Crisis Management: Should it be Proactive or Reactive?

In business affairs mistakes are inevitable, what matters is how we respond to them.

We have also written that no company is exempt from needing a management crisis. There are only 2 types of companies: those that have gone through a crisis and those that soon will be, no doubt.

When a company is not ready to manage a crisis and it breaks, your attitude is reactive, as being unexpected, nothing is planned and what remains is to be reacting to each attack, or each holder of negative media communication.

In a crisis situation there are 'two media unexpected ways' to react:

1. To respond in a negative way, covering up the facts, avoiding public confrontation, in which case it will be difficult to recover the image.

2. Do not break out before the crisis, to stand and act in an organized manner with the potential to restore the image and reputation.

What almost always happens in a sudden crisis is that many officers are left to carry the emotional factor and start to make mistakes, and without realizing it, suddenly they are making statements to the press on the subjects of their adversary: From this point you are setting the agenda and have lost control of the subjects of public debate by getting carried away by emotions.

It is not recommended that the Crisis Committee is led by highly emotional people who confuse aggression with effective action. These people can not act as spokespersons for it is easy to lose control and make mistakes at every turn.

It has been repeated many times in history that those aggressive managers or directors who have conducted a series of bold moves as a reaction according to them, has given them a high apparent power and control over their adversaries. But this is temporary because the thoughtlessly carried out act and strong emotions are enemies, which later get joined.

Being permanently reactive makes a company and its officials exhausted, until they can no longer irretrievably continue.

You must ask the question: What is the point if we never have to react frantically to control the situation? Why do we always have to react to events rather than direct?

The answer is simple: We have a misconception of power.

In crisis management, where the company has to act immediately, strategic thinking must prevail even over reason and emotion to take power. The essence of power is the ability to maintain the initiative, to make others react to our actions, to ensure that opponents are always on the defensive. This will enable us to always drive the agenda, having the power and control issues of public debate.

In conclusion: Crisis management must be more strategic than emotional, just as we must be proactive rather than reactive.