Crisis communications example. Victoria battles panic and revolt within her team as a tech project crashes from unexplainable problems. The company’s internal communications strategy breaks down and trust is at rock bottom.
All that’s left is intelligence-for-action. (See more about Intelligence-for-action in projects.)
This is a fictionalised account inspired by three separate crises.
Author: Adrian Cowderoy, October 2025
Simplifications have been made for the sake of narrative.
Crisis communications example
The mutiny
Victoria worked to keep her face poker-still. At times like this the slightest flicker of a muscle could be misinterpreted. As a teen, Victoria had resented that other people could be expressive and animated, attracting lovers. Now the neutrality was a blessing.
She moved her clenched fists to one side of her head so everyone could see that she did look flustered. “Is that the complete list of your fears?” she asked. She kept her pitch even and looked around the meeting table at her team. There were five of them and three more on the video call.
“No!” Two of them said the same thing at the same time, like a duet in the opera. The pitch of their voices had increased. One leant forward on her chair, and the other gesticulated with wide arms.
Really, it would have been better if the rest of the team had not seen them panicking. She suspected them of talking about it endlessly when she wasn’t present. It would be a patter-patter like the magic flute in Mozart’s opera. Too much talk and too little work. “What haven’t you told me?” She kept the judgement out of her voice.
They replied with variations of the same thing. “The new tech isn’t working, no-one gives us straight answers and we’ve heard rumours.” It’s not a Mozart opera, Victoria decided, it’s more like a Wagner – noisy and endless.
She made a point of writing their comments in her notebook. It wasn’t necessary for her memory, but her team liked it when she wrote. “Well, I’m telling you what’s in the brief I get. The project people brief me when they have facts, and I pass on the useful bits and add interpretation. That’s how our communications strategy works. But at the moment, they don’t know what caused the problems.” She tried to dispel images of Wagnerian tragedies.
“That’s what worries us. They say one thing, and a week later they say something else. It’s like nobody knows, and now it’s all falling to pieces. We tried asking them when it will be finished. They just say they’re working as fast as they can. That’s not an answer, is it? We should push them for an answer. We could talk to their project manager, don’t you think?” It sounded like an insurrection.
“No.” Victoria was seldom blunt with her team, but this was heading towards mutiny. “I will talk to him, alone.”
The face-off
Victoria found John at his desk. It was one of a cluster stacked with computer monitors, an assortment of connectors he’d brought for his laptop, and a coffee mug that reminded her of an ornamental lake she’d seen in an opera. John was the project manager for the new system. He was the oldest person in the area, but bounded around the office in trainers and T-shirt and mingled with everyone. Victoria wondered what she’d be like when she was his age.
“John, I know you’ve got loads of problems to solve at the moment, but could we talk?” she asked.
John looked up. “Always.” He pushed back his chair and led her to one of the small breakout areas, with high padded walls and a tiny table between them. She knew it was his favourite because there was a huge yellow smiley on the wall and bright colours on the seats.
“Our communications strategy is breaking down. I’m meant to be able to take information from you, adapt it for my team, then pass it on. But I can’t do that when things change almost every day.”
John looked down at the desk. His fingers started dancing on the surface, as though he was playing a piano. Is he musical? Victoria had never asked.
“Okay, your team isn’t the only one who’s struggling. Clearly it can’t wait.”
“You’re going to improve our communications strategy?”
“No. I’m going to throw the strategy away. It’s a standard comms strategy, for happier times. It wasn’t invented for crises or imminent threats.”
“If we throw the comms strategy away there’ll be mayhem.” She took a chair from the next row of desks, and sat on it. “What are you proposing?”
“Crisis communications. We switch from hiding our uncertainty and talk openly about what we’re doing to get it under control.” He explained the details.
Victoria listened to his description. She searched for a similar reference in operas, and the best she could find was the Spartacus ballet. “I hope you’re not leading the slaves in revolt against Rome,” she said aloud. “That didn’t end well.” It was a crass thing to say, and she regretted it immediately.
The accord
The new day started with sunshine. Victoria’s drove to work along a narrow road that twisted through rolling countryside. A wide valley stretched out over misty fields to a horizon that blurred with the blue sky. For brief moments, her thoughts were taken away from the trepidation of John’s upcoming meeting. “Are you sure this is right?” she’d asked him.
“Yes,” he replied. “My main worry is that it could create a chunk of extra work for you, for a week or two.”
“I’m already losing loads of time calming them down. So if you can help…”
John had booked the largest meeting room. Victoria filed in with her team to find that the long meeting table had been lined with samples of their products. They’d been grouped in patterns that were almost comical. “That’s a first,” she said with British understatement. “Is there a reason for it?”
John was at the far end of the long table, adjusting the video conferencing while people dialled in. “Yes, We’ve all been taking ourselves too seriously. Crises require a different way of looking at things. We have to break the norms.”
Victoria watched her team looking for places to sit. They’d been planning to sit as a block so they could confront the tech team, but the tech team had arrived early and spread themselves out so there could be no “them and us”. They were chatting about the product display and laughing.
Victoria could see the body language of her team shifting. They’d been sparing for confrontation, now they were uncertain.
A slide deck appeared on the second screen, featuring the head of a mythical monster. “Well,” John said, “that reminds me of what we’re fighting.” He seemed to have started the meeting before everyone had finished sitting. “The skill to killing dragons is to get everyone involved. We only need a few warriors to do the arrow and sword stuff, but there’s loads of other tasks for anyone who wants to volunteer. And that includes helping the warriors.”
Dragons? Victoria said to herself. Dragons didn’t appear in any form of crisis communications strategy she’d heard of.
“Up to now, we’ve been battling our dragons alone. The senior guys are kept up to date, and consulted on decisions. But other than that, the announcements you see are heavily filtered to hide the number of unknowns we’re tracking – those are our dragons. We figured it was too complex to describe them. However you’re seeing symptoms – dragon pooh.”
John paused. He was watching Victoria’s team while they worked out his metaphor. He turned to look at Victoria’s main antagonist. “Do you want a warning about the different types of dragon poo? You’ll still fall into it regularly, but at least you can try and avoid it.”
“Yes.” Victoria’s antagonist said. It was a simple statement, without confrontation this time.
“Okay, from now, we’re going to keep you informed on a day-to-day basis, in the same way we tell the senior team. Crisis communications involves a strategy of openness. No secrets, except for some very specific things like contractual discussions.” He looked about. “If you want us to keep secrets from you, please raise your hand. Just remember: the price of seeing secrets will be more information than you want.”
Victoria tightened her face muscles at the mention of “more information than you want”. She looked around the table at her team, watching for movements that could indicate somebody wanted to protest. There was nothing.
“We’ll include pointers to where you can find additional information. You’ll quickly discover there’s a mass of information, and a lot of it is very technical. So just focus on the things that matter to you. Ask Victoria if you want to understand more. She knows a lot, and can get help from us.”
Victoria nodded. “Absolutely, I’m here to help.” She wasn’t sure what she was volunteering for, but she had no intention of showing hesitation.
“For now, I’m going to give you a briefing of where we are, the problems we’re facing, and how we’re approaching them. I’ll also show you how to track progress – the successes and the setbacks.” He looked around the table. “Can you cope with bad days as well as good ones?”
Nods. There were no signs of dissent now.
“Right, let’s go for the briefing. I’ll do most of the talking. I’ve double-checked my slides with our analysts and the tech team, and they’ll tell me if I’ve got something wrong. If you’ve got questions, interrupt.”
The whole meeting lasted half an hour. It was a non-productive time, Victoria figured, but much less than the time the team spent grumbling to each other in the corridors and refreshment areas.
She caught John at the end and they wandered off to a spot near a line of pots with bushy plastic trees. “Dragons,” she said. She shook her head. “What happens next with your approach?”
“First, your guys get caught into the same narrative as we’re giving to you and the senior execs. You’ll need to explain a bit behind some of those things. Within a few days, they’ll get the hang of it. A lot of this is about confidence. As they see us killing the dragons – the problems – one by one, it’ll give them confidence.”
“I hope so.”
“Second, they’ll start digging for additional information and become totally swamped by the amount that’s available, and it’s incredible detail. None of them have the time to handle it, especially if you keep the pressure on them for their regular job. It becomes easier for them to trust us.”
It’s not like freeing slaves in Spartacus, Victoria decided. “Is that what this whole openness thing is about? Trust.”
John shrugged. “That’s what they say – the people who write books about crisis communications. But I think they’ve missed something. You see, I fear unknown unknowns. If your team is watching for anomalies and suspicions, then we could early warning of new problems. I can put up with all the false leads and odd comments, to get those nuggets of gold. An early warning buys us time.”
“And will this all work?”
John smiled. He had a brought smile and eyes that twinkled.
Crisis communications example – discussion
In the examples on which this story was written, the crisis communications worked. They were used for an intense period that lasted two months while the crisis was brought under control, and then we slowed down, switched back to normal and got better sleep.
Why did it work?
During crises, everyone impacted by it needs hope. They know there are problems, but in the vacuum of information their fears and suspicions dominate. Openness helps rebuild the trust that was broken when the crisis began.
For an extensive description of managing crises, see David Omand’s “How to Survive a Crisis”, Penguin, ISBN 9780241995402, https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/448107/how-to-survive-a-crisis-by-omand-david/9780241995402
What is intelligence-led project management?
The back office teams in the intelligence profession are designed to cope with rapid research, analysis and decision-making. They do it under extreme pressure, and in fluid situations where many of the initial guesses will be wrong. The basics of these techniques can be added to agile project management. For more, see Fight the unknown in risk identification, with an intelligence cycle. (The biggest difference is that established intelligence functions have to cope with vast amounts of raw intelligence and the technologies for searching through these.)
Which soft skills are needed for crisis communications?
The story focuses on the liaison role of Victoria, and using here skills at empathy and listening. It also shows John’s communication skills, openness and positivity – and his willingness to encourage free thinking and divergent opinions. See more on soft skills for intelligence-led projects.
Related stories on this website
“Today will be different” – an example of too many unknowns
“Sweet and Sour Chaos” – escape from an intelligence agency to industry
“The secret devil’s advocate” – a story of managing the unknown