“A new infection can spread with lightning speed, thanks to international travel” said Cynthia Price, MD. Still, SARS taught the world a very important lesson: crisis preparedness!
Yes! Crisis preparedness must be one of your top business priorities; that’s why, the authors of “It Will Happen Again: What SARS Taught Businesses About Crisis Management” provided some tips to come up with a crisis management plan (CMP).
Besides helping you handle a sudden crisis, just like contagious diseases, a CMP will well-equip you to respond effectively to problems. Although not all crises can be predicted, your crisis management plan can aid you identify major threats while determining the tasks that need to be done, who will do or say what, how will the problem and solution be communicated, etc. Add to that, being crisis-ready improves the morale and confidence of your employees (and yours, definitely!) which is crucial if you wish to increase your workforce’s sense of emotional security; thus, remain motivated to accomplish more as a team and help you turn this crisis into an opportunity.
So, how can you develop a perfect crisis management plan?
- Develop your CMP in a way that helps the company deal with unforeseen events that can affect the firm and the environment in which its operates too.
- Include in it ways to prevent a crisis or reduce its impact when it occurs.
- Do not limit it to merely dealing with a crisis when it happens, but “think about when the next crisis would occur rather than if a crisis occurs”.
- Design it to operate under different circumstances not only one.
- Include psychological and cultural actions too.
- Modify your CMP when the crisis is over regardless of the impact it had on the organization.
- Plan your CMP according to Mitroff and Pearson’s (1993) tip: “an effective CMP includes five components: strategic actions, technical and structural actions, evaluation and diagnostic actions, communication actions, and psychological and cultural actions.”
- Disseminate your plan to every single employee so that everyone knows exactly what role he/she should play during the crisis.
It is important to always remember that “epidemics can happen anywhere and at any time”, that’s why, you need to be integrating this global reality into your paradigm and strategy, always!
Source
Day, B., McKay, R. B., Ishman, M., & Chung, E. (2004). It will happen again: What SARS taught businesses about crisis management. Management Decision, 42(7), 822-836. Retrieved from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/00251740410550907/full/html
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