Managing Crises Means Managing Victims
Dealing with victims remains among the least well handled of all campus management activities. Here’s how your institution can appropriately respond when a victim-creating incident occurs.
Victims are emotionally engaged 24/7. Put yourself in their place. If you are an adult, you have been victimized by something. Once it happened to you, you were consumed by it, at least for a time.
Everything is a question. Victims’ inability to absorb information from the outside leads to their asking questions, sometimes repeatedly. The questions they ask might be simple and embarrassing like, “Who’s responsible?” “Why did this happen to me?” “Why couldn’t this have been prevented?” “Surely there must have been some alternatives that would have headed off this problem before it happened.” “Who is going to pay all my bills while I suffer these problems?” “Why didn’t you warn me if you knew this could happen?”
What Do Victims Need?
Victims have four powerful needs. If these four needs are met promptly – preferably by the campus – victims will more easily move through their state of victimization and be less likely to call or respond to attorneys, the media or even to call attention to themselves. The reality is that if the campus fails to meet their needs or does so only partially, victims will find ways to help themselves, often at the campus’ expense in both dollars and reputation. The following is what most victims require in order to begin their personal restoration:
1. Validation that they are indeed victims. This recognition is best rendered by the institution; if not, public groups, government or the news media will do it. Silence by administration or perpetrator is a toxic communication strategy.
2. Visibility: a platform from which to describe their pain and warn others. Preferably, the platform should come from the campus or a credible independent organization that can help the victim explain what happened, warn others, or just talk it out while convincing others to avoid similar risks or to take appropriate preventive action.
3. Vindication through action by the institution to ensure that whatever happened to the victim will be prevented from happening to others. Victims rarely sue because they are angry, their life has been changed dramatically, or because lots of plaintiff’s attorneys are chasing them. Generally, victims sue because their situation is not acknowledged and their feelings are ignored, belittled or trivialized. If they are prevented from publicly discussing what happened to them in meaningful ways and no one is taking prompt constructive action to prevent similarly situated individuals, animals or living systems from suffering the same fate, victims will look to take more aggressive action.
4. Extreme empathy/apologies issued directly and promptly tend to dramatically reduce victimization and virtually eliminate litigation. While the lawyers may strongly advise against any form of apology because, under law, an apology is an admission, there is a growing body of evidence demonstrating that apologies, promptly and sincerely delivered, virtually eliminate the potential for litigation. This means that while the lawyer’s advice needs to be considered, if the victim refuses to sue, you can quickly redeploy the lawyers to negotiating an effective settlement rather than pursue a futile effort to deny what the victim needs most. Courts prefer settlements.
Fear of Liability Can Hurt You
The greatest barrier to disclosure and appropriate victim attitude management is a campus administration’s fear of liability, fostered by well-meaning but misguided counsel. Any credible way to reduce or mitigate this fear is essential to better behavior, reputation preservation and litigation reduction.
The victimized have enormous power in our society. When there are victims, set aside your inherently adversarial training and nature, and pragmatically and humanely manage the victim dimension. When you think about it, isn’t this how your Mom taught you to behave?
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