The Visionary Leader Takes the Long View
Most crisis statements are written to close the story, not open it: issue the line, hold the position, move on. Melissa Agnes, founder of the Crisis Ready Institute, argues the opposite in the Crisis Masterclass. Storytelling in crisis communication is not a single release; it unfolds the way the crisis itself does, in stages, repeated.
Defined by the Oxford Dictionary, you've got two definitions of visionary. You've got someone who thinks about or plans the future with imagination or wisdom. That's a leader that I want to be when I think of that. I definitely want to be a wise leader, especially through moments of crisis, and I want to be able to activate my imagination in times of crisis to envision the better tomorrow that as a leader or as a communicator, you are leading people towards.
Session six builds this layered-storytelling lens onto your own scenario.
See the programComfortable Doesn't Mean Safe
Melissa's cautionary example is Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive during the 2010 Gulf oil spill: the instinct she warns leaders against.
That's an infamous quote by former CEO of BP, the oil company, back in 2010 when they had the catastrophic oil spill, and Tony Hayward, the former CEO, the CEO at the time, is infamously remembered by saying, "I'd like my life back."
Comfortable doesn't actually mean safe, because if we think about it, yesterday is either when the crisis happened or before the crisis happened, leading up to the crisis. So if you want to go back to normal, you're not actually looking to evolve forward, to progress forward, to learn from lessons and learnings and to do things differently, to in fact create that better version, that better next evolution of your company, of your brand, for your community, for the future that you want to lead people to.
A Crisis Is an Onion
Melissa's metaphor for why leaders cannot revert to normal, part of the wider Crisis Ready® formula, is that a crisis behaves like an onion.
When we look at taking a long-term view and visionary crisis leadership and crisis communication, we want to look at a crisis a little bit like an onion. What you see on the surface of an onion is not the totality of the story. With an onion, you peel back layers. This is an analogy that I did not just make up. With a crisis, we don't have all of the information at the onset of the crisis. If we do, it probably wouldn't be a crisis.
The more you peel, the more you reveal.
Every month of the Crisis Masterclass adds another layer to this model.
See inside the 12 monthsWhy Stories Carry a Crisis
Storytelling in Crisis Communication Beats Dry Facts
Storytelling is not spin, Melissa says: it is the vehicle for her layering. She cites research that people take in stories far more readily than they take in facts.
It is said by Jennifer Aaker, who is from Stanford, says that stories are remembered up to 22 times more than facts alone. This is a big reason why you don't want to just put out some dry legal jargon out of fear. You really want to bring people along the journey with you, so they're rooting for you, so they trust you, and so that they're holding the vision of where you're going together.
The National Storytelling Network says that storytelling is the interactive art of using words and actions to reveal the elements and images of a story while encouraging the listener's imagination. We get to do that in our crisis communication.
Great stories are not rushed, which emphasises that we don't want to just quickly communicate and revert back to normal. There's no growth in that. There's no connection in that. There's just fear in that. Stories are not rushed, they're layered. They're layered with intention, where each reveal should be a worthy extension of the previous effort.
What the BBC Did With WhatsApp During Ebola
West Africa was deep into the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and NGOs and governments trying to slow its spread were failing. The BBC found WhatsApp was the app these communities used daily, and ran a six-week WhatsApp Ebola Service: simple storybook-style images rather than long text, plus local musicians. The trial ran seven or eight months.
What did they do? They created these storybook, story pictures that told a story. They looked like something from a child's book, so they were simple and clear, and in the images themselves, they told a story, and then below the images would be simple text like, "Do not touch people who died of Ebola." Simple text that is easy to comprehend with a graphic, an image of somebody touching a body with a big X. And it worked.
Say It More Than Once
Melissa's next point follows directly: say something once and most people never hear it, the same discipline behind why hope is not a strategy in a crisis response.
George Bernard Shaw said, "The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place." I love that quote. When I think of interpersonal relationships or even intimate spousal relationships, how often does miscommunication happen because one person thought they said something and the other person never heard it.
People need to see messaging more than once to believe it, to remember it, and to believe it. We do this in our marketing messaging. In our marketing messaging, we know that we have to say the same thing over and over in different ways for people to truly believe it and hear it, for it to truly resonate, for people to act on it.
The Practical Checklist
Near the end of the session, Melissa runs through her layering guidance. In her words:
- Speak to how people feel, even without every answer.
- Prioritise urgency without losing the bigger story.
- Break messaging into bite-sized chunks.
- Communicate facts as they're confirmed.
- Say it more than once, in different ways.
- Stay open, flexible and adaptable.
- Show, don't tell: action plus communication.
- Know your audience and each platform's language.
This checklist is one slice of the full Crisis Ready® formula.
Read the formulaThe Crisis-Ready Rule
Melissa closes by tying storytelling back to something simpler than any framework.
Successful business is built on relationships. Successful crisis management prioritises those same very relationships.
What Comes Next
Melissa ends with a teaser: next month's case study is Maple Leaf Foods, a brand that did this work long before it was common practice. It sits inside the Crisis Masterclass alongside this session.
Frequently asked questions
How often should you communicate during a crisis?
More than once, and more than most leaders are comfortable with. Melissa Agnes teaches that a single update rarely lands: people need to see the same message repeated in different forms before they believe and remember it. Over-communicating is rare; the far more common mistake is going quiet too soon and calling it strategy.
What does the 'crisis is an onion' analogy mean?
It is Melissa Agnes's metaphor for how a crisis unfolds. You do not have every fact when a crisis begins; if you did, it likely would not be a crisis. Leaders peel back layers over time, and each layer should reveal more truth, more connection and more opportunity to communicate honestly with stakeholders.
What did the BBC do with WhatsApp during the Ebola outbreak?
In 2014, the BBC found that West African communities were using WhatsApp daily, so it launched a WhatsApp Ebola Service originally planned for six weeks. It sent simple, storybook-style images explaining how the virus spread, aimed at audiences who could not read long text, and the trial ran for months longer than planned.
Do stories really get remembered more than facts in a crisis?
Melissa Agnes cites Stanford researcher Jennifer Aaker's finding that stories are remembered far more often than facts alone, which is why she warns leaders against leading with dry legal language out of fear. Treat the exact multiple as a claim from her course, not as an independently verified statistic.
Sources
Melissa Agnes
Founder, Crisis Ready Institute
Based in the USA, Melissa is a recognised leading authority on crisis communication, crisis leadership and brand protection. Best-selling author of 'Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World', and creator of the Crisis Ready® Model which has been globally recognised as having elevated industry best practice, she has worked with ministries of foreign affairs and defence, NATO and many other leading organisations. She presents the Crisis Ready course exclusively through My PR Partner in Australasia.
Melissa Agnes is the founder of the Crisis Ready Institute and creator of the Crisis Ready® Model. Her Crisis Ready course is available in Australasia exclusively through the My PR Partner Crisis Masterclass. See the program.
Verbatim passages are excerpted from session six of Melissa Agnes's Crisis Ready® course, delivered through the My PR Partner Crisis Masterclass. Her recap of prior sessions, a personal anecdote about a friend's storytelling, and the closing Q&A with host Lyall Mercer were trimmed for length.
