Does Your Business Have a Crisis Management Plan?
We all need to think about having a crisis management plan for our
businesses. Tragedy and crisis can come in many forms to a small business.
It might not be as dramatic as losing 700 of 1000 employees like Cantor
Fitzgerald, a financial services firm located on the 101-105th floor
of the World Trade Center. But their plight illustrates that you never
know what tomorrow will bring, so you better be read for the unexpected
crisis.
Crisis may come in a less dramatic way to small businesses in other
areas of the country. Some situations to ponder are: the death of
a key manager, a fire or flood, a lawsuit, embezzlement, a strike,
product defect, bad press due to a newsworthy setback or even a computer
crash. Any one of these events could cripple or kill your small business
unless you are ready to respond.
Strategies for dealing with business crises can be as simple as learning
how to avoid potential problems such as having good insurance or a
good backup of key documents. Some strategies need to be more complex,
like training employees to implement emergency procedures and response
appropriately to the media.
According to James E. Lukaszewski of The Lukaszewski Group, Inc.,
the goal of a crisis management plan should be containment and positive
counteraction. Here are the five critical steps:
- Structure and plan. Hypothesize the worst scenarios and
circumstances, and then the best possible outcomes. In structuring
your plan, work backwards from the outcome to identify the steps
needed to reach that goal.
- Analyze and critique. Set up a crisis control committee
and talk through the plan, event-by-event, situation-by-situation,
and develop a schematic that "visualizes" how the plan
works.
- Test and demonstrate. Conduct rehearsals or simulations
as close to full-scale as possible.
- Establish contingencies. Include "what if's."
Identify outside experts who can work side-by-side with your people
before the situation gets out of control. Include them in your tests
and analyses, too.
- Coach and train spokespersons as quickly as possible and
routinely thereafter. They will lead, focus and control the business's
crisis plan execution and reaction to crisis.
Be sure to have this crisis management plan at the ready at all times.
I know of a manager that has a crisis management binder at work but
also carries one in his car so he will always be close at hand to
the names, addresses, phone numbers and procedures for handling different
emergency situations.
This week, I have ordered the book, "The
Small Business Owner's Guide to a Good Night's Sleep," by
Debra Koontz Traverso. This book covers preventive measures for bullet-proofing
a business and offers a wealth of information in an easy-to-browse
format including proven checklists, examples, case studies and resources.
A "Vulnerability Identification Form" helps the business
owner conduct the kind of risk analysis that a large company would
typically perform.
If you are interested putting together a crisis management plan, contact
a Small Business Development Center
near you for assistance in developing this important management tool
for your business.
Authored by: Jeanne Dau, Director, Chillicothe Satellite
Center, Missouri Small Business Development Centers
Date Reviewed: 11/26/01
