Then your secretary brings you a note that someone from the newspaper is on the phone demanding to speak with you. If these hypothetical cases don't apply to you, just fill in the blanks. Your, and your company's, future could possibly hang on the answer. A crisis communications plan, and the training to implement it, should be as much a part of a company as an employee safety manual or sales plan. The crisis document can be two pages or a volume, depending on the complexity of the organization.
People do and say strange things under such pressure.
If the wrong person is doing the wrong deeds and saying the wrong words to the press in a pressure-packed situation, the company can be devastated. This team will control the war room. It will be the command center into which all relevant information will flow and out of which instructions to the rest of the company will be sent. A crisis is no time for democracy. The CCT will assess the crisis, develop information, initiate control steps, and communicate the necessary information to the constituencies important to the company.