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Crisis management: When bad things happen to good engineers
There are two key words for dealing with a crisis: readiness and process.
“There are two key words for dealing with bad news: one is readiness, the other is process,” said Jim Lukaszewski, an expert in crisis management and founder and head of the Lukaszewski Group, Inc. He made his comments in the opening general session of the City Engineers Association of Minnesota annual conference in January.
A crisis is a “people-stopping, show-stopping, product-stopping, reputationally defining event that creates victims and/or explosive visibility,” he began.
Seventy-five percent of crisis readiness is having an up-to-date list of contact people. Another 15 percent is preauthorizing key people to make decisions, and 8 percent is tied to doing drills and practicing. Two percent is a surprise—and every crisis has it. “The key message: Get yourself ready,” he said.
Ninety-five percent of crisis situations happen as a direct result of operating situations, things you do every day, he said. “Because of this, they represent very little threat to your reputation or of others and can go away pretty quickly if handled properly and promptly.”
Other crises occur because of non-operating problems, such as sexual harassment, employee violence, or theft. “They are a small percentage, but none of us is really trained or prepared for them,” he said. “The problem is that, too often, we learn [how to handle them] on the job. The impact of these highly emotional situations on your future and reputation is huge.”
Another category consists of disasters beyond human control, which become human problems when the response fails (such as with Hurricane Katrina). Other situations are due to unethical behavior or “virtual” issues or accusations on the Web or in new media.
“The most powerful ingredient in a crisis is the victim,” he continued. “That’s what drives the visibility, energy, and sometimes the craziness to the response of these issues.” Victimization is a self-designated state—and becomes evident when a person goes to the press, hires a lawyer, or joins a support group that targets you or your organization. It is also self-maintaining and self-terminating. “It’s really important to understand these elements,” he said. “Once the process begins, it and the blame of others can last a lifetime.”
Victims use characteristic vocabulary such as abandoned, betrayed, helpless, or hopeless. They are marked by an “intellectual deafness” that blocks new information, and are consumed 24/7 for a period of time. “The total focus on their victimized state is one of the things that makes victims so powerful over people like us,” he said.
Because victims are dominated by their feelings, emotions, and fear, they keep asking questions: “Why did this happen? Why wasn’t I warned? Whose job was it? Why wasn’t it planned for?” What they deserve is respect and a positive, declarative response, Lukaszewski asserted. “Failure to show respect is why lawsuits happen, and failure to respond is why people get angry.” The best approach is to identify likely victim questions in your readiness plan and create your answers today. Failure to offer some answers promptly makes victims suspect you’re hiding something. And because they are intellectually deaf, you’ll have to keep answering the same questions.
Communication is the most important leadership tool you have for managing employees in a crisis, too. “For every question you answer in an urgent or contentious situation, six people who are concerned about it quit caring and go about their business,” he said. Answering questions detoxifies situations; failure to answer can destroy you and your organization.
To heal, Lukaszewski said, victims need validation, preferably by the perpetrator; if not, they may hire an attorney or go to the media. They need visibility, possibly through the news media to talk about their pain and warn others about the person or organization that caused it. They need vindication to see that the cause of their situation has been remedied so harm to others can be prevented.
Most of all, they need an apology: an admission of responsibility for what went wrong. An apology has become hugely important in our culture, Lukaszewski said. In the health care arena, for example, some insurance companies are requiring physicians and medical groups to apologize immediately to patients to avoid malpractice suits. A number of Web sites offer advice for making apologies and managing victims (theperfectapology.com, sorryworks.net).
In sum, Lukaszewski recommended a five-step crisis response strategy:
- Stop the production of victims.
- Manage the victim dimension.
- Communicate with employees. Give people 75 words promptly, and speak with some regularity. Manage the story.
- Notify those indirectly affected, such as allies and other agencies.
- Deal with the media and other self-appointed groups and individuals.
All these steps must be taken in the first hour or two. The quicker you get it all under way, the more manageable the crisis will likely be. “All your readiness should be driven by these five steps,” he said.
One timesaver he suggested is to create “dark” Web pages for possible crises and store them on your server, ready to go live in an instant.
“Handling irrational things bothers us,” Lukaszewski concluded, “and crisis situations are irrational. Get good at being ready. Understanding the processes of crisis response combined with preparation for some of the toughest specific scenarios will be the most powerful parts of your readiness process.”
(Jim Lukaszewski’s newest book—Why Should the Boss Listen to You? The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor—from Jossey Bass, is now in bookstores. To learn more about the Lukaszewski Group, see www.e911.com/new.htm.)
—Pamela Snopl, LTAP editor