Discipline I · Situation Room Protocol
Crisis Containment
A product recall, a leaked memo, a reporter at the door. We take command of the information flow in the first 90 minutes — before the narrative hardens against you.
14 min
First-response draft
72 hrs
Full containment sprint
-84%
Negative mentions, day 14
What the engagement entails
Every crisis is an information asymmetry problem: someone knows something, everyone else is guessing, and the guesses always run against you. Containment means closing that gap faster than the news cycle can widen it. A senior strategist takes command of your situation room — physically or virtually — and runs a single decision cadence across legal, comms, and leadership until the story is no longer yours to lose.
We do not arrive with a template. We arrive with a protocol: verify, sequence, speak, sustain. The statement goes out before the publish timestamp, the stakeholders hear it from you first, and every subsequent development lands inside a frame you already set.
What's included
01
Situation-room command
A senior strategist embedded with your leadership for the duration of the acute phase, running one decision cadence across every function.
02
First-statement drafting
A strategic holding statement inside 14 minutes of engagement — cleared for tone with counsel, ready before the reporter files.
03
Stakeholder sequencing
Board, employees, regulators, customers, press — notified in the order that prevents leaks and preserves trust at each layer.
04
Sustain & close-out
Daily narrative audits until coverage normalizes, then a written after-action record your team keeps for the next event.
The first 90 minutes
Minutes 0–15
Verify
Establish the facts that are knowable now, quarantine speculation, and freeze outbound communication until the frame is set.
Minutes 15–45
Sequence
Map every audience that must hear it from you first, and put the notifications in motion in leak-proof order.
Minutes 45–90
Speak
Issue the holding position, brief the spokesperson, and take the inbound — on your terms, inside your frame.
"The side that frames the facts first earns the benefit of the doubt. The side that answers second spends the week defending itself."
Containment questions, answered
Should we wait for legal clearance before saying anything?
No — silence reads as guilt, and clearance rarely arrives before the publish timestamp. We draft positions that protect legal posture and still let you speak first.
Do you work on-site or remotely?
Either. For acute events we embed a strategist in your room within hours where travel allows; otherwise we run a secure virtual situation room on the same cadence.
What if the story is already published?
Then we contain the second cycle, not the first: correct the record upstream, re-sequence stakeholders, and make the follow-up coverage the one that defines you.
Who inside our company will you need?
One decision-maker with authority, one counsel contact, and one communications lead. Everything else runs through them — speed depends on a short chain.
Continue to the adjacent disciplines
Discipline II
Media Architecture
Discipline III
Regulatory Narrative
Discipline IV
Digital Sentiment Control
"Your first hour of decisions decides whether you lead the story or chase it."