I’m currently enjoying a late-summer trip with my golf buddies. The schedule is hectic: early-morning Ryder Cup watching, a morning golf round, lunch-on-the-run, an afternoon golf round, high-calorie/fat dinners, no-limit poker and sports talk into the wee hours. Since playoffs are imminent, Major League Baseball is heavily discussed.
Every year, I contend that the home run is overrated. Heavy debate ensues.
I provide context for my runs-scored argument in this article of The Public Relations Strategist, a quarterly publication of the Public Relations Society of America. The baseball analogy helps me may a point about 
crisis management: crisis response gets all the attention, but other elements of holistic crisis management also deserve a share of the limelight.
Check out the article and share your thoughts below, please.
Does crisis response get too much attention? Should experts in our industry do a better job of promoting the importance of preparedness and mitigation elements of holistic crisis management? (Also, baseball fans can let me know if you agree/disagree on my point about the overrated home run!)
James,
Totally agree with you. The response always gets the most attention. But I think that is b/c those orgs that do the hard work to prep correctly don't truly face what we would refer to as a "crisis". This is because they move with quickness, confidence and flexibility to cut things off at the pass before they get out of hand. Doing that keeps potentially bad things from becoming a news story, and without a news story you don't have a crisis.
But that type of prep does not get the accolades they/it deserves. Probably a better analogy would be a great umpire. A great umpire is always prepared, calls the game fairly and knows the rules and how to officiate before certain questionable situations arise. Therefore, the great ones are never noticed (as it should be). The bad ones are the ones that bring themselves into the game, through bad calls or grudges, and take the attention away from the game, where it rightfully belongs.
With regards to the home run. As a diehard baseball fan myself, I would say you are correct now, but that wasn't always so. Several years ago when we were in the era we know now as the "roid era", the yard job was not overrated, because they were being hit with such frequency. For pete's sake Bret Boone almost cracked 50 one year. But now that MLB has done a much better job of putting the kibash on that, I believe the homer is overrated as a strategic measure.
The averages would suggest it's better to plan for the small ball than waiting on the home run. After all, this season was the year of the pitcher.
Thanks.
I love your umpire analogy — and you're right. Good crisis management typically helps put out the fires quickly…which reduces the amount of smoke and attention. Thanks for participating.