When Crisis Becomes the New Normal

Crisis Communication Management in an Age of Constant Upheaval - how polycrises and permacrisis changes the way we communicate.

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Dear reader,

If any of us in crisis, risk or emergency communications thought we’d signed up for the occasional adrenaline rush, the last few years have set us straight.

Gone are the days when a crisis was a single, contained event with a clear start and end. Now, we’re navigating an era of relentless, overlapping and sometimes interconnected disruptions.

I this week’s edition of the Wag The Dog newsletter I cover the world of 'polycrises' and 'permacrises'—two sides of the same exhausting coin that are reshaping how organisations communicate and how we approach our work.

Let me know what you think!

Table of Contents

The Changing Nature of Crises and Emergencies

Imagine your organisation is dealing with the aftermath of a cyber-attack when a major supply chain disruption occurs. Just as you’re gearing up, social unrest flares up in several key markets.

This is not a series of individual crises, but a polycrisis in which several problems overlap and reinforce each other.

Then there is the permacrisis. This is less of a firestorm and more of a constant, simmering mess: persistent challenges such as the climate crisis, economic instability and political volatility that do not end, but continue indefinitely.

It’s like living with a background noise that never fades and requires communicators to keep their listeners engaged without burning them out.

Global Risks Report 2024. (2024, January 10). World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2024/

Different crises, different strategies

Coping with a polycrises

Polycrises2 require agility and coordination. Here are some suggestions how communication teams can keep their heads above water:

  • Stay flexible. Deploy systems that can switch quickly to address multiple issues at once.

  • Prioritise your messages. Not every detail needs to reach every audience. Figure out what’s important and communicate it clearly.

  • Build cross-functional teams. When crises are linked, so must be the responses. Finance, HR and operations need to be involved in the communication strategy.

  • Strike a balance between consistency and nuance. Messaging should be consistent, but each crisis may require its own tone and focus.

Take the pandemic, for example: it triggered health, economic and social crises all at once. In such a situation, communicators had to combine up-to-date health information, economic reassurances and community action without contradicting themselves or overwhelming the audience.

Surviving a permacrisis

A permacrisis^3 requires a different mindset — less sprint, more marathon. Here’s what you could focus on:

  • Keep your pace. Develop a sustainable rhythm that doesn’t exhaust your team or your audience(s).

  • Create a long-term narrative. Acknowledge ongoing challenges, but offer insights into progress to maintain hope.

  • Stay resilient. People will get tired of hearing the same warnings. Find new angles to keep them engaged.

  • Communicate with purpose. Every update should feel necessary, not just routine.

Think of it this way: during the ongoing climate crisis, audiences will tune out due to constant prophecies of doom. But a narrative that combines the reality of the challenge with tangible examples of progress will make people sit up and take notice.

The Practical Shifts

These new types of crises mean that communication strategies need to evolve. Here’s what it could look like in practise:

1. Resource Allocation

Crisis communication can’t be something you pull out of the drawer when something goes wrong. Organisations now need teams with permanent crisis response capabilities that are integrated into daily operations and not kept on standby.

2. Stakeholder relationships

Trust is no longer about showing up in a crisis, but about building consistent, long-term credibility. Stakeholders need to see your organisation as a reliable hand, a voice they can count on when uncertainty arises.

3. Message crafting

With polycrises, the challenge is to create a clear hierarchy of information. With permacrises, it’s about informing people without anaesthetising them. It’s a balancing act between urgency and sustainability.

Preparing for the future

Both polycrises and permacrises are here to stay. The climate crisis will not go away, geopolitical tensions will increase and new technologies will bring new vulnerabilities. For crisis communicators, this means:

  1. Investing in advanced monitoring tools to detect crises early and know how they might be connected.

  2. Develop adaptable response plans that can be scaled up or down as needed.

  3. Strengthen relationships with stakeholders so that they can withstand constant uncertainty.

  4. Train teams to manage complex, multi-layered crises with confidence.

What it all means

The field of crisis communication has changed. It’s no longer enough to respond well to a single emergency; today, success means managing constant, accumulating disruptions while keeping stakeholders on board.

We need to upgrade our skills for both short, intense responses and long, drawn-out campaigns. It’s about being able to handle both the sudden punch and the slow grind.

Those who can balance these demands will be invaluable to their organisations, helping them to survive crises and to function, even thrive in a world where disruption is the default state.

How do you handle these new complexities?

References and further reading.

1  Torkington, S. (2023, January 13). We’re on the brink of a polycrisis. How worried should we be? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/01/polycrisis-global-risks-report-cost-of-living/?t

2  Lawrence, M., Homer-Dixon, T., Janzwood, S., Rockstöm, J., Renn, O., & Donges, J. F. (2024). Global polycrisis: the causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement. Global Sustainability, 7. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2024.1

3  Chui, M., & Bush, J. (2024, September 25). Is the world facing a state of permacrisis? McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/forward-thinking/is-the-world-facing-a-state-of-permacrisis?t

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What I am reading/testing/checking out:

  • Podcast: Is the world facing a state of permacrisis? (via McKinsey Global Institute)

  • Tool: Midday AI, an AI driven business organiser

  • Resource: Clickminded, the world's most complete library of resources to build systems, SOP, prompts and more.

  • Survey: BCI 2025 Emergency & Crisis Communication Report Survey

Let’s meet!

Here are the events and conferences I'll be speaking at. If you're around, feel free to message me and we can meet up for a coffee or a Negroni.

  • 🇧🇪 AI in PR Boot Camp II, 20-21 February 2025, Brussels, Belgium

  • 🇲🇽 Crisis Communications Boot Camp, 29-30 May 2025, Mexico City, Mexico - Pre-register today and save 15% on your ticket.

  • Soon to be announced… 🇦🇪 Dubai, and more.

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Parts of this newsletter were created using AI technology to draft content. In addition, all AI-generated images include a caption stating, 'This image was created using AI'. These changes were made in line with the transparency requirements of the EU AI law for AI-generated content. Some links in this newsletter may be affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commission if you click and make a purchase; however, I only promote tools and services that I have tested, use myself, or am convinced will make a positive difference.

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