Although risk communication may theoretically be about the future (what might go wrong), many organizations also make serious errors talking about the past — in the aftermath of an accident, say, or a near-miss, or an OSHA decision to impose a fine. So a post-event communication protocol, grounded in the lessons of risk communication, is worth having. Here is my first draft of such a protocol. Part 2, with five additional recommendations, will appear in the June issue of ISHN. Comments and suggested additions are welcome at peter@psandman.com.
There are sometimes persuasive reasons (such as litigation) to keep word of an accident more closely confined than communicators think wise. But often the only reasons are bad reasons — embarrassment, custom, and the press of time. Whatever your reasons, when the information leaks it’s usually the fact that you withheld it that gets you into trouble, not the information itself. And “withheld†here doesn’t have to mean you lied or kept secrets; it’s enough that you weren’t forthcoming. Being tight-lipped about what happened makes you look dishonest, and makes what happened look worse than it was.