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Corporate crisis management needs consultation with an outside ethics expert.

If you want an ethics expert on your team of highly competent persons, for expert consultation and advice during a crisis-- 

1. A confidential, outside, corporate ethics consultant can see you as outsiders see you. Consultants identify the relevant facts and value assumptions as they are viewed both by the parties inside the company, and, importantly, also by the parties outside the corporation   A person outside the problem often sees lack of compliance, governance problems, business culture facts or management value assumptions that are not seen internally.
    

2. A confidential, outside, corporate ethics consultant can move a business committee better, faster.  You tend to get better options on the table, and make decisions that can be justified to the outside world. The outside corporate ethics consultant moves your discussion of corporate governance and public relations options forward and upward.  Discussion which involves ethical dimensions usually needs a wise counselor to keep the discussion from bogging down on one or two items, and to suggest ideas, problems, and values that have not been raised in the discussion by the executives. 
    

3. A confidential, outside, corporate ethics consultant is internal management emotional insurance and outside public relations insurance. When a decision among ethical choices is made by executives,  it is comforting to know that it has been looked at by someone whose job it is to know ethics principles. Then - when the decision is imparted to those affected internally and to the wider community or government authority that needs to know the result - it is helpful to have the backing of experienced ethics counsel. Experienced ethics consultants can help frame the announcements to the parties involved and to the public.  In fact, an ethics expert may be your best PR friend. He/she can bring an outside viewpoint to the crisis discussions, and can point out ethical aspects that helps your crises management be respected by the public and government regulators.

There are two categories of crisis management.

Reactive crisis management is management responding to an event that massively threatens the operations or success of the business.  Crisis management in the face of a current, real crisis includes identifying the real nature of a current crisis, intervening to minimize damage and recovering from the crisis. Crisis management often includes a strong focus on public relations to prevent, or recover from, damage to public image. Crisis management must assure all stakeholders (employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, government)  that recovery is moving the company back to a position of leadership in the industry.

When sticky situations arise - and they will - don't try to tough them out alone if outside consultants will add value to your management team's decisions.   Computer, legal, and government agency specific experts are the usual outside consultants that come to mind in many situations.  There is another type of outside expert that frequently will add value to your management team's decisions--- a business ethics consultant.  Most people think they know the "right" thing to do.  The problem is that everyone else thinks they know the "right" thing to do, and everyone does not always agree. An ethics expert may be your best PR friend if he/she can bring an outside viewpoint to the crisis discussions, and can point out an ethical aspect that helps your management be one the public respects.  Therefore, you should identify an outside ethics expert that you can call on 24/7 to join the crisis response discussions.

Proactive crisis management is forecasting potential crises and planning how to deal with them.  Potential crisis that may be forecast can run from a hacker entering your computer and stealing sensitive corporate or customer information, to customer deaths caused by your product.  Proactive  crisis management takes the time to complete a crisis management plan before the company experiences a crisis.  The plan includes, among other things, identifying the management personnel and outside consultants that need to meet immediately as your crisis response team.

Helpful Hint: Boards of directors and corporate executives can not wait until the crisis hits to determine their crisis committee and how it will operate. There are questions to consider before disaster strikes. The Fellows of the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) have designed a board and senior executive discussion guide to help prepare for the ethics issues in advance of a fiasco. This ERC Fellows report – Accepting Responsibility Responsibly: Corporate Response in Times of Crisis – will help your business leaders prepare.  Download the Free Report form the ERC.  Read it. Then consider if you need an outside expert to work with your board or senior executives in a training session using this report and other materials and techniques.