Thinking About Crisis Management

A crisis (plural: “crises”; adjectival form: “critical” from the Greek κρίσις, krisis) is any event that is, or expected to lead to, an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community or whole society. Crises are deemed to be negative changes in the security, economic, political, societal or environmental affairs, especially when they occur abruptly, with little or no warning. More loosely, it is a term meaning ‘a testing time‘ or an ‘emergency event‘.

Crisis has several defining characteristics. Seeger, Sellnow and Ulmer say that crises have four defining characteristics that are “specific, unexpected, and non-routine events or series of events that [create] high levels of uncertainty and threat or perceived threat to an organization’s high priority goals.” Thus the first three characteristics are that the event is

1. unexpected (i.e., a surprise)
2. creates uncertainty
3. is seen as a threat to important goals

At this article, however, We will treat more specifically about the Business Crisis and how to manage them.

What to Do When Bad Things Happen?

Many times, both in our personal or professional life bad things happen. We struggle constantly against failure, unhappiness, and what many call the ’unlucky’, but the inevitable always manages to surprise us: an unexpected illness, the resignation of a key member of project team; servers or routers that are not delivered within the time limit to complete a project of high importance, etc..

At these times, the important thing is to learn as much as possible from these seemingly negative situation What really matters is our ability to respond to the unexpected. Michael Hyatt has written an excellent text in this regard. A sample:

The bottom line is this: you can’t always choose what happens to you. Accidents and tragedies happen. But you can choose how you respond to those situations. One of the best ways to begin is to ask yourself the right question.

Question: Consider a negative situation in your life. Ask yourself, “What does this experience make possible?“

Facing things from a new perspective can change everything.  You can reach the complete text here. Think about it!

Thanks Cheri!

How to Manage Mistakes in a Better Way

Tanveer Naseer has a great article about how to well manage mistakes. A sample:

Of course, it’s not just children who can struggle with having to point out mistakes being made by others, especially when it’s an authority figure like a teacher or parent. Employees can also feel uncomfortable bringing to the attention of others problems or mistakes they see being made, particularly if those responsible for them serve higher up in their organization.

But this is where leaders can make a difference by providing a suitable environment where their employees can bring up and deal with the mistakes that inevitably occur, regardless of whose actions were responsible for creating the problem.

I agree with him. Many times, our role as manager or boss can be an inhibiting factor for many employees to report the problems they face in performing their tasks. It is our duty, therefore, create anenvironment of mutual trust between team members and especially to make clear that theanalysis of mistakes made during the execution of a project is a healthy practice and not result in any kind of punishment. After all, we are leaders, not dictators.

The Most Common Managerial Mistakes

Robert Bacal wrote a great article abou the most commons managerial mistakes. A sample:

Since there are a fair number of errors made by managers in the performance appraisal and employee review process, we’ll approach this set in brief point form. Stay tuned since we’ll be dealing with a few more performance appraisal errors in a future article in this series. Until then here’s the first five.

1. Focusing on the Form: Most managers are given specific forms to fill out to record the results of performance appraisals and reviews. Apart from the fact that most forms aren’t really effective in creating better performance, it’s easy for managers to believe that performance appraisal is about, and only about, getting the forms in on time (which they don’t). Performance appraisal isn’t about the form. It’s about the process.

You can read the full article here!

An Important Advice

Seth Godin has some great advice:

If you’re going to make a career of it (and of course, if you want to excel, you will), that means taking the time to understand the texture of your field. It means investing, perhaps overinvesting, in relationships long before it’s in your interest to do so.

Read the full article and think about it. It’s important!

Lessons Learned – The Problem with Walks

Cultural Offering shows us an important lesson learned at a baseball game:

Sure mistakes happen when an organization or person is too busy but they happen just as often when things are slow.  When things are humming, the world seems to work well.  One more reason to avoid walks.  

Great, as usual!

Internet Millionaire Mindset

via Mind Map Art.

Uninterrupted Focus

Great text by Michael Wade. A sample:

There are times when the intense focus works for me and yet at other times I need to work in bursts. I conclude a series of “next actions” on several projects, knowing all along that I’m making incremental progress.

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