“Not having a crisis plan is like sending your team onto the field, and only then making up the plays. You may win the game… but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Hart + Harvest Press is thrilled to release the latest edition of Chief Crisis Officer: Structure and Leadership for Effective Communications Response, by noted attorney, author and communications consultant James F. Haggerty. The new edition is now available for purchase on platforms such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent booksellers, and at hartandharvest.com.

The Hart + Harvest edition of Chief Crisis Officer features a new preface that provocatively looks at the communication impacts of two of the most dominant crisis events of the past several years: the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

On the COVID crisis, Haggerty writes that the government’s disastrous public response “serves as a prime example of why basic principles of crisis communications are so critical, including: having structure and leadership in place for response before a crisis occurs; ensuring an actionable plan that everyone understands and buys into; understanding the importance of rapid response protocols in an age of social media and other instant communications; and creating messages that are compelling and clear… messages that resonate with your audience.”

On the subject of messaging, Haggerty contrasts the COVID failures with the success of President Volodymyr Zelensky in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Haggerty adds: “There was no committee noodling his words on Google Docs, adding various equivocations and lawyerly qualifications. No banal clichés. None of the muddied verbiage of the type that ensures that the bulk of your audience doesn’t hear your message at all.”

In Chief Crisis Officer, Haggerty emphasizes the necessity for all organizations, regardless of size, to (1) have the structure in place for effective communications response, and (2) appoint a leader who can execute in the heat of the modern crisis—the “Chief Crisis Officer.”

“Crisis communications planning is not merely for the largest of companies facing the biggest of issues in the most major of media outlets,” Haggerty writes. “Effective crisis communications is for everyone involved with issues or events that could negatively impact their organization.”

Throughout the book, readers will gain insights into crisis management, including the anatomy of a crisis, the selection of a Chief Crisis Officer, the creation of a crisis communications plan, rapid response strategies, crafting the right messages, and more. Since its original release, Chief Crisis Officer has become mandatory reading for CEOs, business executives, lawyers, public affairs and public relations executives, and high-profile individuals who seek guidance in crisis management.

Prior editions of Chief Crisis Officer have been positively featured in publications that include the Harvard Business Review, Fortune and Entrepreneur magazines.