Linda Barnhart & Eliot Hoff
Linda Barnhart & Eliot Hoff co-authored this article.

Ready. Set. Go. It seems simple enough. Stand still until go time and then run as fast as you can. For many organizations, the approach to crisis management still starts and ends with go, essentially a child’s game in a high-stakes world. While many companies have some version of a crisis manual and approach, today that’s not enough. You need to be ahead before the race starts, or you won’t catch up. Look at the recent successes of anti-DEI influencers: The first campaign was a surprise to many of us, but after that, every company had the playbook, as well as access to massive amounts of stakeholder data and analytics to make decisions and prepare for an escalation. And many did just that. Some proactively make changes based on their perception of the environment. But we know that many organizations put minimal effort into this, although it was a crisis for multiple notable brands and has been a front-page story in some of the top media outlets, an addition to the obvious tie-in to the new administration. They’re waiting for go after the race has already begun.

Predictors empower organizations

Too often, organizations think of crisis management as a reactive practice. This approach fails to account for the rapidly moving information ecosystem at our fingertips or the ongoing fragmentation of our media environment, both of which can cause a small issue to spread like wildfire. In addition to the proliferation of anti-DEI activism movements, in 2024 we saw the evolution of AI-powered scams and cyber intrusions, continued ransomware attacks and geopolitical issues causing immense internal and external stress on businesses. Issues move and grow too quickly these days to wait for them to strike first.

Success in a crisis used to be defined by the problem solvers; it’s now enabled by the predictors that can help us see what’s coming around the bend. When you open your maps app to get directions from points A to B, you know it’s leveraging technology and human intelligence to chart the most efficient path around any traffic or other obstacles. Our approach to issues and crisis management operates similarly: To navigate change, we leverage data, technology and our own in-house experts to understand what might be in an organization’s path and determine the best path forward. While the problem solvers remain core to managing a crisis, it’s the predictors that will empower organizations to play the leading role versus fighting to take control of an issue when it erupts.

This article is featured in O'Dwyer's Jan. '25 Special Issue on Crisis Communications

Accounting for unknown variables

This practice of proactive issues management isn’t new, but the way organizations must think about it is. Constants, such as assessing who your key stakeholders are and where they stand as well as ensuring you have an agile team to address issues as they arise. What has changed—and will continue to do so—is the external landscape that influences and shapes the issues arriving at your doorstep. The past half-decade can be defined as the era of the unprecedented, acknowledging the rapid evolution of new technologies and the market-disrupting forces that occur on an all-too-frequent basis. But whereas organizations were caught off-guard at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, those that remain unprepared to address change will fail. Proactive issues management in today’s environment must account for these unknown variables by defining what we do know.

An obvious example of this is one with some of the broadest-reaching implications we’ve seen in recent history. 2024 was the year of the election, with more than half of the world’s citizens eligible to cast a vote determining the future of their country and our global ecosystem. APCO sought to track and translate these developments in real-time but also contextualize these outcomes and their implications for organizations around the world. As part of this effort, we worked with organizations from the largest multinational corporations to single-market companies to develop plans for a vast range of scenarios and the twists and turns that might heighten the impact on anything from reputation to license to operate. These organizations didn’t know what the outcome of these elections and potential changes in power could mean for them, but understanding that whatever may happen, their plans would need to account for shifts small or large. These organizations understood the need for the predictors to help them define how these geopolitical and market-shaping issues arrived at their doorstep rather than let them influence their path forward unchecked.

Engrained culture of preparedness

How do we facilitate this shift from reactive to proactive, from fighting to preventing fires? Adapting your organization to face change head-on requires both a dynamic issues management program as well as an engrained culture of preparedness.

An engrained culture of preparedness may sound dramatic but it’s critical to success in this space. Creating this culture means ensuring leaders and communicators across your organization are steeped in these ways of thinking and seeing the external landscape through new eyes. They’re looking at the external landscape proactively, with an eye for how something on the horizon could evolve. They know the data and resources they have at their disposal to track these concerns and assess if they should be prepared for or addressed head-on. And with a partner on hand to bring subject matter expertise and context to these issues, they can provide critical recommendations for action that puts your organization firmly in the driver’s seat when the issue breaks.

Issues and crisis management can often be a secondary remit in a communicator’s job, requiring them to step out of their day-to-day role to address challenges they emerge versus keeping a constant eye on the field. While having the right partner can help cover the spread, it’s also important for these communicators to understand how issues management is essential to all facets of their job. A successful issues management program will include a roadmap for creating the culture of preparedness that helps these communicators and your organization writ large develop the agility needed to face these challenges head-on.

This issues management program will also establish the infrastructure for thinking about issues management proactively and regularly, creating muscle memory where it may not yet exist. Working hand-in-glove with your crisis framework, a successful issues management program will forecast issues you may face in the near and long term, identify challenges and opportunities within your dynamic landscape and prepare your team for how to tackle them, learning from past experiences within your organization and others to establish best practices. Similar to a successful crisis management approach, this approach cannot be a set-it-and-forget-it exercise but must be stretched and adapted regularly to ensure growth. With time, attention and appropriate resourcing, this approach can pay dividends in protecting and defending your reputation.

With change becoming one of the constants in issues and crisis management, it’s critical to stay nimble and ready to address it. We know too well that change is on the horizon, with new dynamics emerging daily that threaten further disruption. As you build or finalize your roadmap for the year ahead, ensuring issues management capabilities are a core part of your crisis management approach will be critical to success.

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Eliot Hoff is Executive Director, Global Crisis Practice Lead, at APCO. Linda Barnhart is Senior Director at APCO.