analysis

Strategies for Negotiation & Conflict Resolution

Dr. Janice Barrett

Notes on Crisis Management and Conflict Resolution

Defining a crisis: An event that brings, or has the potential for bringing, an organization and its leaders into disrepute and imperil the organization’s future profitability, reputation, growth and possibly its very survival.

Financial measures of a crisis: bankruptcy, drop in sales, boycotts, loss of valuable employees etc.

Tarnished reputation results: the erosion of a company’s reputation in the eyes of its many stakeholders and the general public --- the worth of an entire organization can be endangered as a consequence.

Characteristics of a crisis:

Suddenness

Uncertainty

Time compression

The seven types of crises:

1. nature (natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods)

2. technology (oil spills, nuclear reactor accidents)

3. confrontation (equal rights, strikes)

4. malevolence (terrorists, disinformation)

5. skewed values (fraud, cheating, embezzlement)

6. deception (withholding information, lying, deceptive products)

7. misconduct (illegal or criminal acts).

Essentials of a contingency plan: Contingency planning involves formulating responses to crises before they occur. The essentials of a contingency plan include: anticipating what might happen, searching for preventative and preparatory measures, and drafting appropriate responses to those situations most likely to occur or whose impact is greatest.

Other, more specific elements are: Identify all potential contingencies and areas of vulnerability, examine specific vulnerabilities, review general vulnerabilities based on the organization’s “public nature”, establish crisis thresholds and assign crisis alert responsibilities, organize and train a crisis management team and establish a crisis communications center, Obtain advanced approvals for contingency plan measures, list and prioritize publics that must be informed, prepare a crisis media list and background press materials, and designate and train spokespersons.

The most important tasks are: Identifying risks, ranking those risks in a matrix based on relative impact as compared to probability of occurrence, and finally creating plans to eliminate or mitigate the impact of the most impactful and highest probable incidents. Every crisis cannot be planned for; there are simply not enough resources to do so. However, high impact, and high probability risks can be eliminated, or at least mitigated by proper planning and management.

The essentials of a contingency plan include: anticipating what might happen, searching for preventative and preparatory measures, and drafting appropriate responses to those situations most likely to occur or whose impact is greatest. Other, more specific elements are: Identify all potential contingencies and areas of vulnerability, examine specific vulnerabilities, review general vulnerabilities based on the organization’s “public nature”, establish crisis thresholds and assign crisis alert responsibilities, organize and train a crisis management team and establish a crisis communications center,

The most important tasks are: Identifying risks, ranking those risks in a matrix based on relative impact as compared to probability of occurrence, and finally creating plans to eliminate or mitigate the impact of the most impactful and highest probable incidents. Every crisis cannot be planned for; there are simply not enough resources to do so. However, high impact, and high probability risks can be eliminated, or at least mitigated by proper planning and management.

It is important that everyone in the organization has the names, phone numbers (work, home and cellular), and email addresses of the people to be contacted in the event of an emergency. Procedures and responsibilities of individuals need to be already established prior to events so people are not scrambling confusedly when trouble occurs.

Vulnerabilities need to be identified before they erupt into major problems so alternate plans can be developed. Managers should speak with local public safety officials about worst case scenarios in their spheres of the organization, and talk to people who work for them as well. Potential troubles should be prioritized. Crisis thresholds need to be determined so people are aware when they are about to occur and respond proactively.

Managing media relations during and after a crisis: The news media are attracted to crises because they are part of the 5 C’s that define news—catastrophes, crises, conflict, crime and corruption.

The proper handling of a crisis with the media can enhance the public’s perception of an organization. A crisis management team and a crisis communication center needs to be established. Training simulations will prepare the communication team to respond appropriately under duress. Training exercises may also help to identify weaknesses in the plans that can be repaired before calamities occur. The team should speak with one voice to the media through a trained spokesman so conflicting messages are not released and obtain advanced approvals for contingency plan measures, list and prioritize publics that must be informed, prepare a crisis media list and background press materials, and designate and train the spokesperson(s).

Companies must be open and compliant with the media. Anything less than total honesty will give the impression that the organization is trying to hide something. Reporters are trained to ferret out untruths. These often make news stories juicier and will thus garner more negative press. Once journalists know they have been deceived, they will have reason to doubt the veracity of everything told to them by the deceiver thereafter.

For example, when several people were poisoned to death with cyanide laced Tylenol, the drug’s manufacturer Johnson & Johnson put public safety ahead of potential profits by recalling their product from store shelves, advising customers not to use it, and suspending advertising. After the crisis was over, they ran a strong campaign to promote their new tamper proof packaging and they enhanced their company’s reputation as a result of managing the crisis so effectively.