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16
Healthcare Journal of BATON ROUGE
MAY / JUN 2012
CR I S I S MANAGEMENT
paul kirk
john matessino
Fred Garcia
Another important factor that is the same
today as it was 10, 20 – even 50 years ago –
is the importance of relationships built on
trust, says Garcia.
“It is recognized by almost every stakehold-
er group out there that bad things happen
to even good organizations,” he says. “Even
at good hospitals, even with good doctors,
even to good patients.” Hospitals and other
organizations, he says, are generally forgiven
when bad things happen in certain circum-
stances. “The single biggest predictor of repu-
tational harm is the perception that the en-
tity in question doesn’t care,” he says.
When bad things happen, as they inevitably
will, the most important thing a hospital in
the 21st century can do is really the same as
what hospitals in the 18th, 19th, and 20th
centuries needed to do—“anticipate what
reasonable stakeholders would expect a re-
sponsible institution to do,” says Garcia.
“Anything that delays or prevents the institution from meeting
the legitimate expectations of stakeholders causes reputational
harm,” he says.
Mandates for Effective Communication
in the 21st Century
What can hospital leaders and their communication staff do to
manage reputation and maintain or build trusting relationships
when bad things happen? They can learn to understand and le-
verage the new media information cycles, find the right balance
between “old” and new communication tools, and prepare to be
flexible and creative during times of crisis.
Understand and Leverage Communication
Channels and Information Cycles
First, hospitals must act to take advantage of the “first-mover ad-
vantage,” says Garcia. “Whoever defines the crisis first, whoever
defines the institution’s actions in response to the crisis first
typically prevails,” he says.
“Silence in the immediate aftermath of the crisis allows critics,
adversaries, and individuals who are angry or hurt to define the
crisis, to define the motive and to define the actions—usually to
the disadvantage of the institution,” he says.
There are four windows of opportunity that organizations have
when responding to a crisis.Themore quickly they can gain control
over the message, the less the potential is for reputational damage.
In fact, says Garcia: “I’m frequently asked about
what the best-handled crises are and my
response is ‘the best handled crises are
those you never heard of ’.”