Here are 5 reasons why CEOs should always bring in external assistance instead.
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Your in-house staff is (almost certainly) not qualified
Crisis communications is a specialist skill that most in-house PRs don’t have – crises are, by nature, rare. What you don’t want is your PR team learning on the job, navigating a crisis by trial and error when the entire world is watching and the media is waiting to pounce on the smallest misstep. By calling on qualified external consultants, you will have access to someone who has ‘been there, done that’ and learned the hard lessons at someone else’s expense.
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It’s hard for a team member to give free and frank advice
When it comes to crisis, executives and boards usually need to be given a reality check – and some blunt, independent advice. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for an employee to tell their boss (and possibly their boss’s boss) that they are taking the wrong approach. Even if an in-house communications staffer does give that advice, it’s worth considering whether their expertise will be taken seriously.
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An in-house PR professional is not independent
With the best will in the world, an in-house communications professional may have drunk deeply from the corporate Kool-Aid, losing the necessary perspective. They could also have allegiances to protect, or even be part of the reason the problem arose in the first place (for example, if they had covered up bad news rather than transmitting it up the corporate pipeline).
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Workload
When a crisis breaks, you can expect phones to ring off the hook, with calls not just from the media but also from suppliers, partners and, potentially, employees and their families. The sheer workload means that most companies will need to call on external communications support.
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Lack of experience under fire
Your team may have great relationships with journalists covering your business niche, but in a crisis that may not count for much. For example, a communications person who happily and successfully places real-estate stories on behalf of a property developer has no experience in facing the type of media attention that comes when the developer is caught in a pollution, sex or worker-exploitation scandal.
