Unfortunately, today's colleges and universities, and especially our business schools, do not offer pragmatic crisis management teachings.

Too often, business schools teach academic crisis management theory, if that, but given the diverse and unique nature of crises, all the theory in the world will not help you manage an actual crisis unless you know the basic mechanics.

Unfortunately, today's colleges and universities, and especially our business schools, do not offer pragmatic crisis management teachings.

In my experience, the public will forgive mistakes, provided they are acknowledged promptly and a remedial course of action is articulated. Lawyers often get in the way of this, which is a subject I cover in my book: how to deal with obstructionist lawyers in a crisis.

Companies that do not actively practice, study, and plan for crisis communications - as well, of course, crisis management - are doomed to fail when a crisis befalls them. Crises are, in a word, inevitable, and those macho companies that think, "it can't happen here," or if it does, "I can handle it," will suffer the hardest failures.

Social media has dramatically changed the playing field in terms of crisis communications - and any company that does not effectively use social media to take the pulse of its constituents on a constant basis, and know how to communicate with them in a crisis, is breaching its fiduciary responsibilities to its stakeholders.

I often say that good crisis management is good decision-making under stress.