The Instinct to React Immediately

The pressure to say something—anything—is intense. Journalists are calling. Social media is speculating. Your board wants answers. Employees are anxious. The temptation is to issue a holding statement just to show you're engaged.

Sometimes this works. Often, it backfires spectacularly.

We've seen organisations rush out statements that later had to be walked back, creating a secondary crisis about credibility. We've watched leadership teams make commitments in the heat of the moment that became impossible to fulfil. We've observed well-intentioned transparency efforts that inadvertently confirmed rumours or exposed the organisation to legal risk.

The problem isn't communication itself—it's premature communication before you understand what you're dealing with.

What Actually Happens in Hour One

When crisis breaks, most organizations don't have clear facts. What they have are fragments: a regulatory letter, a media inquiry, an internal report, a social media post going viral. The full picture takes time to assemble.

In that first hour, three things need to happen simultaneously:

Fact-finding begins immediately. What exactly has occurred? What's the scope? Who's affected? What are the immediate risks? You can't communicate strategically until you understand the situation you're communicating about.

Governance activates. Who makes decisions? Who approves statements? Who speaks to which stakeholder groups? Without clear authority and process, you get mixed messages and turf battles when you can least afford them.

Strategic assessment starts. What are the potential scenarios? What stakeholder reactions can we anticipate? What's our core position likely to be? This thinking shapes everything that follows.

Organisations that skip these steps in favour of immediate public comment often regret it.

The 48-Hour Framework

Based on managing dozens of crises, we've developed a framework for those critical first two days:

Hours 0-6: Assess and Activate

Gather initial facts without jumping to conclusions. Activate your crisis governance structure. Identify immediate risks that require action. Begin stakeholder mapping—who needs to hear from you, in what order, and what do they need to know?

This is not the time for detailed statements. If you must communicate, a brief acknowledgment that you're aware of the situation and gathering facts is usually sufficient. Don't speculate. Don't make commitments you can't keep.

Hours 6-24: Position and Prepare

By now, you should have a clearer picture. Develop your core strategic position: What happened? What's our responsibility? What are we doing about it? What's our commitment going forward?

Prepare holding statements for different stakeholder groups. Draft Q&As for likely questions. Identify who will serve as spokespeople. Begin proactive outreach to key stakeholders before they hear from other sources.

This is also when you make critical decisions about transparency versus discretion, legal considerations versus reputational needs, and short-term tactics versus long-term positioning.

Hours 24-48: Communicate and Control

Execute your communications plan with discipline. Different stakeholders may need different messages, but they must all align with your core position. Contradictions kill credibility.

Monitor stakeholder reactions and media coverage closely. Be prepared to adjust based on how your messages are received, but don't abandon your strategy at the first sign of criticism.

Establish a rhythm of updates that demonstrates control without over-promising. Silence breeds speculation; constant updates suggest panic. Find the balance.

What Good Crisis Response Looks Like

In one case, a professional services firm faced allegations of workplace misconduct. Rather than issuing an immediate denial or apology, they spent the first eight hours gathering facts through a rapid internal investigation.

When they did communicate, they acknowledged the seriousness of the allegations, outlined the independent investigation they were commissioning, and committed to transparency about findings and actions. They didn't speculate about outcomes or make defensive statements.

The result? Media coverage was measured. Client relationships remained stable. Employee trust in leadership's handling increased rather than decreased. The investigation eventually cleared the firm of the most serious allegations, but even if it hadn't, their measured response had built credibility to handle difficult findings.

Contrast this with organisations that issue immediate denials, only to have facts emerge that contradict their statements. Or those that over-apologise for situations that don't warrant it, creating liability and undermining confidence. Or those that go silent, allowing others to control the narrative.

What Catastrophic Response Looks Like

We've also seen the alternative. A FTSE 100 company facing a product safety concern issued three different statements in the first 12 hours, each contradicting the last as new information emerged. By day two, the story wasn't about the safety concern—it was about their incompetent crisis management.

Another organisation responded to regulatory scrutiny with an aggressive public statement attacking the regulators. It felt decisive in the moment. It also ensured the regulator took the hardest possible line and that media coverage framed the company as arrogant and evasive.

In both cases, the initial crisis was manageable. The response made it catastrophic.

The Discipline Required

Good crisis response in those first 48 hours requires discipline that feels counterintuitive:

Discipline to gather facts before forming positions. Resist the pressure to declare your stance before you understand the situation.

Discipline to align internally before communicating externally. A unified leadership team speaking with one voice is worth the extra hours it takes to achieve.

Discipline to say less rather than more. Every word you say can be used against you. If a statement doesn't serve a strategic purpose, don't make it.

Discipline to think three moves ahead. How will this statement be received? What questions will it raise? What commitments are we implicitly making? What doors are we closing?

Discipline to separate legal strategy from communications strategy. Sometimes they align. Sometimes they conflict. Both matter, but they require different thinking.

After the First 48 Hours

If you've managed those first two days well, you've established credibility, controlled the narrative framework, and positioned yourself to manage the crisis through to resolution.

If you haven't, you're now managing two crises: the original situation and the damage your response created.

The organisations that emerge from crises strongest are rarely those that faced the smallest challenges. They're the ones that responded with strategic clarity, communicated with discipline, and maintained stakeholder trust even through difficult situations.

Conclusion

The first 48 hours of a crisis aren't about perfection. They're about establishing a foundation for credible, consistent, strategic communications that will serve you through the days and weeks ahead.

Speed matters. But strategic thinking, disciplined execution, and clear governance matter more.

When crisis hits your organisation—and eventually, it will—those first two days will determine whether you control the story or it controls you.