Different Strategies for Different Crises

Chapter 8 of our textbook is dedicated to crisis communication or the actions and messages organizations should convey during the actual crisis.

The magnitude of the crisis can help to determine how much communication is needed and who it needs to be directed to. For example, a larger problem could require more communication to most or all of the publics while smaller problems might only require communication to some of the publics.

So, the crisis management team must continually assess the situation in order to determine how much is enough. According to our book, “ Setting a [communications] strategy can determine the difference between a quickly resolved crisis and one that remains a management problem for a number of days-or longer (Crandell 157).

W. Coombs outlined four potential strategies for communicating to publics during a crisis in 2006, which can be applied to any organization. We will look at two that a NASCAR team might utilize at one point.

The first is called the denial posture, where the organization will not accept blame for the situation. To apply this to the Joe Gibbs Racing Team (or really any NASCAR team), we will act as if they had just received notice that another team told officials and the media that they were breaking the rules by using an illegal part. As mentioned earlier in this blog, this would create a crisis for JGR because it attacks the credibility and reputation of the organization as a whole.

To use the denial posture, Joe Gibbs and his team could take three different actions. First they could attack the accuser back and claim that in fact they are the ones cheating. Second, they could simply state that it is untrue. Third, they could use a scapegoat tactic and shift the blame to a manufacturer or supplier.

Second is called the diminishing posture, where the organization will give others the impression that it had little or no control over the situation at all. This strategy works better if the organization has a positive reputation and no past crisis history. For this strategy, we will act as if a crew member was injured during a race. Since JGR has not had a history of big accidents, it would be appropriate to use this strategy.

To use the diminishing posture, they could take an excusing action, where the blame for the injury would fall on the circumstances happening at that moment in the race. They could also use justification, which tries to make the situation seem less serious.

Again, these are both examples of crises that could be prevented, as outlined in previous blogs.