Is Your Crisis Plan Doomed to Fail? Five Things to Consider
- John Huck
- Jun 24
- 5 min read
You probably have a crisis communications plan. Most organizations do. It’s in a binder or buried in a shared drive. Maybe you dust it off during leadership retreats or compliance audits. But here’s the uncomfortable question: Would it actually work in real life?
Crisis rarely shows up when you’re ready. It moves fast, spreads faster, and doesn’t care how many bullet points are on your checklist. The biggest mistake leaders make is thinking the plan is the safety net. It’s not. People are.
If your team hasn’t practiced it, lived it, and stress-tested it with real-world scenarios, your crisis comms plan might be nothing more than a nicely formatted false sense of security.
Here are five things to consider before you find out the hard way.
1. Your Crisis Communications Plan Might Not Be Complete
The story of Memorial Hospital during Hurricane Katrina is a heartbreaking example of what happens when a crisis plan looks good on paper but collapses in real life.
Memorial had a 246-page emergency plan. But it didn’t account for a full power failure. It didn’t explain how to evacuate patients if floodwaters blocked every exit. There were no backup plans for communication, no details for what to do when elevators stopped working, and no real strategy for moving the sickest patients in a worst-case scenario.
Inside the hospital, the chain of command was murky. The nursing director had the title of incident commander. A physician took on organizing the doctors. Another company leasing space on the top floor assumed someone else would handle their patients.
This wasn’t just a failure of infrastructure. It was a failure of planning, training, and clarity. If your crisis plan hasn’t been tested in real-world scenarios, with roles clearly assigned and backup systems mapped out, it's not worth any more than the paper it's printed on.
2. Your Plan Hasn't Been Stress Tested
Most crisis communication plans sound solid until you actually need to use them. The problem is, very few are built for real pressure. They haven’t been tested in chaos. They haven’t been practiced when people are panicking, phones are dead, or an angry mob is approaching.
Tabletop exercises aren’t enough. You need to put your team through the hard stuff—surprise scenarios, unclear information, conflicting instructions, and moments where they have to make a call without waiting for perfect answers. Because that’s what an actual crisis looks like.
Will your spokesperson stay calm in front of a hostile reporter? Can your leadership team coordinate messaging when there’s no Wi-Fi and everyone’s working from their phones? Which leaders can stay calm when the pressure is on, and which ones might be assigned the wrong roles during these events?
If your plan has never been pushed to the breaking point in a drill, it might not hold during the real thing. And by then, you’re not testing anymore. You’re reacting.
And that’s when real damage happens.
3. Does Your Crisis Comms Plan Include Internal Dialogue?
External messaging gets all the attention during a crisis, but internal communication can make or break how your response is perceived. While you should have the "need to know" group of leaders, you still need to craft messages for the workforce.
If your employees find out about a crisis from the news or social media, you’ve already lost ground. They’re not just staff. They’re ambassadors. They talk to customers. They post online. They influence how your company is perceived on the inside and out.
Build internal communication into your crisis plan. That includes pre-approved email templates, a clear chain of communication, and guidance on what frontline staff should say to customers or partners in the moment.
Don’t assume your team knows how to respond. Give them language. Give them facts. And give them the confidence to represent your brand with accuracy and empathy.
4. Set the Tone on Paper and in Practice
One of the biggest mistakes leaders make during a crisis is forgetting who the message is for.
After the BP oil spill, CEO Tony Hayward faced backlash for saying, “I’d like my life back.” It came across as dismissive, self-centered, and out of touch with the scale of the disaster. The message may have been off-the-cuff, but it set the tone, and it stuck.
Crisis communication isn’t about the executive team’s frustration, inconvenience, or desire to “move on.” It’s about the people affected. That includes victims, customers, employees, shareholders, and even the general public watching from the sidelines.
Leaders must be trained to speak with empathy and clarity, especially and critically when they are dog tired and stressed out. They should know how to acknowledge harm without rushing to resolution, and how to balance responsibility with compassion.
Whether you're dealing with physical harm, financial impact, or brand trust erosion, your messaging has to reflect respect.
Tone isn’t just something you figure out in the moment. It needs to be embedded in your plan, rehearsed regularly, and modeled by the people in charge.
5. Update the Plan Early and Often
A crisis communication plan is not a one-and-done document. It needs to live, breathe, and evolve with your organization. Otherwise, when something goes wrong, you’ll be relying on outdated contacts, missing tools, or assumptions that no longer apply.
In 2017, during Hurricane Irma, officials in Florida held a live press conference to update the public on storm preparations. The problem? The sign language interpreter they brought in wasn’t qualified. He signed nonsense words like “pizza” and “monster,” completely confusing the hearing-impaired community watching for life-saving information.
The plan failed to include the requirement of an ASL interpreter and requirements during times of emergency, much less a list of people on-call to provide that service.
Start with the basics. Are the phone numbers in your plan still active? Are the people listed in the chain of command still with the company? Has your org chart shifted? Are you still using the right branding, logos, and approved spokesperson titles?
Then go deeper. Are you accounting for today’s communication tools, not just email blasts and press releases? If people flood your website looking for answers, can it handle the traffic? Do you have a pre-built landing page structure to update quickly? Are your internal systems ready to send real-time updates to staff?
What looked like a solid plan two years ago might be useless today. In fact, does your crisis comms plan include the advent and saturation of AI?
How Huck Communication Can Help Build Your Crisis Comms Plan
At Huck Communications, we don’t hand you a template and wish you luck. We build crisis communication plans that actually work. You'll work directly with John Huck to develop, write, and pressure test real-world scenarios customized for your team.
We help you identify your weak spots before they become headlines. That means reviewing your existing plan, tightening your chain of command, and making sure your spokespeople are actually ready to speak. If they’re not, we train them. On camera, on message, and under pressure.
We also help you future-proof your strategy. Whether it’s mapping out social response protocols, prepping for hostile interviews, or building in contingency plans for tech and staffing gaps, we make sure your team knows what to do when things go sideways.
You’ll get clarity, confidence, and a plan you can trust when the pressure is high and the spotlight is real.
Let’s make sure your next crisis isn’t your first test. Ready to get started? Let’s talk.
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