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Hunting
"Alligators"
When bad things
happen to the company you have worked so hard to build, the
key to surviving the crisis intact is how quickly and how
well you respond. The other key is knowing how to find the
hidden alligators that exist in every business.
Crisis
is not always an explosion or a major environmental accident
or even an Enron-level meltdown.
Crisis
is anything that affects your company’s ability to succeed
or operate. It is anything that negatively affects your company’s
reputation or credibility.
Hard truths:
- Bad
things happen to good people and bad things happen to good
companies.
- When
a crisis hits, you have about 15 minutes before the media
arrives on your doorstep.
- How
you respond in a crisis can shape the response of your employees,
your customers and the public.
- Most
incidents are avoidable if companies are in the habit of
looking for “alligators” that can be catalysts
for crisis. Some you may never see coming, but many more
could be corralled or eliminated.
- Managing
a crisis is expensive. More expensive than taking the time
to assess and reduce risk, develop a crisis response plan
and train a crisis response team.
Good solutions:
Being able to respond to crisis rapidly and efficiently makes
all the difference in how a company weathers the storm. However,
many times, the crisis could have been avoided in the first
place through a vulnerability audit—literally a hunt
for the “alligators” that can surface and take
a bite out of an organization.
Vulnerability
audits help you and your organization identify operational
“weaknesses” or gaps in communication that can
be addressed to reduce or eliminate these potential catalysts
for crisis.
The people
who work in your company—in the offices, on the factory
floor, at the loading dock—are your best source of information.
But, no matter how good a CEO you are or how bright your leadership
team, senior executives are too often the last to know about
the “alligators.”
Why you don’t always know where the alligators are:
- Some
managers may not convey problems up the chain of command
for fear it will reflect on their ability to manage.
- Some
problems reported by employees are ignored or lost and senior
executives aren’t aware of them.
- Sometimes
employees just won’t tell because of fear of getting
in trouble or of getting someone else in trouble.
- Sometimes
employees don’t tell because no one ever asked them!
Vulnerability
audits are most successful when a neutral party like a crisis
management professional conducts confidential interviews with
both blue- and white-collar employees at various levels of
the company. Some companies include distributors and customers
in that audit.
The consultant
analyzes the findings and presents a risk assessment to management.
Together, the consultant and management design preemptive
action to eliminate or reduce the potential for incident.
Vulnerability
audits are the primary tool in crisis prevention. But an unexpected
crisis can emerge in spite of the company’s best efforts.
That’s why companies who practice prevention by routinely
“hunting alligators” also work with a professional
to develop a crisis response plan and identify and train an
incident team to respond quickly and effectively.
Prevention,
planning and training for the unthinkable are essential to
the health of any company and knowing where the alligators
are is the first step.
By Leslie
Habetler, Eugene Chamber of Commerce
Open for Business Magazine
December, 2002
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