Crisis Management

A crisis is any event that is going (or is expected) to lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, organization, community, or whole society. Crisis can bring huge amount of disruption and harm.

Crisis Management started to become important after seeing occurrences of industrial and environmental crisis starting from the 1980s. It is assumed that it started in 1982 with Johnson and Johnson in USA when cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules killed 7 people in Chicago area. The company had to recall all the Tylenol capsules immediately from the market.

We have witnessed different types of crisis. Be it the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India in 1984, be it the Chernobyl Nuclear Leak in 1986, be it the Tsunami in 2004, be it a terrorist attack on 9/11 2001 in NY city, be it the economic meltdown post Lehman Brothers fiasco in USA, be it the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990, or be it the major oil spills in the sea - natural disasters are some of the examples of crisis the world has seen. Many of these crises have become disasters and have affected individuals, businesses, societies, and even nations.

Crisis creates very intense disruptions to normal life and dangerous situations. If they are not managed in a timely manner, they have the potential to cause huge harm. Hence, there is a need for not only managing such crisis effectively, but also ensuring business continuity.

Organizations across the world, be it business organizations or even government organizations, they have recognized the need for Crisis Management and have put in place good crisis management plans in place.

Crisis can be classified into various categories such as financial, political, technological, environmental, natural disasters, man-made (such as terrorist attacks in recent times). Different categories of crisis will require different strategies to be built to manage them.

But at a broader level, crisis management will require good preparedness by the organizations and individuals. There will be a need to identify potential crisis (threats) which may happen and preparing a plan for them proactively so that when a crisis does happen, they are dealt with effectively with the plan rather than with panic and chaos.

An Approach to Crisis Management

Crisis almost invariably requires that decisions be made quickly to limit damage to the organization and to people. For that reason, one of the first actions in crisis management planning is to identify an individual to serve as crisis manager and there must be a dedicated crisis management team.

Other crisis management best practices include:

1. Anticipate crisis and planning in detail for responses to as many potential crisis as possible.
2. Establishing monitoring systems and practices to detect early warning signals of any foreseeable crisis.
3. Establishing and training a crisis management team or selecting an external crisis management firm with a proven track record in your business area.
4. Involving as many stakeholders as possible in all planning and action stages.
5. Having a good communication management plan in place to be used in case a crisis does happen.
6. Having a Public Relation Management Plan in place.
7. Keeping all stakeholders, business partners and clients informed as part of the communication plan.
8. Putting in place a business continuity plan.

Conclusion

The world has witnessed many crises by now. Organizations are well-prepared in handling crisis than ever before.