Principles of Crisis

In Chapter 4 of "Measure What Matters", by Katie Paine, she discusses the four principles of crisis developed by Grunig, Grunig and Dozier. "According to James Grunig, good crisis communication starts long before an incident occurs." (Paine, 2011 pg. 164) A crisis normally occurs when an event threatens your reputations.

1. Relationship Principle
-According to the relationship principle, an organization will withstand an issue or crisis better if the organization has established a good, long-term relationship with the public. In turn the better an organization stands with their public, they will have a better chance of surviving a crisis and not ruining the reputation of their organization.

2, Accountability Principle
-In this principle, an organization would be best accepting responsibility for a crisis, even if the crisis wasn't their fault.

3. Disclosure Principle
-When dealing with a crisis, it's always in the best interest of an organization to disclose all the information they know about the crisis or problem they are dealing with. If the organization doesn't know what happened, then they need to promise full disclosure, when they do find out all the facts.

4. Symmetrical Communication Principle
-During a crisis an organization must consider the public interest to be as important, if not more important than its own. In the end, an organization is only going to be successful, if there are key publics.

Following these four principles when a crisis occurs, will put your organization in the best possible scenario for coming out on top, once the crisis has been resolved. As Grunig, Grunig and Dozier stated in the book, "Communication with publics before decisions are made is most effective in resolving issues and crises because it helps managers to make decisions that are less likely to produce consequences that publics make into issues and crises." (Paine, 2011 pg. 164)