I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship – Aeschylus
Aaaah, it’s that time of year again in good old blighty. We’ve waited patiently for the impending winds and rain that have been reported in the news over the last few days. ‘CHRISTMAS TRAVEL PLANS IN TATTERS’ screams one newspaper headline. The radio is ablast with the sound of newsreaders frantically advising us not to leave the safety of our homes until absolutely necessary. Travel early, the TV news reporter demands. Don’t even ATTEMPT to get on a train, lest you should be trapped in a never-ending vortex of DELAYS and CANCELLATIONS; shuffling between the sodden platform and the waiting room for eternity, surviving on vending machine food in a kind of horrific limbo.
In fairness, if you’ve been out (or seen a window) over the last couple of days, the weather is pretty horrid. As a nation, we don’t cope well with extreme weather conditions at the best of times – the mention of snow alone causes supermarket chaos, as panic-shoppers pile their trolleys high with long life items. A light sprinkling of the stuff and we’re practically hibernating for days.
Arriving at the station earlier today, I was greeted by a sea of worried faces and reels of hands tapping angrily into smart phones, as concerned commuters attempted to remap their way home. Hopping on the delayed (and very busy) train home, it occurred to me that these national panics over weather translate to the every day in any organisation.
A deal you’ve been working on for weeks falls through, leaving people frustrated. A campaign you’ve put everything into crashes and burns. A careless comment on a social media account causes mayhem. An office rumour gets out of hand and paints one of your employees in a bad light. It could be just about anything – any kind of internal or external communication has the potential to take an unexpected twist. It’s one of the things I really love about comms, that sometimes you’ll get a reaction you weren’t quite expecting. We can’t always be prepared for every scenario that pops up, but it’s important that we have the measures in place to cope as beat we can in a crisis. We can’t always predict the storm.
Employee Engagement plays a big role in surviving the fallout of an unexpected stumbling block. It’s not complicated either – if your employees are engaged, they’ll always go the extra mile to support you when the chips are down. Engaged employees will help to drive the values of the organisation, and will support you to get things back on track should something go awry.
