THE SOLUTION

The company came to us with a plan to make a major media announcement - telling the world about their financial troubles and staff redundancies.

They left our office with a new crisis management plan - make no announcement and phase the redundancies over several months instead of several weeks.

Our plan protected the share price and the company's reputation.

Over a period of several months the workforce was reduced and the exercise attracted only one piece of coverage - a local newspaper article which pointed out that "a few jobs were being cut."

The lesson from the story – when managing a crisis, it's important to know when to keep your lips sealed.