The Crisis Response Manual for Leaders: What to Do, Say, and Decide When Everything Is on the Line

When a crisis hits, the decisions you make in the first hour determine whether your organization leads the story or spends the next week trying to catch up with it.

This Manual gives you the frameworks, tools, and decision protocols that work under real pressure — not in theory, but in the kind of situations where the media is calling, stakeholders are watching, and the leadership team is looking to you for direction.

It was written by someone who has been in those situations. For more than 30 years, David Chard has worked as a frontline crisis consultant across Asia-Pacific — advising senior leaders at Bayer, Procter & Gamble, MetLife, Standard Chartered, Mars, Novartis, Volvo, and more than fifteen other multinational corporations during some of the most complex and high-profile crises in the region's corporate history. The frameworks in this Manual are not assembled from academic research. They were tested in real crises, refined through experience, and verified against outcomes.

What this Manual covers:

Section 1 — What You're Dealing With

How to distinguish an issue from an emergency from a crisis. How a crisis escalates — and why most organizations fail to recognize what they're actually facing until it's too late. The Two Crises Principle: every corporate crisis generates two crises, and the second one is always preventable.

Section 2 — Are You Ready? The Preparedness Audit

A structured self-assessment across six dimensions of crisis readiness. The Crisis Risk Register — the single most important document in your preparedness toolkit. The operational decisions you must make before a crisis strikes, including spokesperson designation, PR partner selection, and digital posture.

Section 3 — The Crisis Team: Who Does What

How to build and structure a crisis team that performs under pressure. Seven defined roles, clear responsibilities, and the decision protocols that prevent the most common and costly crisis team failures. Includes the seven-point crisis meeting agenda used with real executive teams.

Section 4 — The Response: What To Do Right Now

The 10-Step Response Process — the operational backbone of your first 24 hours. The two parallel workstreams that must run simultaneously. Stakeholder communication priorities. Key message development using the CAP Framework. Social media crisis protocols.

Section 5 — Case Studies: What Worked, What Didn't

Six full case studies, four drawn from David Chard's direct consulting experience: three failed responses and three effective ones. Bayer Taiwan, General Development Corporation, United Airlines, Volkswagen, Mars Taiwan, Volvo Taiwan, and the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol case that remains the gold standard after four decades. Plus a structured analysis of the patterns that consistently separate the organizations that emerge intact from those that do not.

Section 6 — After the Crisis: Recovery and Repair

The post-crisis recovery framework. How to conduct the structured debrief while memory is still reliable. Stakeholder relationship repair. Updating your crisis plan. And why a well-handled crisis — while costly — can strengthen an organization in ways that normal operations never could.

Appendices — Working Tools

The Crisis Action Log with illustrated example and blank template. AI and Crisis Response: a practical guide to what AI can and cannot do during a live crisis. The EngagingMinds Message Maker™ — a nine-step crisis message development worksheet.

This Manual is for:

• Communications directors and senior PR professionals who need a rigorous, deployable framework
• C-suite leaders and country managers who bear ultimate responsibility when a crisis strikes
• Corporate affairs teams building or rebuilding crisis preparedness capability
• PR agency professionals advising clients on crisis response
• Risk, legal, and HR leaders who sit on the crisis team

This Manual is not for:

• People looking for a generic overview of crisis communication theory
• Organizations that want to feel prepared without doing the work

What makes this different:

Most crisis communication resources are written by academics or consultants who have studied crises from the outside. This Manual was written by someone who was in the room — advising the leadership team, helping draft the statements, watching the decisions get made under pressure, and tracking the outcomes over time.

The case studies are not drawn from public records alone. Three of the six — Bayer Taiwan, Mars Taiwan, and Volvo Taiwan — are drawn from engagements David Chard led or participated in directly. The remaining three are documented in full from the public record and analyzed through the same analytical framework, because the patterns they reveal are as instructive as the cases he witnessed firsthand.

The frameworks are not aspirational. They are operational. Every tool in this Manual can be put to work immediately.

Format: PDF, 123 pages

Delivery: Instant download

Language: English