What do you do if a crisis situation arises and you're a public administrator?

In my experience, I had to deal with the Tabasco flooding in 2007. The natural disaster affected the lives of 2 million people and I had to organize international aid coming into Mexico. I had to activate the emergency response protocols and coordinate with UN agencies and Mexican authorities. First, I developed an action plan where I assigned responsibilities to each officer in my team. Second, I made sure we had a good communication strategy. Third, I established clear areas of collaboration with other stakeholders such as Tabasco officers, NGOs, businesses, embassies and international organizations. Fourth, I made it a priority to have a transparent record keeping that tracked the aid received and its final destination.

Good crisis management is above all about avoiding crises. Wherever possible, risk evaluation should be carried out before the crisis arises. Using the scenario method, you can identify the risks to which your organization is exposed and prepare appropriate responses. By implementing this method, with crisis exercises, business continuity plans, crisis management manuals, etc., you will develop the crisis culture necessary for good crisis management.

The first thing to do is let the established taskforce activated, communication platforms stablished, and then the real incident identified, how wide and deep it is? how it is impacting the community and reverse it back as well establish recovery activities that should be followed by resilience

Ideally an organization would have a S.W.A.T plan in place long before taking on any major project. In that case, if a crisis appears, you've already identified the issue at hand and prepared a course of action.

In public administration crisis management, identify the crisis type and all stakeholders' objectives. Form a dedicated task force for immediate and effective analysis. Assess risks by evaluating impacts on business, reputation, and stakeholder trust (you may want to preserve relationships). Aim for minimal damage and strategic recovery, balancing immediate actions with long-term goals. Specifically consider the political dimension: in democracies, politicians are likely to intervene and there might be different approaches they take. This leads potentially to different risks.

Your response needs to demonstrate genuine empathy to the parties involved and provide an objective reporting of the steps taken to mitigate in the situation internally. Apologise if there is a lapse on the organisation's part, after thorough investigation has been completed.

In Krisenkommunikationssituationen hilft es - sich selbst und anderen - auch klar mitzuteilen, wann man wieder kommuniziert. So lassen sich Ungewissheit und Informationslücken minimieren - und man gewinnt Zeit: nicht um zu vertr?sten, sondern um Fakten und Umst?nde zu recherchieren, mit Beteiligten zu sprechen, den überblick zu behalten: ?Wir werden Sie heute um 17:00 erneut über den aktuellen Stand informieren“ - schafft für alle Beteiligten Klarheit, Erwartbarkeit und Verst?ndnis.

évaluation post-crise : Après la crise, il est important d’évaluer la réponse à la crise et d’apporter des modifications à la stratégie de gestion de crise si nécessaire.

Mobilization of resources comes down to management and operations. Plan for and train for difference scenarios. War-game scenarios where you deny use of a key asset. Can you still execute the plan if cell service is down? Does the chain of command still function if the boss is away on vacation? Have you built in redundancies? These are all questions that need to be answered in advance. There’s an old saying that “amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics.” The best strategy in the world is worthless if you can’t get food and ammo to the front lines.

In time of crisis, release money to recover the financial situation of the families concerned about the trouble is the first point to consider. No money, no food to live.

As a leader, make sure that everyone knows you take ownership of any failures in the plan. With the fear of being blamed removed, your team will be empowered to give their best counsel. If you want the responsibility of a leader — you need to take full ownership. And just like you take all ownership of failures, pass all credit for success down the chain of command to the team.

In public administration, crisis planning and simulations/exercises are recommended so there is a team ready to engage in a crisis situation if/when needed. Getting accurate information on the crisis situation, while being honest about what you do and do not know, getting your team together to assess and work on solution scenarios confidentially based on accurate and the most current information. Training pays off in a crisis.