The 5 stages of PR grief: understanding how to navigate the five stages of grief can help you address a publicity problem--of any size --quickly and with a clear head.

• Author: Halperin, Marj
• Position: Management & Careers - Public relation

The stages a public official goes through in managing a PR disaster are remarkably similar to the five stages of grief identified by psychiatrist and author Elisabeth Kubler-Rossdenial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Understanding how to navigate these stages quickly can help you address the problem quickly and with a clear head.

THE URGENCY OF TIME

There is one notable exception to this analogy, however: time. Under the magnifying glass of media attention, we don't have the luxury of moving as slowly as we might need to sort through our emotional responses. In this world of 24- to 48-hour news cycles, anyone who is caught in the spotlight of a PR crisis needs to move quickly if there is to be any hope of reaching a dignified conclusion in the face of political pressure, potential lawsuits, job losses, and tarnished images. Your best shot at mitigating a publicity problem is to make a cool-headed assessment of your options, recognizing and promptly conquering the five stages of PR grief.

Failing to move decisively from one stage to the next means you're not only wasting valuable time within a news cycle--you're inviting others to define your situation. And those who jump to fill the vacuum aren't generally your friends. A prime example is the recent IRS storm around disclosure of keywords used to target non-profits thought to be hiding political activity under a tax-exempt veil. Initially, the Obama administration issued neither a flat denial nor a clear-cut apology. Acceptance remained elusive. Critics did their best to define the early phase and make it last as long as possible)

RECOGNIZING AND CONQUERING EACH STAGE

1. Denial. Kubler-Ross describes this stage as being marked by phrases like "I feel fine" or "This can't be happening to me." Here are two more: "This isn't really a big deal" and "It'll all blow over quickly." This is what people sometimes say to themselves when faced with the prospect of having to apologize, explain, or retreat from a bad decision. Denial is generally a temporary feeling when coping with life and death matters. During a personal medical crisis, it's hard to stay here long--test results, scans, and x-rays demonstrate the grim truth, and the facts help most people move along fairly quickly. In the PR grief world, however, it's tempting to get stuck in the denial phase. Leaders do so at great risk, however, whether trying to maintain political footing or protecting loyalty to the organization.

An example from the private sector illustrates this point. Denial was costly for Netflix in fall 2011, when the company instituted a 60 percent price increase by requiring customers to pay separately for movies received by mail and via online streaming. Within 24 hours, Netflix stock had dropped 14 percent, the popular Starz network announced it would not renew its contract with Netflix, and the company was forced to prepare investors for...