Essay On Communications

Proper communication skills are very important in our world. The reason, is because if an individual does not have efficient communication skills, then they may have a difficult time finding their place in the world as a result. This not only includes having proper communication skills at home, but also developing those skills at businesses and the workplace too. Now, while communication is a very essential skill to have for the real world, it also needs to be used properly within times of crisis as well. In fact, this is the best time to implement communication skills, because acting out of a fear in crisis will only end up doing more harm than good. Within the book "Ongoing Crisis Communication", the author goes into detail about the stages of crisis communication, which are the following: pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis.
In the pre-crisis phase, individuals are looking at evidence and help that can prevent a crisis from happening in the first place. This is very important to do, because if an individual does not do this, then others may reap from the consequences of one person not speaking out. For example; years ago, I was watching a video about a space shuttle mission that went wrong. Before lift-off took place, one of the individuals who was about to witness the space shuttle blast off, was asked if he felt there was anything wrong with the operation. Although you could tell he was concerned, he ended up keeping his mouth shut. Thus, everyone on board the shuttle died. This is an example of what not to do in a pre-crisis phase, and this kind of tragedy brings forth what is known as the crisis phase. This is when a malfunction or poor operation system has put the lives of people in danger, increasing the risk of casualties.
Now, before this phase can occur, an example of what to do would be checking for any dangers of threats in the operation systems. By doing this, future plans can implement safer precautions, to avoid any miss-happenings from taking place. Implementing this would also be known as the crisis management plan, or what to do to avoid any future crisis. Within the pre-crisis management phase, it is also essential that proper communication channels are set in place, so that individuals can know how to communication with each other. Now, the next stage is what is known as a post-crisis.
In the post-crisis phase, a business is settling down from one of the following; a crisis that just occurred, or a crisis that could have occurred, but was prevented in the process. Either way, the business is returning to normal. Moreover though, while it is important to not dwell in the past, businesses also need to make sure that any incident that did happen or could have happened, does reoccur. Within this phase, repairing is the main key. Now, in relation to the post-crisis phase, repairing can mean either one of the following. It can either man that physical damage that was done is being repaired to the business and/or company, or it could mean that the business is getting the needed technology and advancements, to prevent a crisis from happening in the future.
Now, something that is essential to note, is that when it comes to the crisis phases, the second phase can be skipped. However, this depends on various factors, such as how big the crisis is going to be, whether it can be prevented, and whether it was prevented. In other words, if everything is fine, a business can sometimes skip from a pre-crisis phase to a post-crisis phase. If this happens, then there is not much to worry about. However, future precautions and proper communication are still needed. In closing, when it comes to a crisis, proper measures need to be implemented. If this is not the case, people will make mistakes that could have easily been prevented. Moreover, not only is proper communication essential, but knowing which crisis phase a business is not and how to prevent it, are important keys to situation as well.