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According to a consultant, a crisis need not be armageddon for your organisation.
Preventing a crisis in the first place is much more effective than disaster recovery. That’s the opinion of Peter Power, a former police officer, now Managing Director of Visor Consultants. However, he feels that some consultants encourage many organisations to spend a disproportiante amount of time and money on recovery options, without looking first at reducing risks, and preparing for the unforeseen. ‘In my experience, the highest number of disasters are caused by organisations that fail to prevent a crisis from getting worse and then only wake up when things have deteriorated to the point of disaster.’ Only then do managers hit the preverbial panic button, at ‘defcom one’. But a crisis can, and should, be handled sooner, Peter Power argues. That takes managers who can act ‘quick time’ at the speed of the crisis (rather than the normal speed of the organisation) and who have accurate information available to work on.
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Crisis questions
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Destruction of your head office would count as a crisis – but wouldn’t a police line around your building (or an evacuation because of a scare in a nearby street) amount to the same thing – loss of your building, maybe for a day, maybe more, and the police cannot say when’ In an unexpected situation, staff on the ground might not behave in a rational way; they might ignore a situation at first. (Peter Power showed CCTV footage of a fire deliberately started by a would-be thief in a shop; in a comedy of errors, customers did not alert the member of staff behind the counter at first; the employee accidentally fired the extinguisher at her face; and in the end people were lucky to get out alive.) In any crisis, the first thoughts of executives are similar, he argued: what do we know (whether it’s a fire or a rogue trader)’ What would we like to know’ Who else knows. How long have we to decide’ Who do I need to help me’ How much of this will damage our reputation (reputation being something that managers badly want to protect)’ How long before the press call us’ How can I make the most of media opportunities and what can I do to turn this into a success story’
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Prompt cards
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Peter Power suggested a prompt card for staff, with risks ranked from A to E so that staff know how serious the threat is and how to tackle it (A being ‘horribly wrong’ through to E, something like a fire in a waste paper bin that the member of staff on the spot can put out). He raised the point that crises may be raised when a journalist calls with a tip-off, from a disgruntled employee. In that and other cases the crisis may be small and incubating, but will become a serious crisis in the morning. Can your organisation cope with a developing crisis, or does it only recognise ‘defcom one” Peter Power said: ‘The fact remains that few managers and their employees understand that options exist to train people to act with confidence and skill at the initial stages of an incident to stop it spreading.’
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Contract guarding
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Contract security staff who may not be well-trained or well-paid could be that first line of defence, especially at the weekend or night. Will a contract guard feel too foolish to call out the corporate security manager on a Sunday afternoon about a possible crisis’ Peter Power warned against complacency (staff who cannot or will not see a crisis coming); and staff who do the wrong thing and only make a situation worse. If staff under extreme stress reach the panic stage, that can be another reason not to do anything. ‘All the plans, mission statements, recovery options and supply chain goodwill counts for nothing if executives cannot switch to ‘quick time’ thinking and form a crisis management cell without delay. It is therefore a subject where selection, training, testing and exercising counts for everything.’
