It’s when someone says ‘Oh my goodness, we’ve got a problem!’ Or… ‘Oh crap! This is going to hit the fan!’ When there’s a crisis, that’s what you might hear, in the halls or conference rooms of business firms, or in government offices, or what have you.
Who wants a crisis? But I must admit, it sure was interesting, figuring out what to do, when I was still working at PR.
There’s an ‘Oh crap’ kind of crisis, out in Russia, that perhaps has crisis communications specialists scrambling. “The failure of Russian forces in Ukraine to achieve promised victories…has forced Moscow propagandists to shift from propaganda mode to crisis communications,” according to an article in Eurasia Review, a journal of analysis and news.
Owning up to what’s going haywire is one rule of thumb when there’s a crisis, and with this in mind, it’s amusing to imagine how crisis communicators might go about doing their job, in a challenging environment, like in a dictatorship, where things are tightly controlled.
I shouldn’t start joking around about your local officials, in Pagosa and Archuleta County, should I? Or your 3rd congressional district Representative Lauren Boebert, who was just barely won re-election in the recent midterms. She seems to be steeped in controversy and crises, all the time, so her crisis communications staff must be working overtime.
And digressing from Russia’s crisis situation, for just a bit more, your county commissioners and your Pagosa officials have an array of things to deal with… some of which are at crisis levels… like your affordable housing crisis, for example. But, compared to what’s hitting the fan out in Russia, what’s hitting your fan isn’t quite as messy.
Pity any crisis communications specialist, having to convince Russia’s President Putin that he has to own up to a problem.
Telling your county commissioners, or town officials, they’ve got to own up to problems, might be a cakewalk by comparison. They might grumble and sputter, and schedule public meetings… hopefully, anyway.
That’s one of the good things about living in a democracy.
Some poor crisis communications person, trying to get an authoritarian ruler, in some country, to own up to something might end up, on the front line, in a war zone, or in a concentration camp.
Of course, having said all this, we’re still — here in America — experiencing fallout, so speak, showering down from former President Donald Trump with all his mega MAGA pronouncements.
And now, those digital trading cards of his, with him looking like Superman, an astronaut, a race car driver, and such…
Maybe I shouldn’t be mentioning this? And maybe giving your local officials any ideas?
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.