Perhaps it will be helpful to think about crisis communication in terms of its differences from and its similarities to more typical conversations in which communication is sequential.  You make a comment or observation, express a feeling, or send some other type of message to me.  I receive your message and add some ideas and feelings of my own.  I then send you a message related to what you said but include my own ideas and feelings.  You receive my message and add some ideas and feelings of your own.  The process goes back and forth with our individual ideas and feelings being added.  Over a period of time then, we may have talked about many different things, expressed a lot of different views and ideas, and ended up with something that had no apparent relationship to what we started talking about.  We have moved, sequentially, from one thing to another, and our communication drifts.  In crisis communication however, focus starts and remains with the individual and his crisis.

As we think about the communication loop, an example may help to illustrate differences between ordinary conversation, on the one hand, and crisis communication, on the other.  Recall Dick’s predicament with his supposedly unfaithful wife.  First, consider how a conversation might go between Dick and a friend. …

Please press play to continue.