A Little Help from Grunig, Grunig and Dozier

Once before I blogged about how a crisis could happen to anyone or any company. In Katie Paine’s book, Measure what Matters” she lists Grunig, Grunig and Dozier’s Four Principles of Crisis. When it comes to crisis everyone can use all the help they can get, so here they are!

1. Relationship Principle:

You can withstand both issues and crises better if they have established good, long-term relationships with their publics.

2. Accountability Principle:

You should accept responsibility for crises even if it’s not their fault. This is because it’s better let the truth come out and prove that it wasn’t your fault than to fight the situation and run the risk of it actually being your fault.

3. Disclosure Principle:

You must disclose all that you know about a crises or problem. Pretty simple.

4. Symmetrical Communication Principle:

You must consider the publics’ interest to be at least as important as your own.

Understanding these principles can help you in a crisis situation because at some point, in some capacity, every PR professional will encounter a crisis situation.

Hope this helps,

Jake