White Paper
Message Mapping: How to Communicate During the Six Stages of a Crisis
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Do you know what you will say in the critical first minutes after receiving reports of an active shooter on campus? How about six hours into the incident? What will you tell people when your county issues a floodwatch or the power in your building goes out at 10:00 a.m. on a Monday?
A crisis is like a living organism: it grows, changes, evolves over time. Each crisis has a beginning, middle, and end. Just as a crisis isn’t static, what we say, who we tell, and how we reach them varies during every stage of the crisis life cycle.
This white paper examines the intersection of communication with the crisis lifecycle. Using Dr. Robert Chandler’s Six Stages of a Crisis™, we apply message mapping communication best practices to every stage of the crisis lifecycle: warning, risk assessment, response, management, resolution, and post-crisis recovery. Created prior to emergencies, message maps are clear, concise messages that simplify complex concepts and speed communication.
