place. These teams are responsible for dealing with emergencies instead of letting the ordinary people deal with them (Lazarovici, 2015). In emergency situations, people are in shock and cannot, therefore, make straight and good decisions. The crisis management team then comes to the aid of everybody. The teams are highly trained to deal with emergency situations and therefore have the correct procedures to follow. Speed is also of essence when making decisions in emergency situations. Such incidences require fast thinking as there is limited time for straight and adequate thinking. A recently concluded research suggests that organizations seem to have more success against emergencies when the role of dealing with them lies in the hands of the crisis management teams.
Importance of effective communication
In the case of an emergency, effective communication is paramount. Effective communications mean that information is relayed from one side to the other and successfully decoded to understand the message (Yurieva, 2014). During a crisis, this is essential to make sure that people understand the seriousness of the matter or how much damage has been done. A recently concluded research suggests th...