MissionMode Corporate Blog

Exercising in Crisis Management - Choose the right team not the right individuals

I often hear stories about companies that have crisis management plans but struggle to exercise them. It is well known that in a crisis the biggest issue is team communications. Getting the team to work effectively is not just about the plan - it is about the people in the plan. Having a great crisis plan will be for nothing unless the team can interact well. A competent team is one where the core members have worked together before.

The problem of getting a new team to perform reminds me of a college course I took in business communications many years ago. Called Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing (Wikipedia definition), its roots go back to the mid-60's, yet it is still wonderfully fresh today. This analysis defines the steps that each group has to go through before they become competent. Relating this to crisis management where the need to become proficient very quickly identifies a critical barrier. Unless the group has worked together, their dynamics at the start of a crisis can quickly become impaired because they don't know how to perform effectively - let alone know what tasks they should be performing.

In today's crises with their increasing complexity and speed, the ability to get the group communicating quickly and performing effectively is of paramount importance.

For those still struggling to engage senior staff or other people in exercising, perhaps raising the prospect of spending the first hours struggling to perform will provide a useful example. Indeed, the crisis will be developing at the same time that the team is developing. Trying to get ahead of the game becomes very difficult.

On the plus side, building the crisis plan around groups which are already cohesive will alleviate the problem. Thinking about how they can best be structured, both in theory (the best people and functions working together) and in practice (understanding their history of working together) will go a long way to making the team effective on the day when the crisis happens.

Then all you need to worry about is the plan and the fact that the team is never conveniently at the same location waiting for the crisis to hit.

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Crisis Planning seems to be big–but how do you know if they are any good?

I found this article by Gerald Baron, a great crisis communications expert, on his Blog. It provides an excellent and concise view on what is important in a crisis plan both for communicating externally and internally. The media is such a big issue in crisis management, but people often forget that what the media is told should be the culmination of a lot of internal communications to ensure that the message is accurate, valuable, timely and believable.

These end-to-end communications are increasingly difficult in times of stress, reduced time windows and where teams are brought together only when a crisis hits. Of course, in organizations that are increasingly distributed and mobile, the luxury of having a single point at which the crisis team can congregate is no longer available.

Read the full article, Crisis Planning seems to be big - but how do you know if they are any good?  It is well worth reading.

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Briefing Executives on Crisis Management

There is often a disconnect between the crisis management professional and the c-level executives. Executives don't want to spend time on something that won't affect them today. They often have a innate belief in their ability to deal with any situation that arises - not without some truth. However, time and time again we see that crisis management behavior changes significantly after a crisis. The sheer magnitude and terror it instils is enough to motivate executives to plan for crises in the future.

How do you get your senior management to understand the impact and the crisis planning that is necessary without having to suffer a crisis?

Elizabeth Stevens, a veteran of many crises and incidents, has written an executive brief white paper specifically to address this issue. Her experience across aviation, retail and financial services is second to none. In this article Elizabeth Stevens provides an executive’s introduction to crisis management, why it’s important and the key tenets for successful crisis management.

You can find this white paper, Corporate Crisis Management, How to Minimize the Chaos, here.

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