The Institute for Crisis Management (ICM), an American consulting firm that specialises in developing communications strategies for crisis-struck businesses, defines a crisis as “a significant business disruption which stimulates extensive news media coverage. The resulting public scrutiny will affect the organisation’s normal operations and also could have a political, legal, financial and governmental impact on its business”.The idea that businesses face moments of crisis that require special skills not called upon in the normal course of commercial events is widely accepted. Allied to this is the idea that there are people who are especially good at handling crises, and that there are crisis-management skills that can be learned. Special training courses on the subject can be found in many countries.
Crises are commonplace. The ICM puts their causes into four categories, with over 60% of them falling into the last category (management decisions):
