How Did We Get Here?

With any crisis, we owe an acknowledgment of the truth. While that can be harsh, it’s necessary.

Les Énervés de Jumièges by Évariste Vital Luminais, 1880 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons) *

“Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness.” —Thomas Paine, 1792

As much as history can inform our understanding of the present, we’re never quite prepared for a crisis.

We can point to events and behaviors that presaged certain crises, and perhaps we can even pick them out today, but when a situation becomes acute, it seems to happen all at once and takes people by surprise.

Well-trained corporate communications teams participate in crisis planning and usually have a crisis plan or handbook at the ready when they need to snap into action. In the digital age, those tend to gather dust, as crises now depend on the speed of response and a well-tuned instinct.

There was a crisis brewing in the winter of 1776. It was on this occasion that General George Washington pulled out a handbook of his own: the appropriately-named collection of soul-stirring es…