When a crisis strikes at one of your properties, there is no substitute for having a well-established crisis management plan in place.

On Thursday, July 29, 1999, chemist Mark Barton, armed with .45 caliber and 9 mm handguns, walked into the Atlanta, GA, office of Momentum Securities and shot and killed four people. He then crossed the street, entered another office building and killed five more. Soon, cornered by police, Barton took his own life, leaving behind nine dead and seven wounded office workers.

Those who escaped the attack at Momentum Securities ran to the building management office, where the staff immediately called for police and an emergency medical team to assist those who stood there, scared and wounded. It was a nightmare of a crisis that no building manager or owner wants to experience. But it did happen, and building manager Jones Lang Lasalle was prepared to manage the tragedy. They had a crisis management plan.

"At about 2 p.m. that afternoon, we got a call from our headquarters in Atlanta saying someone had been shot in our Monarch Towers building," says Magnes Welsh, director of corporate public relations, Jones Lang Lasalle, Chicago, IL. "The on-site management had gone over to check it out and get back in touch with us. They just had a few details at first and our people couldn't get to the securities office where the shooting had taken place. But what we did was put together a statement based on what our people could confirm."

Anticipating the situation would escalate, JLL's crisis plan called for all media contact and statements to be conducted by the Chicago office as on-site staff relayed information.

"If it's a simple situation, i.e., a domestic dispute, we usually have the local manager tell the news media we're cooperating with law enforcement officials and they are the ones providing information," she says.

However, in crisis situations such as this, facts get confused quickly. For instance, when wounded employees of Momentum Securities entered the JLL office for help, their blood stains were assumed to be from a JLL employee. "We started getting calls from CNN, Tom Brokaw's staff, and other national news because a wire story said that someone had been shot in our management office, which was not the case. It was such an inaccurate report. We had over 150 employees, and there were many family members who were already concerned when they heard the news. I decided that what we had to do at that particular point was make a statement that no Jones Lang employees were among any of the casualties from this incident. Normally it would not be something we would need to say, but because of this erroneous news report, we thought we had to do that to protect families of employees."

Besides announcing that no JLL employees had been hurt, the firm issued a statement confirming that the gunman had entered Momentum Securities, but for the first two or three hours, Welsh's office could only confirm that at least four people had been taken to the hospital, and none from the JLL office.

"Our people just continued to update us every few minutes," she says. As JLL was able to confirm details, new reports were issued to the press. "Because our national headquarters is in Chicago, we started hearing from local media here. We had to deal with all of them, including one television camera that showed up at our door. This was an extraordinary situation. We provided what information we could and we told them they needed to talk to law enforcement. We also had several days of follow-up calls with media."

Caring for the Victims

Good crisis management goes beyond media relations. Providing counseling for those who experienced the crisis is an important step in normalizing everyone's life.

"We had a group of counselors come in and help our employees and we also extended that service to other tenants in the building if their companies had not hired counselors for them," says Welsh.

Carol H. Beavers, Ph.D., was one of the counselors hired by JLL. She is a consultant specializing in executive coaching, organizational change consulting, and crisis management with 30 years of experience, including counseling survivors of the Oklahoma bombing.

"Each incident requires some thought in terms of whether you need to treat people with very, very special care or whether it is best for people to return reasonably soon to their jobs. Usually what I counsel managements to do is to let people know that certainly they need to be in charge in determining what is best for them individually. If in fact the building is undamaged, and they want to come back, let them. A great deal of support is garnered through people's association with people who have been through the same thing. People prefer to come back to be with colleagues. But they should always be told that if they need a day or two they won't have their pay docked or won't have to take vacation days."

Managers should be particularly visible in terms of being available for people, and shouldn't pretend it's business as usual. And if they say their primary concern is the well-being of their people, they need to mean it, according to Beavers.

After the shooting in Atlanta, a JLL executive addressed all of the employees who were present the following Friday and told them what messages had gone out to their colleagues and around the world, says Beavers. "They had communicated with all of their colleagues and told them none of the JLL people had been injured. They had offloaded all of the work that they possibly could to people in other locations; they communicated right away to their clients in Atlanta that this had occurred and that their operations would be disturbed for the next two or three days, asking for patience, but stressing that the firm would respond to urgent needs. He also told all of the managers to allow people time off if they started feeling shaky and needed to go home."

He also announced that Beavers was there to assist those in need of counseling. "I talked to them about symptoms of dramatic stress and what they might feel, telling them, 'This is how your body reacts.' I told them to expect heightened awareness, feeling jittery, having their gastrointestinal system out of whack for a few days."

Managers must not be afraid to talk to their employees. "Your people always need to know that you know about the incident and that you care about them. Let them know that you're concerned and that you're sorry it happened. And ask if there is anything you can do to help."

Beavers recommends that companies should use credentialed counselors with at least a master's degree. "People are mistaken that counseling can't hurt," she says. "Well, if it's powerful enough to help, it's powerful enough to hurt. We had a tornado that ripped through an affluent part of town in Atlanta and impacted maybe 20 households. One of the social workers said to a young mother, this will scar your daughter for the rest of her life. That wasn't good for the daughter, or for the mother. You need to say this is a really bad thing you went through, and it's scary. But the good news is that you're going to learn a lot from this; the bad news is it wasn't a good way to learn. You might have nightmares, be fearful for a while; that's the natural occurrence, but you will be fine."

In Oklahoma City, Beavers recalls, one victim told her a counselor said, 'if you think this is bad, at least it's over. You should have been in Vietnam, where it happened every day.' The victims, she says, felt they had to take care of the counselor.

But even the counselors need to be advised on how to handle the media, says Welsh. "We provided them with information on what to say and what not to say," she says.

Aftermath

Once the immediate crisis passed, JLL worked to take the focus off themselves and their employees and tenants. "We didn't want our name out there in this context any more than it had to be," Welsh says. "So we were trying to downplay our name and not create situations that would continue to extend the story. We supplied some information to the media about this, but eventually we just said, 'no more.' We said our employees had been put through enough, our tenants had been put through enough, and they don't need the news media asking them about their counseling. The sole purpose of doing that was to try to get the media to shift its focus off our employees. The day after the event our employees and tenants couldn't get into the parking lot because of the news media there. One marketing person on-site said it looked like a war zone with all the media and police."

JLL moved quickly to normalize their building for their tenants. After the police collected evidence, JLL management quickly replaced the carpeting so people returning to work wouldn't have to see blood-stained carpets.

"One news media wanted floor plans of our building so he could show the route of the gunman," says Welsh. "We decided not to give them to him because that violated some security issues. It was information we didn't feel anybody needed to know.

"Our goal is to provide accurate information and to provide what we consider to be an appropriate amount that will keep from escalating the situation," she says. "Our management services group has an extensive crisis plan, and then we have as part of that public relations. Our crisis plan was followed."

Manage the Crisis Before It Happens

"Crisis is inevitable," says Larissa Grunig, associate professor, Department of Communication, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. "Crisis management begins before the crisis happens. It may not happen often, but it's going to happen."

Most difficulties in handling crises can be attributable to poor management, she notes. The thing that managers need to understand is that crisis is going to happen in their organization, and how can they limit it. "The whole key is developing appropriate relationship long before the crisis happens," says Grunig.

For instance, apartment building owners need to have a good relationship with their renters, surrounding buildings, the community media, and the public officials that have anything to do with the regulation of their operation.

"Those are just a few of the publics that would be strategic to the apartment building owners. They need to cultivate good relationships before the crisis happens. Because when it does occur, you've got that relationship that will give you time to present your side of the story. If you don't have those relationships, they won't give you a chance to explain. They'll turn a deaf ear and you'll be working uphill. At the time of the crisis, the byword has got to be disclosure to the people who have a need to know. You should explain to them what happened and why, not in technical terms, but in lay language they'll understand. Then explain what you're going to do to get the information, and, if necessary, accept responsibility for the incident. Ours is a very forgiving culture. If businesses come clean, research has shown the public will accept an apology as long as it's shown that something has been done to rectify the problem."

For instance, Johnson & Johnson accepted responsibility for the Tylenol contamination several years ago and saved the brand. "They did the right thing, and they did it quickly." Alternatively, if a company denies responsibility, it is clear that they are not going to do anything to solve the problem, says Grunig.

For shopping center owners the same would apply. While there are no apartment renters here, there are customers and potential customers and, of course, tenants, all of which is typically surrounded by a neighborhood. "Too often I think shopping centers try to cover up rather than show what happened," she says. "They try to shut things up instead of supplying full information in a timely way. But when a relationship is built on disclosure, you see the benefit of telling the story willingly.

"You need to maintain credibility with all groups," says Grunig. "There may be security issues as well where you need relationships with local police and fire officials. It's the responsibility of corporate communications to first identify who the stakeholder groups are, and second to do the research to characterize them: what are they like, what are their concerns, what is their connection to us. You should find ways of communicating with those groups, and not through the mass media. There are more interpersonal means—like tours, open houses, special events—where you communicate more as a dialogue instead of a one-way transmission, where you can tell people who you are."

Whether it's crime on the property, accidents or natural disasters, all property owners should have a plan of action. For apartment owners, residents must be made aware of the situation quickly so they can take precautions, says Jay Harris, National Multi-Housing Council, Washington, DC.

"By anticipating [crisis] you can have a ready-to-go effort, where the leasing agents and site level managers are briefed on what to do if there is a crime on the property. There will be other situations where a property manager will need to know how to report this to more senior people in the company. Make sure you have a clear procedure in place on how to report that up the chain in command. And respond to crisis before it gets into the press. Just because an issue hasn't made it into the local newspaper doesn't mean you shouldn't have a crisis plan ready to go. It's important to have clear reporting responsibility and a clear, quick decision-making strategy with others."

Developing A Crisis Management Plan National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) has recently published a booklet designed to assist REITs and REOCs in developing a sound crisis management plan. Copies of this publication were mailed to all NAREIT corporate members in early August. The booklet can be ordered directly on the NAREIT web site (www.nareit.com) or by calling 202-739-9400.