Антикризисное управление (Crisis Management)

МАИ

 

 

Кафедра «Менеджмент Организации»

 

курсовой проект

по  дисциплине: «Иностранный язык»

 

Тема: «Антикризисное управление  (Crisis Management)»

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                          Выполнил: студент

                                группы нро- 311

                                                                                              Островский А.А.

                                                                                                           Проверила:

                                                                                                           Процкая Н.Д.

 

Moscow-2012

…Contents… 

1. The Art of Crisis Management……..………………..…………………………………...……....….3

2. Introduction………………………………...…………………………………….…………………..……....3

3. Planning..………………………………………………..…………………………………….....................4

4. Creating a Crisis Team………………………………………………….…………………..….....….…..7

5. Business Continuity ……………………………………….…………………………….....…………......9

6. 10 rules of crisis management …….………………………………………….………….……......10

7. Crisis Management Model………………………………………………………………………………13

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….………..…………….15 
 

Reference…………………………………………………………...………………………………………….....17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

The Art of Crisis Management

While we do not propose a formal definition of the word crisis in this manual, we treat any event that can, within a short period of time, harm your institution’s constituents, its facilities, its finances or its reputation as a crisis.

Crisis management is the art of making decisions to head off or mitigate the effects of such an event, often while the event itself is unfolding. This often means making decisions about your institution’s future while you are under stress and while you lack key pieces of information.

Consistent with the overall philosophy of this manual, the key to being able to manage a crisis is doing as much planning as practical before a crisis starts in order to best position you and your institution to respond to and mitigate such a situation.

The Crisis Management Continuum:

Introduction

What is usually called “crisis management”  should be best understood as part of a broad continuum of activities as follows:

• Planning. Planning relates to getting your institution in the best position to react to, and recover from, an emergency.

• Incident Response. Incident responses are the processes that you have put into place to ensure that your institution reacts properly and orderly to an incident as it occurs. Examples of incident response include:

a. Evacuation after a called-in bomb threat

b. Denial of entry to suspicious persons

c. Calling for medical help when a child is injured in your school

• Crisis Management. Crisis Management is the management and coordination of your institution’s responses to an incident that threatens to harm, or has harmed, your institution’s people, structures, ability to operate, valuables and/or reputation. It takes into account your planning and automatic incident response, but must also dynamically deal with situations as they unfold, often in unpredictable ways.

• Business Continuity. Business continuity relates to those steps necessary to restore your institution to normal functioning.

As will be discussed in detail below, a great deal of crisis management occurs before a crisis begins: it is about planning and preparing.

The Crisis Management Continuum:

Planning

Introduction

As mentioned above, planning relates to getting your institution in the best position to react to, and recover from, a crisis. Planning for a crisis is discussed in some detail throughout this manual. For example, the chapter on explosive threats helps you consider what is necessary to plan to respond to an explosive threat-related crisis at your institution. The chapter on armed intruders seeks to do the same.

However, there are two elements of planning that are unique to managing a crisis:

• Creating escalation rules for your employees and

• Creating a crisis team.

In short, the goal is to have employees who know when to report problems and a team of senior employees who are ready to react to them. Each will be discussed in turn.

Creating Escalation Rules for Your Employees:

- Preventing, Detecting and Controlling a Crisis

Creating escalation rules for your employees is an essential element in crisis prevention, detection, and control. This means that you train your employees to bring matters to the attention of more senior personnel for their analysis and handling as soon as possible, preferably before they become critical. It means not only setting clear rules for when an employee must notify senior staff of a problem (for example, whenever a caller or letter writer mentions suing your institution), but also empowering staff to feel comfortable reporting concerns to senior staff (for example, ensuring that junior staff do not feel at risk of ridicule or a negative job review if they in good faith report what they inaccurately believe is a problem).

Without such rules, a developing crisis may go unnoticed by senior management until it develops, appears in the press, and/or turns into a calamity.

• Choosing to Act — or Not

Creating escalation rules is important because when and how a manager becomes aware of a crisis can often determine how an institution responds — and how successful it can be in its response. Consider these two scenarios:

1. A synagogue employee receives a phone call that, while not overtly threatening, is a rambling speech that contains some very anti-Semitic remarks. The employee doesn’t inform the director of the call. (Institutional discussion of situation ends)
2. A synagogue employee receives a phone call that, while not overtly threatening, is a rambling speech that contains some very anti-Semitic remarks. After the call, the employee makes a note of all the information relating to the call, informs his/her supervisor (the synagogue director), who in turn calls the police to file a report.

Afterwards, after consulting with the synagogue President, he/she decides that the situation warrants extra security during the upcoming high holidays and briefs security personnel accordingly.

Clearly, the two institutional responses are very different. In the first case, because the clerk did nothing at all, management was simply cut out of the decision making process. Had the employee escalated because, say, the synagogue’s management had instructed its employees to draw to management’s attention such an unusual occurrence, the management of the synagogue would have been able to react or consciously choose not to react. Simply, without an escalation rule, an institution’s management may lose a critical opportunity to react.

• When to Escalate?

The key question is what should cause such an escalation? How should an institution handle the task of teaching its staff and volunteers to know when to escalate?

There is no science in creating such a plan and the institution’s leadership should think about the kinds of incidents they would want to know about immediately. These may include, but are not limited to:

1. Security threats (e.g., bomb threats)

2. Allegations that may expose the institution to legal liability or embarrassment

3. Allegations that an employee or lay volunteer is acting in a manner that is inconsistent with the institution’s best interests, such as misuse of an institution’s resources

4. Any inconsistency between expected and actual bank balances

5. Requests for information that is inappropriate (i.e., a request by an unknown person for an employee’s home address)

6. Requests for information relating to the institution’s security or infrastructure (i.e., a request for information about where employees park or when the office is unoccupied)

7. Requests for donor information

8. Attempts to improperly access computer systems and/or “hack” an institution’s Web site

9. All other contacts that concern the employee

10. All unusual events, including repeated hang-up phone calls, calls that contain sharp disagreement with an institution’s policy or practice, and visitors who concern the employee

The institution’s leadership should create a reporting mechanism (e.g., a log) to maintain a log of these and other incidents .Of course, many of the above may be consistent with lawful and innocent behavior and a good deal of judgment and discretion is required. Finally, this is not a complete list, and such a list must be drawn up with your particular institution’s situation in mind.

Management must work to create a culture where employees can communicate these incidents to management’s attention without fearing overreaction or any negative consequences to the reporting employee (including feeling as if they are not being treated seriously).

 

 

Creating a Crisis Team

A second key element of getting your institution in the best position to react to, and recover from, an emergency relates to the creation of a crisis team that is ready to quickly come together to help manage an institution’s way through a crisis.

1. It is important to recognize that senior managers may be unavailable during an emergency (they may be out sick or on vacation or even at lunch or away from the office for a meeting). Thus, it is important to be able to quickly ascertain who is in charge at any given point. Consider having a list of “succession” in the event of an absence.

This will enable an institution to quickly establish a clear chain of command in light of the day’s staffing and attendance.

2. Consider establishing a command center, the place where decision makers meet during an emergency and establish command, control and communications. You may wish to have building plans, contact information and other institution-specific critical information stored at this location.
3. Have the means to communicate — and be communicated with.

1. Know telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email addresses of key managers, constituents and media contacts. Make sure that employees know how to reach the command center to report information.

2. Have redundant communications systems. To the extent possible, being able to reach out and be reached by more than one means may make the difference in a crisis. For instance, during a blackout or similar emergency, SMS (“texting”) may work better on cell phones than cell phone calls themselves.

Besides preventing what may be counterproductive or, worse, deadly confusion during an incident, having an effective communication plan will also help you manage those outside of the immediate incident, including those who need or want information, such as the media and parents. Some thoughts, also discussed elsewhere in the manual:

1. Designate a single spokesperson for the institution. If it is necessary to have more than one, it is essential that they carefully coordinate their message.
2. This spokesperson should be the sole contact point for the media, constituents and anyone else who needs information from the institution.
3. Depending on the nature of the incident, especially if it involves children, the spokesperson might direct constituents to a further contact point.
4. Information should be clear, factual, non-emotional and consistent with law enforcement requirements.
5. The person designated to be your spokesperson should not have other, more important duties to attend to during an incident and recovery. The spokesperson’s job is to convey information. Therefore, consider how engaged in the emergency and follow-up any potential spokesperson should be.
6. The media may be interested in your incident. They may also be the most effective way to communicate important information to constituents. Depending on where you are, media may be more or less receptive to becoming a conduit for relaying information. However, if you do not wish to draw undue attention to the event, you may elect not to call the media. However, media can find out about events without your calling them — they monitor police scanners and have other sources. Thus, though you may wish to avoid media attention, it is sometimes inevitable.
7. When speaking to the media, be clear, direct and honest. Speak in short, declarative sentences. (e.g., “The facility will remain closed for the next two days.”)
8. Craft your message before you are interviewed. Develop two or three key points and stick to them: e.g., “Everyone is safe, parents should call xxx-xxxxxxx,” “The institution has taken appropriate security measures,” “A lawsuit has been filed.” In many cases, you can answer any question with these concise, stock statements.
9. Speak to emergency officials about your message, if possible. This is especially true if a crime has been committed. The police may wish you to help them keep certain facts quiet so that they may determine if a subsequent incident is a copycat or not, and/or to ensure that an ongoing investigation is not otherwise damaged.
10. You are under no obligation to answer media questions, but note that if a story is to run, you may wish to contribute your point of view.
11. Practice.

 

Ø Impact

As you gain more knowledge, assert more command, control and communications, your ability to impact a situation should increase accordingly — to a point. As time passes, outside forces, including media, alternative voices, and other “noise” can interfere with your ability to manage and have an impact on the situation. At the same time, your ability to keep control and gather new information may degrade.

In short, the faster you can increase your ability to gain knowledge and establish command, control and communications, the more time you will have to be influential.

The Crisis Management Continuum:

Business Continuity

Business continuity relates to those steps necessary to restore your institution to normal functioning after a crisis. This topic is discussed on page 101 of the manual, and is reviewed here:

Preparing for Disaster Recovery.

Disaster recovery is a critical part of post-incident work. Recovery is much easier if preparation is done beforehand.

Some thoughts on preparing for disaster recovery:

1. Maintain off-site, current backups of critical data, vendor lists, employee, constituent and donor contact lists, and other missioncritical information. This may entail someone taking a disk home with them, but if the disk or data is lost, information may get into the wrong hands. Backup security is vital.
2. Conduct an insurance review to ensure that insurance is adequate to cover all institutional needs. Keep insurance records with backup information.
3. Explore legal aspects of recovery with the institution’s attorney, including discussions as to whether someone has the authority or can be designated with legal authority to take emergency steps on behalf of the institution.
4. Plan for relocating students, patients, campers, seniors, and staff ahead of time before disaster strikes.
5. Inventory everything that would cause the institution to cease operations if destroyed.
6. Review all existing service agreements and whether they include adequate post-disaster service provisions and recovery assistance.

A Word About Evidence.

There is a powerful temptation after discovering damage or graffiti to clean it up immediately. We urge you to resist that temptation and leave the entire crime scene untouched until the police arrive. By waiting, you help ensure Security Strategies For Today’s Dangerous World Addendum - Crisis Management that valuable evidence is not lost — and that the perpetrators are caught.

It is also very useful to take photographs or videotape any evidence. Although they may not mean anything to you or even the investigating detectives, make sure to carefully take pictures of any graffiti, including any seemingly random numbers, letters or words 

10 rules of crisis management

After 10 years in the news business and 20 years counseling clients how to stay out of headlines when a crisis strikes, I’ve developed 10 basic rules of crisis management.

 

1. Being Unprepared Is No Excuse. My father was an officer of the U.S. Army. Although I was never an active Boy Scout, their motto “Be Prepared” was drilled into my head at an early age. As I’ve toiled in this industry for the past two decades, it has amazed me how many companies are totally unprepared to deal with a real crisis. Most either have a crisis plan that hasn’t seen the light of day for at least a decade, or the plan is so complicated it would require an army of engineers to figure it out. Sorry to say, far too many organizations have found more important items to address, leaving their crisis plans as to-do items until the day the stuff hits the fan. They say it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only a few hours to destroy it. You’re almost guaranteed the latter, if you fail to plan. Being unprepared is no excuse; it’s just a reflection of the importance you place on your reputation.

2. You Know The Threats – Get Ready For Them. In every crisis training session I conduct, I ask the audience if they can identify the top five threats facing their company. At first, you see a lot of heads bobbing up and down, but after a little prodding, they begin to develop the list. “So if you know the threats,”  I ask, “how can you be unprepared for them?” (See Rule 1.) Crisis management is about speed. The faster you respond, the fewer problems you will face. In order to get out of the door quickly, you need to have fill-in-the-blank, pre-approved, stand-by statements ready to go. I had one client develop stand-by statements and key messages regarding her top five threats in an afternoon. It doesn’t have to be time intensive, but it does have to be a priority.

3. Know What You Want To Say Before They Ask. Knowing the risks is just part of the battle. Preparing for the questioning is another matter. The first step in getting ready for any crisis is identifying your worst nightmare questions. No sugar coating is allowed, you need to be critical – just pretend you’re Mike Wallace. If you understand the kinds of questions you’re likely to face, preparing good key messages is much easier. This exercise should take no more than 20 minutes for each of your top threats. Within two hours, you can knock off your worst nightmare questions and develop the key messages for each of the five top threats facing your company.

4 . Admit That You Are Wing-It-Challenged. In the 20 years I’ve been media training executives (1,000+), I’ve probably run across one or two who can handle almost anything with little or no preparation. Based on my math, that means the vast majority of us, or .998 percent to be more precise, are wing-it-challenged. There is nothing wrong with being wing-it-challenged. In fact, you are in the majority. It simply means that you have to prepare before you choose to stand in front of reporters whose job it is to tear you apart. All it takes is a few dry runs. Before you face the cameras, have your colleagues fire some difficult questions at you. You will find that it’s much easier if you have already heard the questions before.

5. Three Key Messages For Every Crisis. In all of the years I’ve been working in crisis management, I have come to understand the true power of the rule of three. As a journalist, I used it all the time, but it took me nearly a decade to see how it applies to crisis management. If you remember nothing else from these crisis rules, remember this: there are three key messages you can depend on in the first 48 hours of any crisis. It doesn’t matter what the crisis is, these messages apply:

 

“We have a plan to deal with …” You really do need to have a plan – that is why creating a crisis plan in Rule 1 is so important.

 

“Our hearts and prayers go out to those …” You need to show compassion for those that have been killed, hurt or simply inconvenienced.

“We immediately began our own investigation to make sure that we …” You need to commit to finding out what went wrong and taking the necessary steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

For these messages to work, it is critical that you back them up with actions. Saying you care about your employees doesn’t work if you don’t demonstrate it. Over the next two weeks, read the quotes from those facing a crisis and ask yourself if one of these key messages would have worked just as well.

6. Beware Of The Court Of Public Opinion. Lawyers play a very important part in any crisis. Their counsel on legal matters is paramount and should help guide the response. However, there are two courts in this world, and the court of public opinion is just as powerful as the court of law. The biggest challenge crisis leaders face is balancing their decisions based on these two courts. What may work in one, doesn’t always work in the other. The real question that needs to be addressed is quite simple – what is the smartest thing I can do to protect my brand? Winning in a court of law won’t necessarily restore the public trust you may have lost in the court of public opinion. Both are important – choose wisely.

7. You’ve Got 48 Hours. The first 48 hours of any crisis are crunch time. If you are not ahead of the crisis by that timeframe, it’s likely it will run you over. The reason many companies fail to manage a crisis properly is because they fail to recognize one simple fact: when something happens, a communications void is created. If you don’t fill it, someone will, and the information they share is often inaccurate or incomplete. Overcoming a negative perception is nearly impossible, thus the reason to get out there as fast as you can and as frequently as you can. It’s impossible to over communicate in a crisis. You can say the wrong thing, but you can never over communicate.

8. Divide And Conquer. In the midst of a crisis, time flies. A common mistake I see during crisis drills is the concept of team decisions – for everything. I’m not saying that teamwork isn’t important in a crisis. But, the truth is, in order to stay ahead of the crisis, you need to divide and conquer. Once the team agrees on a direction and the key messages, it’s up to the individuals to execute. They will need to re-group from time to time, but if each member of the team remains focused on their core area of responsibility and executes flawlessly, your chance of success grows dramatically.

9. Get Outside Help. When a crisis strikes, seeking an outsider’s perspective is paramount. Internal politics tend to take over in the middle of a major problem as people become more focused on keeping their jobs, rather than what is best for the company. Good leaders expect these internal politics and counter them by bringing in someone from the outside who can look at the issues without bias. This individual’s role is not to call all the shots. His or her role is to provide counsel to a team leader – a perspective that few inside the company can offer. They are free to look at things that many tend to overlook because of their internal biases. Just because you bring in outside counsel doesn’t mean you can’t handle the crisis. It means you recognize your weaknesses and are smart enough to do something about it.