Crisis? What Crisis?

My IABC IT colleagues and I recently have been discussing communication challenges. I'm dealing with one of the bigger ones today (challenges, not IABC colleagues).

I was greeted at the start of the business day by a request to gather with the CIO's other direct reports in a conference room. There, the CIO's boss (company president) and the CIO's counterpart on the operation side of the business announced that the CIO was no longer a company employee. Good morning!

I went into crisis communications mode, and was glad that I did. The president hadn't considered meeting with the IT staff, and the counterpart was going to be gone on vacation all of next week! Tactfully, I suggested that we schedule a "town hall" meeting for later today, and that we begin to craft Q&As. I've tried to stay hooked into the communication planning, although some noticeable glitches have occurred.

· HR and the executives didn't bother to have me review the notice that went out company-wide, announcing the CIO's departure. So I groaned when I spotted the two misspellings and other grammatical errors. Professional? Yuo bett!

· Although the executives supported the idea of an IT town hall meeting, they were in a hurry to get to another meeting. So we didn't talk about the dozen IT employees in our four other locations who wouldn't attend the meeting. An IT supervisor took the initiative to set-up an audio-conference, which will provide some access--to ear pain from line static, if our Polycom is true to form.

Oh well, just about meeting time. Here we go...again!