Taking A Leaf From Crisis Management

During a crisis....and we mean crisis.......management with a heightened sense of foreboding will act in their self-interest as well as collective interest to assure the audience that all that can be done are DONE.....

How do we draw lessons from such instances?

First savvy management will learn that transparency fosters trust. And this implies accountability. During a crisis, the first hours will provide a clue as to whether the system is geared to handle such a scenario or not. If so, management is confident that the audience will perceive that they are on top of the situation and will rally to their support.

Even when there are shortcomings, the management would be willing to accept the risks of such shortcomings being surfaced as the benefit of retaining command and control outweighs the embarrassment of shortcomings being highlighted.

This can only be possible when the management is given the opportunity / incentive to install such a system. Typically they will do so only when they encounter problems and have learnt to put in place processes to prevent future occurrences.

A more pro-active way is to introduce a communication system where transparency is assured.

The management will be incentivised to install as quickly as possible interim measures to plug gaps and or holes.

Hence the first step is to establish a system of reporting. Once achieved, it will be easy to test which components will lag behind in providing up-to-date reporting.

Once gaps are identified, decision makers will rely on fact-based evidence to allocate resources to ensure critical processes are put in place.


Next, you need to devise tools that you allow you to analyse the data and surface trends. You would want the present it in such a way that power users can feel comfortable in dealing with the signals.

This will set the stage for decision-makers to have a common platform to debate on the findings and hopefully the decision making will be fact-based.


The next interesting question is:
Can management voluntarily take this path? If not, what would be the incentives to encourage management along this path?

One clue is back to the concept of alignment of interests where group outcome can be optimised by seeking out win-win solutions.


Keywords: quality, value systems,
trust, domain knowledge, technology, networking, maven traps, speed of trust, lifestyle

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