Very little research has been conducted on the various ways that people within organizations have or have not learned from their experiences following a crisis. It is generally agreed, however, that learning can take place both formally and informally. We just don’t know how frequently this happens or how effective it is being done. Personal reflection is an increasingly popular...
Crisis management, as it is described in both academic and popular literature, provides a great deal of guidance on how leaders should think, behave, and lead during a crisis. But ultimately, business leaders simply cannot afford to think only about how they should deal with a raging crisis when it appears. What happens before a crisis is critical. To become...
When an organization finds itself in a crisis, each of its stakeholders will be concerned about the threat to their specific value proposition. Predictably, each will be looking for any information they can uncover to better understand the nature, extent, and potential impact of the threat. One of your many responsibilities as a high-stakes leader should be to position yourself...
We have certainly seen a broad range of stakeholder engagement efforts from various sources during the COVID-19 pandemic. We all watched or listened to national and local government leadership, scientific and medical leaders, other community leaders, leaders of our own businesses and other businesses, family members, advocate groups, hate groups, anonymous groups … the list goes on. Information came at...
One of the most challenging aspects of crisis leadership is communication with stakeholders. During a crisis, all your stakeholders will be looking for as much information as they can get. When their value propositions have been threatened, it is only natural to expect them to be desperately seeking any and all intelligence that might shed light — and hope —...
We live and work in a world that is becoming more complex, volatile, and uncertain every day. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided all of us with a tangible and, for many, frightening illustration of this reality. While countries around the world have rallied against the virus, their approaches have been varied, both in terms of strategy and outcome. Nations such...
