Responding to a Crisis with Confidence & Conviction

A crisis in business can mean anything from a natural or man made disaster to product recalls, cyber attacks or infrastructure failures. Conventional wisdom tells us that it is critical that we plan for these types of events in advance, developing strategies to respond and testing these fully before a crisis eventuates.

In small or resource bound organisations this advice is not always practical though and in some cases even the best plans fall apart when a completely unexpected disaster befalls a business.

However, there are some practical tips all businesses can apply in the absence of a predefined plan when a crisis strikes.

1. Appoint an empowered and accountable leader

In a crisis it is critically important to establish boundaries of authority and decision making power up front, particularly in situations were the crisis is ongoing and there may be a requirement for quick and decisive action to avoid further loss to your organisation. Be absolutely clear from the outset on who will have responsibility, authority and accountability for the management of the event.

2. Manage the message

Establish a single point of contact for all communication surrounding the event considering that you may need to communicate events to both internal stakeholders such as affected staff and management as well as external parties which may include customers, shareholders and potentially the media. The key function here is the funnelling of requests for information and updates to the person or team with the most up to date information of the incident.

In Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management,  Jonathan L. Bernstein, offers some gems on how these messages should ideally be crafted. Keep your communications with these parties timely, simple but most importantly honest:

” In a crisis – at least one that’s risen to the level of public attention – your organization is put in the spotlight. Maybe not all eyes, but a lot of eyes, are on you. People are watching. Your stakeholders are watching. Even more important, the media are watching. How you respond – what you say and what you do – will determine how you’re judged.”

3. Understand the importance of timely and accurate intelligence

As a crisis situation unfolds it is critical that you start building a clear picture of exactly what has happened, what is happening and the likely immediate impacts of both to inform whether your response is appropriate. The focus here should be on both the timeliness and accuracy of this intelligence.

In practical terms this means getting as close to the coalface as possible and drilling down into the detail with those with first hand detail of the crisis, considering that these may be your own staff or even customers.  The further you are from the front line of a crisis, the more likely factors like inference and exaggeration will devalue the information you receive.

4. Prepare for overwhelm and manage resources accordingly

By it’s very nature, a crisis has the potential to overwhelm available resources rapidly depending on breadth and severity. It’s likely that in addition to your core responders, specialist resources may be required (In-house or External Lawyers, Data Analytics, Operational Functions). As soon as practical, consideration needs to be given to earmarking these resources and clearly communicating resource requirements and expectations to these functions. It goes without saying that it is too late to find out that all your PR dudes and dudettes are offsite or unavailable a few hours before you need to front a media briefing.

5. Manage by objectives

A crisis is definitely not the time to try and multi task. In a time bound incident resources need to be diverted wholly to managing the crisis as it unfolds. The Incident Command System (ICS) embedded in many critical government responder functions in the United States places significant focus on the concept of Managing by Objectives (MBO) when responding to a crisis. MBO focuses on the completion of a single planned objective at a time. In a business sense MBO means setting a clear roadmap of deliverables that will respond to and ultimately resolve the crisis and then focusing on the timely execution of each.

Whilst a purist application of MBO may not be realistic in all scenarios, the definition of objectives and systemic execution of deliverables is critical to any crisis response.

The post-crisis review

Once the dust has settled and the crisis has been resolved it is crucial that you use this post-crisis period to evaluate how well your organisation handled the crisis event and take stock of what learning you can apply to future events to prevent their occurrence and improve your response.

For practical tips on crisis planning and business continuity before an event occurs I strongly suggest checking out the wealth of information available here.

If you’re looking for a more rounded guide to crisis response Jonathan Bernstein’s Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management is gold – practical, funny and very much to the point.

I hope you enjoyed this article and found some practical applications to your own business or organisation. If you liked the article please don’t forget to hit that like button or drop me a comment below. For more insights on how your organisation can be more efficient, make better decisions and avoid costly mistakes using risk management check out theriskguy.com, follow me on twitter @JoelTheRiskGuy or on Linkedin here.

photo credits  

– http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Signage_g309-Yellow_Sign_Of_Road_In_Water_p60750.html

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