Crisis Communication Experts Share How Businesses Can Survive BANI Environment
Public Relations practitioners with decades of experience steadying the reputational ship of multinational organisations across the world converged on the webinar organised by CMC Connect LLP and the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), to share perspectives and solutions that will shield organisations from the vagaries of a brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible (BANI) business environment.
The virtual workshop, themed Crisis-proofing Your Business in a BANI Environment, was organised by the Nigeria Public Relations Week in partnership with Nigeria’s leading perception consulting firm, CMC Connect LLP which has designated March as Crisis Management Advocacy Month (CMAM).
Delivering a goodwill message, the NIPR President, Dr. Ike Neliaku charged public relations practitioners to create an environment where citizens do not necessarily have to be anxious about any situation, “because we must rise above the storm and stay strong wherever we are located. We must come to a place where we make conflict something that must not divide but build us.”
The webinar turned out to be a knowledge-sharing webinar with the Executive Strategy Director, EMEA and Regional Director, Issues and Crisis, Saudi Arabia, Brendan Hodgson leading the charge. He shared the various forms taken by crisis in a brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible (BANI) environment. He explained that while this trajectory hasn’t changed over the past 30 years, what has now changed is the speed with which crises mutate from one form to the other.
Hodgson said, “The trajectory of a crisis is that we are caught off guard and never have enough information. There is usually an information vacuum, and others may have more information than you. This leads to external and public frenzy where everyone jumps on it in the media and on social media.
“You will be bombarded by information in a 24/7 environment. Don’t even try to manage this high level of incoming information. What you need to do is to focus on what you can control, the channels of communication that you need to push out to your most important stakeholders.
“There will be intense scrutiny by governments and NGOs, publics, the media and all kinds of stakeholders. They will be sharing their own information, some of which may be accurate; others may be misinformation or even worse, disinformation – people intentionally trying to cause disruptions and disarray in your management of the crisis.
“And there will always be escalating stakeholder demands that, for the most part, we can’t meet. There is also the case of unmet expectations whereby no matter the actions we try to take rarely will they meet the goals and expectations of everybody: we have to find that point of compromise between what stakeholders expect from us and what is realistic and meaningful from the point of view of our organisation and clients.
“At this point, we may get caught up in distractions and other things that may escalate it. We talk about the non-linearity in the BANI environment and this is it: there will be other things that will hit the crisis from the side; other topics that may be on the periphery but raise new questions and new stories as well. All of these if not managed well leads to loss of trust, confidence in you, loss of reputation with financial or operational impact.”
Raising a thought-provoking question on what success looks like in a BANI world, the Corporate Communications Head at the Standard Bank Group, Dr. Nkiru Olumide-Ojo answered that it is when brands own the narrative amidst all the noise from stakeholders.
According to her, the professional must remain focused on the narrative when there is a crisis, stressing that success in a BANI environment “is also when leaders are present and personal. When there is a crisis, you escalate upwards; that’s not the time to delegate downwards.”
“There is also the need for empathy, ethics, and emotional intelligence, which means to lead with the heart, operate with integrity and understand stakeholder sentiment,” the guest speaker said.
On his part, the head of media relations at the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr. Omoniyi Ibietan highlighted collaboration as the reigning paradigm in a BANI environment, adding that “there is no better demonstration than this webinar which is a collaboration of many partners, including CMC Connect LLP and the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.”
He went on to state the following: “At the heart of crisis-proofing is communication. We need to be able to communicate simply, timely, accurately, in a courteous and sincere manner and also offer an opportunity for feedback from those we are communicating with.
“Data is so important because it gives us the kind of insight that we require to navigate; scanning the environment and gathering intelligence is as important as anything else. AI is important, but it is dangerous. When things happen, you need to rely on your communication channels to let people be able to see what you are doing.”