Many colleges and universities are confronting even more complex challenges than usual. Indeed, the timing, intensity, and consequences of some of the most serious challenges qualify them as outright crises.
Managing multiple difficult events such as salary freezes, budget cuts, job reductions, enrollment declines, and rising discount rates can seem overwhelming to even the most experienced among us. Can there be any doubt for higher education leaders that it truly is “lonely at the top” these days?
Success Is Often Invisible – Failure Is Often Conspicuous
As is the case with umpires in a baseball game, few people remember the complex situations that are handled well, yet no one forgets those handled poorly – often recalling details for decades. Some of the most memorable, newsworthy, and painful crises arose more from inappropriate reactions to an initial problem than from the problem itself.
Whether your institution is facing a full-fledged organizational crisis, a more contained set of concerns, or you’re simply coping with budget issues that are pervasive in a recession, it’s a good time to recall some strategies for handling unpleasant and uncomfortable situations effectively.
Here are three steps for assembling a real-time crisis plan that, as with any good plan, should be guided by clear objectives, compelling strategies, and careful day-to-day and even hour-to-hour management:
1. Identify the real problem: Unearthing the cause of a problem is rarely a straightforward, linear exercise in any type of setting. Effective leaders like good doctors know how to see beyond symptoms and presenting problems. The best college presidents and department heads are adept at diagnosing the real problems, identifying their underlying causes, applying a comprehensive solution, and learning from the episode so as not to repeat it.
Digging deeper typically produces more information about the scope and implications of a situation. People sometimes hold back important information, or translate it subjectively, as their needs and circumstances dictate. Creating an emotionally neutral and not excessively judgmental climate can encourage full disclosure. We have consistently found that fear of retribution, unwise finger pointing, and political gamesmanship–the “blame game”–greatly limit the flow of needed information as well as its relative objectivity. You can’t possibly know everything in a crisis, but probing in the right manner will help you learn enough to get the job done.
2. Send the right messages at the right time: Some serious challenges will require public disclosure by their very nature, whether your institution is public or private. And in these times, rumor, gossip, and news leaks coupled with ubiquitous social media find stories going public that would never have seen the light of day 10 or 20 years ago. So take the time early in an emerging crisis to craft messages that are appropriate and authentic, balancing description of what is happening with prescriptions explaining what you are doing about it. This is no place to be cute, either, since small problems can become big ones when institutions obfuscate, bend the truth, disclose only partial facts, or otherwise attempt to hide serious problems.
It’s a good rule of thumb to accept that most serious institutional challenges or crises will break as news; it’s generally just a question of when. If conditions allow, institutions can develop a strategy to shape how and when the news breaks to create a reasonable context for its release.
Training is an essential component of effective crisis communication. It is critically important that leadership be trained in how best to deliver the messages and not to drift too far from them. Developing and circulating a questions and answers document is a proven crisis management tool for any leadership team. Leaders in challenging situations also need to understand the importance of their roles and adopt strict protocols for disclosing information and receiving and responding to telephone and e-mail queries from media, opinion leaders, and other key constituencies.
