Most people have visions of beef recalls or an oil explosion; when the minute words such as “crisis management” are uttered.

The problem is that a crisis such as an oil explosion only represents one third of the crises covered by the media. The other two-thirds are ones that are often hidden as internal problems and which later go public.

But, no matter what happened, the situation became even more chaotic and your organization’s credibility has now come into question. Such is the nasty business of crisis management.

Take Rutgers University, for example.

Its men’s basketball team failed to reach this year’s NCAA tournament, but the school is still making headlines for all the wrong reasons. University officials fired their men’s head basketball coach after ESPN aired a video of him physically and verbally abusing his players. In the video, shot by a Rutgers employee, Mike Rice is shown hurling basketballs at players’ heads and feet, and verbally attacking them, including making homophobic and racial slurs.

The video was initially shown to the university’s athletic director last year, who at the time, suspended Rice for three games, fined him $50,000 and asked that he attend anger management classes. Although university officials at the time did not specify why Rice was reprimanded, he was eventually fired this week, as a result of the video going viral and harsh public criticism.

Athletic Director Tim Pernetti, who disciplined Rice, has said that not firing him when he first saw the video was a mistake and that he must now regain the university community’s trust.

That, unfortunately, may take a while.

Pernetti’s initial decision affects the university’s reputation since it not only put its student athletes in danger, but it also affects recruitment and retention. And, many critics believe that Rice isn’t the only person who should’ve lost his job at Rutgers during this crisis. In fact, 13 faculty members this week demanded that University President Robert Barchi resign from his post.

So, the questions Rutgers board of governors should ask itself are, who is ultimately to blame? And, why wasn’t its team trained to effectively handle the crisis?

Most organizations feel that they have a good crisis management plan, but where they often fail is in ensuring that it’s effectively communicated to their employees.

There is little doubt that Rice would’ve been fired last year if Rutgers leadership had done a better job training the crisis management team and conducting regular exercises to test the plan.

To think that it’s impossible for a video to be leaked to the media in this day and age is inconceivable. Yet, Rutgers leadership ignored the warning signs. Remember, an organization’s success is determined by how well it manages the media’s coverage of a crisis. That doesn’t mean press censorship or restriction. But rather, providing the media with what it needs to get its job done, but on an organization’s terms, not theirs.

Steve Kaus, Vice President of Internal Communications at Fleishman-Hillard, said one way to communicate with the media is to decide in advance exactly who is authorized to make statements on behalf of the organization; at least one primary and one or two backups (in case the primary is involved in the scandal).

“Those people should be given extensive training on engaging with the media and the public,” said Kaus, whose company continues to be ranked as the top PR firm in the world.

He added that crisis management plans must also have contingencies specifically for social media.

“Your main contacts need to have training on how to engage or not engage through the company’s official communication channels,” he said. “And, all other employees should have confidentiality training on the organization’s specific guidelines for what can and can’t be disclosed about the organization via personal communication channels.”

Could the crisis at Rutgers been avoided had the team been trained appropriately?

Absolutely.

A “tell it all, tell it fast and tell the truth” mentality is imperative to protecting an organization’s reputation in today’s environment. And, crisis management training is essential to saving an organization’s image from irreparable damage.

There are several success stories of organizations that have diverted a crisis because of how they trained their employees. This is because they realize that business crisis management training is an indispensable part of a strategy.

But, they didn’t achieve this success overnight.

Many companies see the help of organizations that specialize in protecting and defending reputations with effective communications training. Companies such as The Pincus Group and the Crisis Prevention Institute are among those working with clients in proper crisis management training.