Crisis Management is the overall coordination of an organization's response to a crisis, in an effective, timely manner, with the goal of avoiding or minimizing damage to the organization's profitability, reputation, or ability to operate.

The Crisis Management Plan (CMP) defines how the strategic issues of a crisis affecting the organization should be addressed and managed by the Crisis Management Team or Executive Leadership.

The focus of this discipline is on the role of leadership before, during, and after a crisis, as well as on the importance of effective and efficient crisis communications.

Successful management of a crisis includes the following elements:

1. Crisis Prevention:  Includes crisis preparation through planning and the development of crisis management teams, a crisis management plan, and strategic crisis forecasting or issues management.  Also essential is exercising the team so they are practiced and prepared.
   • Other elements include media training
   • Crisis communications planning
   • Issues management
   • Social media strategies
2. Crisis Response:  Using the crisis management plan to avoid or at least avoid the worst elements of the crisis.  Includes effective crisis communication to all relevant stakeholders (internal and external)
3. Reputation Management & Recovery:   Reputation is any organization's most important asset and most crises have a negative impact on the organization's reputation.

Crisis management addresses crises such as a hostile take-over or media exposure and those where the impact is over a wider area than that allowed for in the Business Continuity Management Strategy - such as a national emergency.

The communications element of this discipline focuses on the strategies, key messages and communications with the varied audiences that are stakeholders for the organization.  This includes the interaction both internally and externally to address the issues that arise as a result of a problem, error, behaviors, events or situations that have a potential adverse impact on the organization and its mission and viability.

Credentialing Organizations / Certifications
ICOR is the only non-profit education and credentialing organization that offers credentialing in crisis management and communications.  Find out more about ICOR's Crisis Management & Communications Professional (CMCP) >click here

Public Relations Society of America
• APR – Accredited in Public Relations >click here