Bradley,
When everyone has their responsibility and action plan it helps to create a feeling of confidence by your team and employees.
Dr. Gary Carlson
All factors discussed in this course need to be considered. Economic, Enviromental, Health, Relationships... I think if I had to list 1 thing to be my first step in my plan of action it would be to get the top levels of any company together and go through an emergency crisis plan development meeting. The primary goal of this meeting would be to secure the safety of the employees and consumers of their products.
I fully agree that most crisis situations can be greatly diffused with a proper understanding of the situation to begin with. We all too often leap before we look. Listening is so important to understand what is really at hand. We all to often make decisions based on our perceptions, which may not always be unbiased. If we communicate with those involved, we gain perception, and understanding which helps in planning for the future as well as dealing with the problem at present.
Sarah,
Plans are necessary and needed. In some cases we find our plan was not full proof and this is a time to plan again to shore up the gaps. Don't overlook the future and plan for it.
Dr. Gary Carlson
I believe the response would be different depending on the crises that was at hand. If you have time to give advanced communications as opposed to a crises such as Sandy Hook, when immediate action was required by all participants to save as many lives as possible, the plan works differently. First and formost you must have a plan, have discussed scenarios, maybe role played scenarios, and then discuss what did or didn't work. Calm cool leadership and a chain of command is necessary no matter the crises. The first order in any plan must be communication with all those affected - how much or how little would be determined by the crises itself.
jerry ,
Understanding the situation with good communication skills helps to fo forth with a plan of action. 87% of communication is listening to the people who are affected.
Dr. Gary Carlson
Be patient, get all the facts, then decide and take action
Yvonne,
When people learn these tactics are daily and are not real crisis your staff aren't ignorant. My best suggestion is that when you are consistent with when there is a crisis they know it must be one. High anxiety causes burnout of employees and they turnover. I have seen this in all casses where we use the motivation tool incorrectly.
Dr. Gary Carlson
I agree with you. A true manager keeps things under control ; however, we are seeing nowadays a tendency for some managers to escalate situations instead of deescalating them. Some managers turn things into a crisis when they really are not. The challenge is ... How do we let these people know that this is not the best approach to take especially when these managers are at a higher level position? Any suggestions? This management style creates high anxiety, stress and affects our health.
It sounds like you have this type of crisis well in hand both for communication and work flow when a crisis like this may happen. The real issue is jus if!! you were to lose all of the things that just made comfortable with your current mode of communication and work flow. What if you had now internet no phones etc. These are what we call real crisis. To plan well for a crisis you need to look at the things that keep you in business ahd how you would work around them if you lost them for a time.
When determining if and when a crisis situation may occur, I look at the likelihood of the crisis happening in my area or industry. My first plan of action is to assess the impact of the crisis to my particular company. For example, hurricanes can be a big crisis for companies. However, the impact of hurricane on my particular company isn't as great as it may seem, even though we are headquartered in South Florida. All our employees use laptops, and have the ability to telework from home. We have employees in many different states who can make sure it's "business as usual" for our clients if one area is down due to a weather crisis. Our company location is inland, and too high for flood waters. Everything of value can be stored in an inside, windowless, locked closet. Even so, it's important to have a Crisis and Communication Plan so all employees know who to contact, and how to run the business in case this crisis occurs.
Crisis are often just what the definition for crisis pertains too. Most crisis are unforseen and requires leadership that is cool, calm and collected. I was working for a company that was raided by the Justice Deparment and investigated for 18 months. I was fortunate enough to have a great leader in a crisis. He kept us all believing in ourselves and keeping us positive in a very difficult time. In the end we all were found with no noncompliance issues. Leadership is the ability to maintain control in a tough time.
It depends upon the potential crisis. If we are looking at health and environmental disasters/crises, such as H1N1 flu or hurricanes, we have the advantage of monitoring information from the CDC or National Hurricane Center respectively in advance and can make decisions as to how they may effect our specific organization. If for instance a hurricane in our area is imminent my first plan of action would be to put our communication plan into action followed by putting our crisis team in place.
