Preparing for Organizational Repositioning: Four Steps to Implement an Effective Crisis Management Plan
When our B2B manufacturing client decided to strategically reposition, we knew this would require more than a Band-Aid solution. After operating a family-run business for nearly a century, they determined it was time to better meet evolving customer preferences and plan for long-term sustainability. While this meant expanding several existing plants and creating more jobs in some communities, it also meant impacting employees’ roles in other rural communities heavily dependent on our client’s facilities.
Given the magnitude of its reorganizational impact, the company’s well-respected reputation and its extensive footprint, how did we help them successfully communicate with key stakeholders?
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE
Strong crisis management begins with research and an in-depth understanding of all the variables at play. Leveraging our longstanding relationship with the client, our team understood the industry, the company dynamics, media intricacies and the specific communities affected by this decision. To strengthen our impact, we conducted additional research and worked closely with company leadership to identify the potential cause and effect of each outcome. As a result, we learned our client had three primary concerns:
Potential disgruntled employees, which could damage company culture or cause supply chain disruptions
The risk of losing customer trust and confidence
Scrutiny from the media and industry associations
STEP 2: IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDERS
Understanding the company’s primary concerns helped us prioritize stakeholders to ensure strong internal communication before spreading the news externally. We worked with company leadership to clearly outline stakeholder tiers and planned communication strategies for each group:
Internal Tier A – executive leadership, board members, employees and customers
Internal Tier B – vendors, suppliers, industry associations and peers
External Tier C – media and community leaders
STEP 3: DRAFT KEY MESSAGES
To ensure our client was speaking with one voice and sharing the same message across the board, it was important to prepare key messaging that tied back to the company’s mission and core values. Our key messages varied for each stakeholder group but largely centered around three key points:
The company’s commitment to sustainability
The importance of prioritizing its workforce
The need to make short-term changes for long-term growth
STEP 4: EQUIP YOUR TEAM FOR SUCCESS
A good message is only as strong as its messenger, so it is important to practice message delivery, especially when dealing with sensitive subjects. We equipped company leadership and supervisors with best practices to deliver this announcement effectively and created communications packets for each group, complete with talking points, expected FAQs and an overview of the media protocol.
THE OUTCOME
Overall, the company received a strong response to this repositioning announcement, especially among team members who were their most important audience. Despite potential concerns, no employees left due to the announcement, and the company did not lose any customers.
Since we were able to control the repositioning timing, we chose to share the news at the start of the new year, avoiding the potential impact of delivering unfavorable news during the holiday season. Although we had limited time for extensive research, we planned and prepared for a variety of potential scenarios to ensure we controlled the narrative from start to finish.
Our effective messaging resulted in media headlines with balanced coverage, showcasing the company’s repositioning impact alongside its expansion efforts in other locations. Approximately 12% of media coverage was negative, with the majority leaning neutral to positive. Given the company’s historical tendency to engage reactively with media during crises, which often resulted in negative coverage, generating more balanced stories during the repositioning was a huge win for our team.
OUR CRISIS TAKEAWAY
With proper planning and research, you can navigate any sensitive announcement by equipping your team with the right tools and leading with transparency and empathy. Remember, the outcome of a crisis is not shaped by the crisis itself but by your response.
Be sure to follow the Peritus Trainings Guide next week as we share insights to help you prepare your organization for future challenges that may be keeping you up at night.