Approval processes — some are simple, others cumbersome. But few have kept pace with the lightning speed of digital communications. The pace of communications today, fueled by a heavy dose of consumer driven social media is faster than ever. And getting faster all the time.

Corporations with layers of management in every group or department, struggle to move quickly. Well, maybe struggle isn’t quite right. They’re just downright slow. How’s that?

Many companies, no matter their size, are geared to give several people, up and down the management chain, an opportunity to see, comment on and approve or hold up everything from creative to copy to ideas and projects. These slow-moving companies are frozen by their own bureaucracies. And while their processes may have been fine in the days of traditional media, their inability to move quicker is a significant liability as consumer-driven media turns up the speed.

Numerous stories have been reported this year about how companies who routinely monitor social media networks detect problems quickly from the tweets and updates of unhappy customers. Then the company managers and marketers quickly correctly the problem and tweet back out an apology and an explanation (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125297893340910637.html).

Most companies would be delighted to listen, understand, react and respond like this, if they only could. But in today’s digitally dominated world every minute means the unanswered negative story grows and spreads. Reacting to problems tomorrow or the next day is virtually useless. So, hamstrung, the slow-moving companies just simply do nothing and hope that it will all go away. Meanwhile, damage is done and thousands of your customers and potential buyers are turned off. Not to mention the draining impact such negative waves have on your employees.

It happens to companies large (Domino’s Pizza, YouTube video of employees abusing pizzas) and small (angry former employees trash talk about a company). None of us are immune and few of us feel really ready when it happens. Having a plan of action in place to react and respond in a reasonable about of time is the key.

Most companies have some kind of emergency planning in place to handle decision-making and communications in a crisis situation. So how hard would it be to plan for smaller emergencies? Not very.

I’m not suggesting that you throw out your current approval process entirely (although I’m sure many of you would like that to happen). But I am encouraging marketing and communications teams to create escape valves where normal approval procedures are set aside in certain circumstances when things demand instant action and response.

Find a champion for the idea, write a Digital Reaction Plan and put it into place. Begin monitoring social networks and blogs and condition management to look upon digital wildfires differently than they do day-to-day troubles. Sounds too simple to be true — well, it’s not. But it will require a little bending of corporate rules and procedures.

In the end, you’ll probably spend far less time chasing and cleaning up problems by responding to them quickly, before they spread.

Until the next time, may all the good news you hear be true.

steve