Be emotional during a crisis

We all remember the tragic crash of the Germanwings flight in March 2015. The plane was travelling from Barcelona to Düsseldorf and crashed in the French Alps. 144 passengers and six crew members died. First, it was unclear what had caused the crash but eventually it came out that the co-pilot had made the plane crash on purpose. The police found out that his doctor had declared him not to be able to work but the co-pilot had kept this information from Germanwings. Moreover, he received treatment against suicidal tendencies. Read more facts here.

How to deal with this information?

Imagine you were the spokesperson of Germanwings and had to communicate with the public. What would be a right way of communication? Van der Meer and Verhoeven (2014) recently found out that “corporate reputation is positively affected by a crisis response in which an organization shows signs of shame or regret about the crisis. As it was discovered, the display of these emotions by spokespersons affects the way the public makes sense of the role of the organization in the crisis.” Therefore, the spokesperson of Germwanings should point out that he, as representing the company, feels shame or regret. This can be through language or non-verbal behaviour, e.g. facial expressions.

How did Germanwings eventually deal with the information?

Besides press releases, press conferences and social media posts, Germanwings’ CEO, Thomas Winkelmann, also published a video message. It is remarkable that the company does not send any spokesperson, but the CEO himself. This shows that the company gives a high importance to the topic. (In case the video does not work, click here)

Winkelmann expresses his sorrow by using language and his facial expression. He describes the incident as “one of the biggest national tragedies” and a “shocking disaster”. Moreover, he says that Germanwings will provide help for the families “no matter what time of day or night”. The video then ends with the following words:

Expressing the same sentence in three languages, which are the languages of most of the victims, is a form of using emotions and showing shame and regret.

Conclusion

Germanwings communicated in a great way. They let their CEO talk to the public and he showed his emotions and his sorrow. He did not try to deny their responsibility or pretend not to be involved. This is a very good example of how emotions can help during crisis communication. However, I still believe that his emotions are real. Just because emotions can help to deal with a crisis does not imply that those emotions are not authentic. It is actually important that the public believes that the emotions shown by a spokesperson are real.

- Valerie Kirsch