The importance of being wide awake to the optics during a crisis: Lessons learned from Heathrow

Crises can strike at any moment. Critically from a communications perspective, how an organisation responds can significantly impact its reputation, and importantly – stakeholder trust. The recent fire at Heathrow Airport, one of the busiest airports globally, serves as a prime example of the importance of optics during a crisis.

Operationally, the Heathrow leadership appear to have followed all the right processes and immediately set up their command structures. They made all the right noises regarding ensuring their team were well-rested and capable of making decisions, investigating immediately and ordering a subsequent review of their crisis management plans and response to the incident.

However, the media and politicians will always be looking for an angle, and the importance of optics during a crisis cannot be overstated. Despite a solid communications framework and effective decision-making from leadership, the detail that slipped out to the media was that the chief executive had gone to bed on the night the fire broke out (this appears to have been a planned operational strategy to ensure good decision making), opening up the executive team to criticism.

We work regularly with organisations to develop and implement robust communications protocols and processes to ensure their teams are equipped to deal with a crisis. This includes setting up structured teams with specific focus areas, such as stakeholder engagement, and running regular scenarios to test the efficacy of their crisis planning and leadership skills. These processes provide clarity on responsibilities, enabling timely and transparent communications to top stakeholders, balancing operations and communications.

A crucial part of the planning process is understanding an organisation’s objectives and ensuring communications align with these objectives for its most important stakeholders. For example, during the Heathrow fire, media stories and social media posts focused on passengers unable to return home or go on holiday. Amidst the chaos, stakeholders needed to trust that the information they received was accurate, honest, and included the next steps.

The Heathrow incident highlighted that every crisis is unique, and one that affects the UK economy in such a big way leaves an organisation open to politically hungry MPs and media headlines, looking for someone to blame. It highlights why it is vital that any decisions made , and communicated, during a crisis must be made with an understanding of how they might be perceived by the media, politicians and the public. It always pays to be awake to the optics of a crisis situation, no matter how well you’re doing operationally.

To find out more about how we can help you ensure your comms processes stand up to scrutiny during a crisis, please get in contact at crisis@luther.co.uk