Wednesday 10 July 2019

Handling Crises

I’ve always been interested to see how organisations handle crises.  These are the true test of one’s ability to lead, prioritise, communicate, solve problems and keep customers and staff happy.  Many businesses are great at working out how to handle “Business as Usual” (BaU), but when it comes to a crisis of any sort, communication breaks down, staff “freeze” at their posts and management can be overwhelmed by a welter of information about problems coming in from all sides.  

The problem with crises is that they don’t come with manuals – or do they?  We can’t really forecast what’s going to happen to us, although we can usually hazard a pretty accurate guess at what might stop our business running or our ability to run our business.  Causes might include:
  • A major supplier failing
  • A major buyer failing
  • Staff being unable to get to work
  • Office premises being inaccessible for some reason (gas leak, fire, etc)
  • Inclement weather
  • Flood
Often, we can’t tell that one of these things will happen in the next 24 hours, but what we can do is understand how our business works, what the most critical services are, which staff supply them and what they need to be “up and running” as fast as possible.

The other distinction to make is between “Recovery Mode” and “BaU”.  Recovery Mode is when the disaster has struck, and we’re running a “basic service” only. During this time, we’re assessing damage, what can be recovered and how quickly.  Gradually, we rebuild capacity until things are “back to normal”.

During “Recovery Mode”, the essential thing is communication right from the moment we know there’s a problem.   I’ve been in so many situations where customers or staff weren’t kept informed and as a result the organisation lost the goodwill and confidence of others.  If our crisis management doesn’t include a communications plan, our task will be far harder.  Think who needs to know what’s going on, e.g.:
  • Customers
  • Suppliers
  • Bank
  • Regulator
  • Police/Fire Brigade/Ambulance
  • Lawyers
  • Accountant
  • Local press
  • Families of staff
Anyone connected to the business is a “stakeholder” who may have a right (if not a need) to know what’s going on.  We need to tell them what’s happened, what we know so far, what we’re doing and when we expect things to be running normally again.  At first, we won’t have much information, but that shouldn’t stop us from saying what little we do know (as long as we’re not breaking confidentiality rules).

Lack of information fuels rumours.  Lack of a crisis plan fuels speculation that we’re not in control.  Crisis plans can’t necessarily be too specific, but they can forecast the types of events that may cause trouble for the business.  From there we can work out how to respond.



I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.

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posted by William Martin @ 09:24

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