CRISIS MANAGEMENT

The ASPECT of a Crisis

Let us return for a moment to our Édouard in the in-between. We left him grappling with a situation where comments were now moving faster than he was. His fall had happened; interpretations, however, were still running their course.

He could have spoken up quite early, using simple words: « I understand this incident raises questions. I resumed training earlier… / … see article (xxx). »

This statement would neither have erased the incident nor defused all the comments. It would, however, have allowed Édouard to acknowledge his role, prevent assumptions from standing in for explanations, and set a time for further updates, attempting to regain control of the timeline. He did not need to know everything to start speaking. He did, however, need to be precise about what he knew and cautious about what he claimed.

This stance is one possible response in crisis communication. Other situations will call for different choices. To understand how to construct them, let us now let Édouard catch his breath and examine the six dimensions of our approach: ASPECT — Ambition, Stature, Participants, Expression, Consistency, and Tempo.

This acronym is a handy way to check if we are forgetting anything, and we outline its fundamentals here.

As we have seen previously, a crisis affects the finances, reputation, and image of a business, a network, an institution, or even an entire region. Crisis management aims to understand the issues emerging from a shock—whether poorly managed or initially seemingly harmless—and then provide responses commensurate with the deteriorating situation. The goal is to resolve whatever is fueling the crisis so the organisation can emerge from social or professional turmoil, restore its credibility, and regain the trust it previously enjoyed.

To achieve this, crisis management demands professionalism and rigorous organisation to avoid compounding the crisis with improvised statements or uncoordinated actions. Crisis communication is rooted in this requirement: it is no longer the time for selling or commercial promises, but for the truth, and nothing but the truth. The truth of established facts, acknowledged uncertainties, and actions genuinely undertaken.

1. Ambition: What do we want to achieve through communication?

Before speaking, you must know what you wish to achieve and with whom. Informing those affected, reassuring customers, correcting distorted facts, defending your credibility, or ensuring responsibilities are acknowledged are all possible objectives. They can complement one another but do not all address the same expectations. Families want to know what is being done for their loved ones; employees need instructions; customers want to know if they can still trust us.

The ambition must therefore be precise and realistic. Putting an end to all unpleasant comments is an understandable aspiration, but rarely a manageable goal. You can, however, address the concerns fueling them, correct false information, and provide those involved with concrete facts to consider. The silence of critics does not in itself prove that trust has returned.

You must also identify what you absolutely must defend. Wanting to protect the organisation is legitimate; wanting to prove it right at all costs can lead to denying the obvious or hastily pointing the finger at an external party. Establishing another organization’s liability requires proven facts. Acknowledging your own share of responsibility demands the same rigour.

This ambition must be informed by influence monitoring: observing what is being said, by whom, to which audiences, and with what impact. This monitoring helps identify trends, pinpoint dominant concerns, and adjust communication priorities. Tools facilitate this tracking, but the intensification of exchanges on social networks reduces the time available to respond. A prepared organisation can react quickly while retaining the time needed to verify facts.

Ambition thus gives direction to your message: what do we want our audience to understand, know, or be able to do after hearing us? A clear answer to this question allows you to construct a useful message and subsequently assess its effects. Ambition can, however, be adjusted during the crisis. The emergence of new facts, shifting concerns, or the impact of initial responses may prompt a review of priorities. You must then be able to adapt the objective without losing the coherence of the approach or reneging on commitments already made.

2. Stature: What position do we adopt in response to the situation?

Once the ambition is defined, you must determine the position the organisation will take regarding the facts. This is what we call stature: the way it faces the situation, takes its place in the dialogue, stands by its decisions, and whether or not it shoulders its responsibilities. This position must be solid enough to withstand questioning, while leaving room to evolve when new elements come to light.

On this basis, the organisation can explain and justify decisions made—sometimes long before the event—by placing them back in their original context: the information available, the risks identified at the time, the constraints faced, and the precautions in place. Certain choices, particularly structural ones, produce effects for years, while practices, the environment, and risks evolve. A decision suited to one era may thus prove inadequate under new circumstances and contribute to consequences of an initially unforeseen magnitude. Examining it must therefore distinguish between what could reasonably be anticipated at the time of the choice and what became apparent later, as well as the opportunities for reassessment and adaptation. An unfortunate outcome is not enough, in itself, to prove a poor initial decision; nor is the age of a decision enough to dismiss questions about why it was maintained.

• Denial. This stance involves disputing the facts as presented. The organisation asserts that the reported event did not occur, that certain elements are inaccurate, or that the link established with its activity does not align with the facts. The scope of this dispute must be precise: contesting the severity or importance attributed to an event is not the same as denying its existence, but rather challenging the interpretation fueling the crisis. This distinction, however, requires being able to back up your claims without minimising the actual consequences suffered. Denial requires sufficiently solid evidence to support this position. When information remains incomplete, a categorical assertion risks committing the organisation beyond what it can prove. This stance leaves little room for manoeuvre. After denying a fact, acknowledging it creates another challenge: you must explain the event and the initial denial. The public may then doubt the organization’s competence, its sincerity, or both. The more categorical the denial, the harder it is to make this shift credible. If new elements invalidate the initial position, it is nonetheless necessary to correct it clearly and explain what has changed. Persisting in a denial contradicted by facts no longer protects the organization’s image; it adds distrust of its word to the crisis. A crisis that could have been resolved can thus be prolonged by controversy over its sincerity and intentions. Finally, disputing the presented facts never exempts you from showing consideration for the people involved. You can refute a cause or a narrative while taking expressed suffering seriously and helping to establish what actually happened, as well as the link between the event and the consequences attributed to it.
• The Parallel. This stance often stems from conditional acceptance: the organisation acknowledges the facts but introduces elements that broaden understanding and nuance the role attributed to it. It highlights external circumstances, constraints, decisions belonging to other actors, or previous warnings left unanswered. It can also accompany a denial regarding certain aspects of the presented narrative. The goal is to show that the event is part of a set of circumstances where the organisation did not necessarily control all the components. It can thus explain the measures taken, the limitations encountered, and the steps initiated to flag a risk or secure the means to address it. It seeks to clarify what fell under its purview and what depended on other stakeholders. This position requires concrete evidence: dated warnings, documented requests, measures actually implemented, and an explainable link between the invoked constraints and the event. Merely flagging a problem is not enough to prove that all possible actions were exhausted. Similarly, a lack of resources can explain a situation without making the choices made indisputable. The parallel approach therefore allows you to present exculpatory evidence or circumstances that may add nuance to how the facts are assessed. However, it risks being perceived as an attempt to pass the buck if the organization emphasizes others’ failings before acknowledging the human consequences of the event and explaining its own conduct. Its credibility rests on its ability to clarify respective responsibilities without turning an explanation into a search for a scapegoat.

3. Participants Who gather the information, make decisions, coordinate actions, and speak on behalf of the organisation?

Behind the spokesperson is a team that collects and verifies information, prepares decisions, and oversees their implementation: the crisis committee. At the facility level, it brings together a core group of managers who know the organisation and how it operates, joined by heads of the affected departments and necessary experts. Its effectiveness relies on a clear distribution of roles and the flow of information among its members. These functions are scaled to the facility’s resources; they do not necessarily require as many people as there are roles.

• The spokesperson represents the organisation and explains its position. Ideally, they belong to the organisation and know the site and situation well enough to speak credibly. This could be the facility director, a group executive, or an employee with the necessary communication skills and composure. Rank alone does not dictate this choice: their ability to establish a relationship of trust with the relevant audiences matters just as much. They contribute to drafting messages and receive talking points approved by the decision-maker. They must understand their meaning, respect their boundaries, and know how to recognise questions they cannot yet answer. Verbal fluency does not grant them the right to improvise facts or commitments. In our approach, the first public statement is preferably delivered by the organisation itself, with legal counsel providing supporting expertise as needed.
• The decision-maker holds the authority to bind the organisation. Depending on the structure, this could be the owner, the CEO, the chairman of the board, or a manager with sufficient delegated authority. They decide between options, authorise resources, and take responsibility for decisions made. Based on data verified by competent personnel, they approve the chosen position and the talking points given to the spokesperson. The committee must know clearly who holds this authority to avoid contradictory instructions or endless approval processes. Decisions can range from tightening controls and adjusting procedures to recalling a product, suspending an activity, or temporarily closing the site. Guided by the relevant managers and experts, the decision-maker arbitrates the necessary measures, commits the resources, and sets the conditions for resuming operations. These actions help restore the organization’s credibility when they provide a concrete and verifiable response to the identified problems.
• The coordinator orchestrates the committee’s work. They direct research, request historical reconstructions, clarify facts, and centralise the gathered information. They assign tasks, mobilise the appropriate contacts, and monitor the execution of decisions. They thus serve as a cornerstone of the response system, at the intersection of understanding the situation and taking action. Their role goes beyond preparing communications. They also coordinate concrete responses: ensuring victims and their families are supported, organising alternative accommodation for hotel guests, or mobilising the services required for business continuity. They delegate these tasks to the appropriate managers, receive their reports, and escalate difficulties requiring arbitration to the decision-maker. The coordinator remains the central point of contact in this setup. Depending on the scale of the crisis, they may be supported by one or two deputies with clearly defined missions. This distribution helps support their work without multiplying command centres or making every detail dependent on their personal intervention.
• The record-keeper maintains a chronological log of the event. They gather and timestamp available information from the initial shock and throughout the crisis. They record its source, the decisions made, who made them, the orders issued, and the follow-up actions taken. When necessary, they distinguish between the time an event occurred and the time the committee became aware of it. They also document the reasoning behind decisions: the evidence available at the time, uncertainties, options considered, and any disagreements. This log serves as the system’s memory: who knew what, when, and why we decided to act this way. It tracks commitments and reconstructs events without relying on individual memories or reinterpreting choices in light of hindsight.
• The monitoring manager tracks social networks, the media, and other feedback useful for understanding how the crisis is perceived. They relay observed trends to the coordinator: dominant concerns, circulating narratives, disputed facts, distrust of the organisation, or reactions to public statements. They distinguish the reliability of the source from the credibility of the information itself. A normally reliable source can make mistakes; a little-known source can provide accurate and critical facts. An internal rating system can facilitate this work, provided the committee understands its criteria. It must be accompanied by an analysis: which audiences are speaking out, how much traction are they getting, and what are their concerns? This monitoring helps identify the need to provide evidence, clarify a message, or rethink how statements are delivered. It sheds light on the crisis’s consequences for trust, reputation, and operations. It does not determine legal liability and must not equate reactions visible on social networks with the opinion of the general public.
• Heads of the relevant departments and experts provide the necessary knowledge to understand what happened. The manager of the directly affected department must be involved in the committee’s work: they know the ground realities, practices, equipment, and decision history. Following a warehouse accident, for instance, the manager can explain the workflow and provide the necessary details for verification. Internal or external experts examine technical mechanisms and test hypotheses against available facts. They might analyse a piece of equipment, its operating conditions, its environment, or the interactions between multiple factors. Their role is to specify what can be proven, what remains uncertain, and what requires further investigation. Their credibility stems from the rigour of this analysis, even when it reveals an organisational failure.

Depending on the situation, the committee also calls upon expertise from HR, finance, logistics, communications, or legal counsel. The preparation of messages, answers to questions, and their dissemination must be explicitly assigned to a qualified person, working closely with the spokesperson and under the decision-maker’s approval.

Together, these participants form the crisis committee. Their contributions enable the decision-maker to decide, the coordinator to drive actions, and the spokesperson to deliver reliable and consistent messages. The committee also examines potential developments in the situation and prepares the responses required for business continuity or recovery.

Regular status updates enable information sharing and action tracking. If the crisis drags on, replacements and handovers are organised to maintain the committee’s working capacity. This collective organisation, supported by documented decisions and actions, gives communication its consistency and crisis management its capacity to act.

4. Expression: How do you deliver the message so it can be heard and understood?

Before the words even come out, there is tone, eye contact, posture, and distance. The spokesperson commits the organisation not only through what they say, but also through how they present themselves, listen, and respond. Accurate information can lose its impact if delivered coldly, hastily, or condescendingly. Words should be placed, not thrown.

This composure begins with intent. Are you seeking to clarify the situation, or to have the last word? To answer a concern, or to show that you know better? Under pressure, the urge to defend oneself can turn an explanation into a confrontation. The spokesperson must know how to contain their pride, irritation, and haste in order to serve their mission.

They must then make themselves accessible to their audience: using clear words, reasonably short sentences, and a pace that allows time for understanding. This audience also includes those who comment, share, or dispute information on social networks, thereby fueling the crisis dynamics. The monitoring manager relays their concerns and reactions to help the spokesperson tailor their expression and answer widespread questions, without necessarily engaging in every individual dispute. Precision does not require jargon; authority does not require raising one’s voice. Like light, speech needs balance: too dim, it fails to illuminate; too bright, it blinds.

Listening is fully part of this expression. Letting a person finish their question, acknowledging their concern, and taking a moment before answering gives them a genuine place in the dialogue. Silence can be useful when it serves to listen or reflect. It becomes a problem when it feels like an evasion. The spokesperson must be able to stay calm in the face of anger or distress, without demanding the same self-control from their counterpart.

Compassion must also find its proper expression. A mechanical tone, a carelessly repeated phrase, or overconfidence can create distance from those affected. Conversely, staged emotion risks diverting attention to the speaker. Sobriety, presence, and availability lend greater weight to attentive words.

Finally, the manner of speaking must suit the chosen setting: a conversation with a family, a meeting with employees, or a statement to the media do not call for the same intimacy or formality. Respect, however, remains identical. The quality of expression is measured by its ability to make the message accessible and keep the door open to dialogue, even when disagreement persists.

5. Consistency: What do you include in the message, and what do you choose to hold back for now?

Consistency rests on a simple requirement: whatever the organisation asserts must be verifiable. Talking points provide a clear and coherent framing for confirmed facts, available explanations, measures taken, and commitments the organisation can genuinely uphold. They must distinguish between what is proven, what remains uncertain, and what is still under investigation.

Every claim must be proportionate to the evidence supporting it. An isolated testimony is not always enough to draw a conclusion; a plausible hypothesis does not become a certainty just because it serves our position. Similarly, an announced measure must be presented for what it is: under consideration, decided, initiated, or completed. These distinctions give the message its solidity and avoid promising a result before it has been achieved.

You do not need to communicate everything at once. Some information needs to be cross-checked; other details may involve personal privacy or ongoing processes. The committee can also structure its explanations progressively, addressing core concerns first, then providing useful clarifications. This restraint, however, must preserve the sincerity of the message: an omission must not distort its meaning or delay information necessary for people’s safety.

This gradual approach can also serve a strategic logic. When accusations circulate, the organisation may withhold documented evidence to respond specifically to claims as they are made, rather than immediately revealing its entire hand. If an external actor amplifies the crisis with inaccurate information, an evidence-based response can highlight the contradictions in their narrative. You must then establish what they actually said or did, without attributing intentions to them that you cannot prove. The strength of the response lies in the quality and relevance of the evidence.

Choosing what to leave out of the message matters just as much: speculation, baseless accusations, details that unnecessarily expose individuals, and promises that are impossible to guarantee weaken your credibility. Conversely, a hard-to-hear piece of information may need to be shared if it alters the understanding of the situation. Consistency then demands explaining the new elements and, if necessary, correcting a previous statement.

Finally, the content can open up a perspective beyond immediate resolution: detailing lessons learned, improvements decided upon, and how their implementation will be tracked. The organisation thus provides concrete reasons to trust it once again. This outlook gains value through the actions that accompany it. A solid statement must stand up to reality.

Every statement can ultimately announce a next step, paired with a specific objective and an informational follow-up. This phrasing allows the organisation to retain the initiative in its communication, structure expectations, and help alleviate anxieties—provided it meets the announced deadlines. This is where tempo comes into play.

6. Tempo: When should you speak, at what pace, and for how long?

Tempo involves pacing communication according to the actual evolution of the situation. Every statement must offer something useful: a new fact, an expert finding, a significant update on casualties or damages, or a major decision. An accusation repeated without any additional evidence does not necessarily warrant a new response. The organisation must distinguish between what requires clarification and what merely fuels the noise.

Scheduled updates help structure this progression and keep the initiative. They must be honoured, even when verifications are not yet complete: explaining what remains to be established is, in itself, information. Conversely, a major development may force you to speak before the planned deadline. The pace must serve the situation, without becoming a rigid timetable.

The committee can prepare clarifications and evidence for subsequent stages, provided that delaying their release does not deprive anyone of critical information or distort the understanding of the facts. This preparation sustains regular, coherent communication until the crisis is resolved.

When the situation allows, a closing statement gathers the established facts, the responses provided, the results obtained, and the commitments yet to be fulfilled. It provides an overview and can offer a broader perspective on the improvements underway. This final statement draws its strength from what the organisation can now prove. It marks a resolution milestone, without claiming to single-handedly close the book on the human consequences or ongoing proceedings.

Post-crisis recovery can also be accompanied by a concrete gesture toward affected customers. For example, a company whose cruise was interrupted by a health incident might offer passengers a new trip under clearly stated terms. Presented alongside an apology and a summary of the measures taken, this initiative acknowledges the inconvenience suffered and can help restore trust. It must remain distinct from a promotional campaign and should not replace support for affected individuals or any rightful refunds and compensation.

Conclusion

This article is somewhat long, admittedly. But the questions a crisis committee must confront can rarely be summarised in a few lines. Throughout these five articles, we hope to have shed light on what is at stake before, during, and after a shock, as well as how to prepare for the most challenging situations.

The framework proposed here, based on ASPECT, is unique to SDS. It reflects our way of organising crisis management principles fueled by extensive field experience. We share an approach proven in our practice, without claiming it is exhaustive or the only way to proceed. Every organisation can adapt it to its size, resources, and the situations it encounters, adopting a leaner or more extensive structure.

A method is only as good as its ability to work in reality. Having a structure means defining roles and rules; sharing those rules means establishing a way to work together. When this organisation is understood, prepared, and practised, a crucial part of the journey is already complete.

If this series raises questions, observations, or a desire to share an experience, comments and email exchanges will allow us to continue the discussion. Thank you for staying with us this far.