In my most common nightmare, I’d have a Flake chocolate bar in my hand and drop it on the floor, splitting it into millions of small chocolate splinters.

Then, my teacher – invariably Mrs Murray – would tell me to pick them all up and COUNT the chocolate crumbs individually.

I’d wake up in a cold sweat, thanking God that it was a dream.

I don’t suffer from too many nightmares nowadays but when I do they involve being told to calculate infinitely small grains of sand from a beach or count the number of stars in the sky.

Corporate nightmares

In the corporate world, it’s not so easy to close your eyes to a real-life nightmare and then go back to sleep again.

Unless it’s dealt with properly it can overhwhelm you, particularly if you don’t have a robust crisis management plan that is regularly updated and tested.

Our crisis communications workshops are designed to test the communications skills of your PR officer/comms team or your senior leadership team.

Getting your prep right

The first and arguably the most important skill we teach is how to prepare properly beforehand so you’re not thrown off track when being interviewed.

Each trainee gets 3 chances to be interviewed about one of our mock-news scenarios and, as they get more difficult, the individuals work together to prepare their messaging priorities and – of course- work out how they’re going to answer the questions when confronted by a camera and an inquisitive journalist.

So we start off with relatively easy scenarios which get more difficult as the workshop progresses.

Crucial to the prep is asking – “What are my nightmare questions ?”  So you can work out what you’re going to say if the interviewer throws a curved ball and touches on an area you were praying would remain out of bounds.

Expect the best, prepare for the worst

I’m glad to say that in my 11 years of media training most people respond positively ; learning from mistakes during a training session is the best way to learn  – not when being interviewed in a real-life studio!

Even if you’re unable to answer an interviewer’s question it’s usually possible to come up with an answer that remains authentic and true to your brand values without you appearing slippery or dishonest; as I keep saying, it’s all in the prep.

Being put under pressure in our media training workshops will get your team thinking on its feet.

Once they know they’ve prepared well, the adrenalin kicks in and their self-confidence rises.

If  you feel your organisation might benefit from a chat about our media training and crisis communications workshops give us a shout.

I promise I won’t ask you to count the chocolate splinters from your flake, either.