We see teams using this dialogue tool discuss how to see opportunities before, during and after a crisis. Prompts have been provided to help teams start a discussion and brainstorm ideas about effecting positive change. Spend some time as a group sharing ideas about how your team or organization can respond to each of these 13 concepts. See if you can:
- Identify any opportunities for learning and development for yourself, the team and the organization.
- Document insights that you think might be helpful in understanding success and failure before, during and after crisis.
- As a team, identify whether your organization, field, industry or external environment might experience any of the following types of crises:
- Sudden crises – unexpected disruptive events where the organization has virtually no control and is not seen as being at fault
- Smoldering crises – smaller internal problems that escalate over time because of systemic inattention
- Strategic crises – where there is a need for a turnaround or significant organizational change often due to a shift in the industry or business environment
- Discuss what you think your team and organization needs to do to develop and opportunities orientation towards crisis.
Organizational learning can facilitate crisis handling and prevent future crises. The ability to proactively identify organizational failures is a critical first step in the process of learning from them.
Georgia Power and Light leadership heard from disgruntled employees, they listened, learned more and worked with the employees and others to rectify past wrongdoings.
By learning from previous disasters and examining all aspects of their business, organizations have an opportunity to improve profitability.
Wal-Mart has become the best-practice standard for emergency preparedness and through this process increased profitability.
Crises can be opportunities to innovate and develop new products and services.
Tylenol introduced caplets and innovative new packaging after experiencing a product-tampering crisis.
Operational improvements and innovations can come as a response to crisis.
When Jack-in-the-Box experienced food contamination they had an external microbiologist examine every point of their operational workflow, including suppliers. The result was technological innovations in food handling.
Leaders and organizations can successfully emerge from a crisis if they: show competence, are open, meet expectations and are reliable, and are willing to show vulnerability
After the tampering crisis, Tylenol became a market leader and won awards for their reputation leadership.
Crisis handlers are better positioned to respond if IT infrastructures are in place.
After the 2003 SARS crisis, Singapore developed the IT infrastructure it had found lacking. One year later it was able to respond within hours after the Asian tsunami hit.
When the external environment is changing, it may be time to revisit your vision and goals.
In the early to mid-1990s, Kodak was not predicted to survive. Out of this crisis, leadership developed a new unifying vision.
Crises are an opportunity to look beyond current stakeholder boundaries and markets.
In 1998, McDonald’s adapted all their operational, supply chain, HR, and productivity systems to respond to the Russian economic meltdown and maintain their market there.
Individuals may benefit, developmentally, from experiencing a crisis event. An individual who exhibits effective crisis leadership may broaden his or her skills and also may be seen as having an enhanced reputation and greater influence.
During the COVID-19 crisis of 2020, some political leaders were seen as competently addressing the pandemic and improving their reputations.
Crisis management teams can be formal and part of the organization’s structure or can be ad hoc and created as needed.
Regardless of how a team is formed, there is a need for leadership and a spirit of mutual accountability. This real-life on-the-job developmental experience is fundamental to individual leader and team development.
Crises can lead to total systems change such as a more innovative culture.
Following a high-profile class action lawsuit, the Denny’s restaurant chain revamped its customer service and employee service models, changing both culture and structure, after which Denny’s was ranked first in Fortune’s “Best Companies for Minorities”
Stakeholders are key to understanding and responding to crisis. Employees often have innovative solutions to crises.
During the 2008 economic downturn, a prestigious university mandated a 10% reduction in expenses. Employees from all levels found reductions and performance improvements that had not been thought of via top down management.
Effective crisis communication requires establishing a norm of open and honest communication.
Be appropriately candid about all aspects of business, in good times as well as bad. Doing so can go a long way toward building a culture of trust and facilitating information flow across organizational boundaries.