Breaking Through Crisis

The amount of information and misinformation around any crisis can be staggering. The questions are how do you cut through? How do you do what is right for your people your business and you?

The questions are:

1. What should you do now to support the people you work with, control operations and cash flow and continue in business?
2. What do you need to do to recover your business?

The outcome you need now is the means to make a start on taking more control, preparing for recovery and doing the right thing by your people. 

If you have a plan you may need to adapt it. You might not have one. Either way, you need to work out what should you do to support the people you work with, control operations and cash flow and continue in business? And, what do you need to do to recover your business?

We all know planning is boring. We also know that planning for crises seems to be a waste of time until you need it. We're not planning for a crisis. We're planning to take action and that’s what this Guide is about. It’s linked to a document set that helps you to generate data to enable the decision-making that generates action plans and actions. 

As you read through this article:

1. Think about working out what the situation actually is for your business.
2. Think about the actions you need to take in the next 4 fours, 8 hours, 24 hours and 48 hours. 

Eight Steps + One

There are eight steps to take now:

1. Assemble the team
2. Set the agenda
3. Assess the situation
4. Assess the impact
5. Assess what's disrupted?
6. Plan and execute your messaging
7. Plan and execute your business continuity goals and actions
8. Plan and execute your business recovery goals and actions

That’s what you need to start with. But, when business as usual returns, you need to look for lessons learned too.

Assembling the Team

The Crisis Management Team (‘CMT’) isn't necessarily the same one that manages 'business as usual.' The usual suspects are there, but perhaps not in the same order.

You may not have or need all of the usual suspects, but you must work out who you need. In larger organisations it's quite likely the CEO won’t head the team. If it's a deep crisis, they will be out messaging. That's usually the best place for them! 

Ask: what's your crew like? Is there someone who should take the lead?

Remember: “Great leaders create more leaders, not followers.” ― Roy Bennett

Set the Agenda

To get control of a crisis you need to set the agenda early. In the linked document set you’ll find a template for a Crisis Management Meeting Agenda. Use it whole or scale it your needs but use it or something like it to structure the meeting of your CMT. 

Using an agenda like this enables the team to focus on understanding data about the situation, impacts and disruptions. Out of that focus, they will be able to take decisive actions.

It’s a good idea to keep minutes of CMT meetings if you can. There may be an inquest, Royal Commission, inquiry, legal action or a Board ‘inquest,’ but minutes are also useful to extract ‘lessons learned.’ At the bare minimum, you should keep and monitor an Actions Arising Log and a template is included in the document set.

Assess the Situation

To get and keep control of a crisis you need to be situationally aware. 

You need to know:

1. What's happened?
2. How long has it been going on?
3. What's its business impact?
4. Any workarounds in place?
5. The cause, if possible. Look for human, organisational, technological, regulatory, infrastructural (or equipment) or planning failures
6. Can you see any solutions?
7. How long would they take to put in place?
8. What resources are required?
9. Is it time to escalate?

There’s a Situation Assessment Report template in the document set to help you with this. You should repeat this assessment as frequently as you think you need to. It depends on the scale of the crisis and its speed of development.

Assess the Impact

To get and keep control of a crisis you need to understand the business impact.

You need to know the impact on:

• People & community
• Reputational damage
• Financial performance
• Legal & compliance
• Operations & strategy

Ask the six ‘golden’ questions:

1. Who?
2. What?
3. When?
4. Where?
5. Why?
6. How?

There’s an Impact Assessment template in the document set to help you with this. As with situation assessment, you should repeat impact assessment as frequently as you think you need to. It depends on the scale of the crisis and its speed to develop.

Assess the Disruption

To get and keep control of a crisis you need to understand what's disrupted. 

What are the events and phenomenon that are going on? What decisions have been made? What actions have been put in play?

This is where situational awareness comes into play. You and your team have to have a grip on what's going on.

There’s an Event Log template in the document set to help you track this.

Plan and Execute Your Messaging

To get and keep control of a crisis you need to have a communications plan.

The plan should specify which stakeholders, what method, the key message, who is responsible and what the time frame is (when do you send the messages and how frequently).

There’s a Communications Plan template in the document set to help you with this.

Once you have a plan, you need to keep track of the messages you send. You should log the date, method, recipients, key message and next update date. This is important legally and also to demonstrate progress to senior managers, the board and owners or shareholders.

There’s a Communications Log template in the document set to help you with this.

Business Continuity Planning: Assuring Value

To continue in business during a crisis you need to be doing the right things.

You need to identify critical elements of your business model that you need to have operating to stay in business. You then need to plan actions that will enable the critical elements to work. 

What we’re looking for here is to assure value for you and for your customers or clients.

The Business Model Canvas is a great framework to help you work through this. There is a copy in the document set. Work through it in this order:

1. Clients and customers
2. Products
3. Channels
4. Messaging
5. Revenue
6. Processes
7. Resources
8. Partners
9. Costs

For each element ask: 

1. “In this element of my business what do I need to do to preserve my core customer segments and relationships?” (To preserve is to maintain something in its original state.)
2. “In this element of my business what do I need to do to conserve its ability to generate value for my business?” (To conserve is to protect something from harm or destruction.)
3. “In this element of my business what can I do to reduce costs?”
4. “In this element of my business what can I do to eliminate costs?”

Ideally, it’ll be the CMT that does this. It’ll work even better if you have a skilled facilitator to guide them through it.

Once you’ve done the work, develop your Business Continuity Action Plan and start to execute it. This will drive CMT meetings too. There’s a template in the document set for the plan.

Business Recovery Planning: Recovering Value

As the crisis resolves, you’ll need to start-up other elements of your business over and above those you needed to continue.

What we’re looking for here is to recover value for you and for your customers or clients.

Again, I recommend the use of the Business Model Canvas. Work through it is the same order:

1. Clients and customers
2. Products
3. Channels
4. Messaging
5. Revenue
6. Processes
7. Resources
8. Partners
9. Costs

Again, ask four questions:

1. “In this element of my business what do I need to do to renew growth customer segments and relationships?” (Renewing business growth.)
2. “In this element of my business what do I need to do to recreate its ability to generate value for my business?” (Recreating operational excellence.)
3. “In this element of my business what can I do to reduce costs?”
4. “In this element of my business what can I do to eliminate costs?”

Then ask: “what sequence do I need to work in?”

Again, ideally, it’ll be the CMT that does this. And, again, it’ll work even better if you have a skilled facilitator to guide them through it.

Once you’ve done the work, develop your Business Recovery Action Plan. Execute it based on the schedule it sets. This will drive CMT meetings too. Ultimately it should be taken over by your regular senior team as business as usual returns. There’s a template in the document set for the plan.

The Ninth Step: Learn from Your Moments of Truth

Breaking through a crisis to continue and ultimately recover your business is hard work. You need to be mentally tough. There usually isn’t time to ‘sit back and reflect.’ But as the stress eases or once it’s done, it’s important to have a look at the lessons available to you.

There will be another crisis. What can you learn from this one? What were the key actions you took? What were your strengths? What could be improved? How can you follow-up and change?

There’s a Lessons Learned template in the document set to help you with this. Once more, ideally, it’ll be the CMT that does this. And, once more, it’ll work even better if you have a skilled facilitator to guide them through it.

Conclusion: Living in Interesting Times

It’s not commonly known that the Chinese proverb “may you live in interesting times” is actually a curse. And, when we’re in the midst of a crisis it may feel like we’re cursed. But you can break through any crisis, continue business and recover. This guide identifies nine steps to break through: 

1. Assemble the team
2. Set the agenda
3. Assess the situation
4. Assess the impact
5. Assess what's disrupted?
6. Plan and execute your messaging
7. Plan and execute your business continuity goals and actions
8. Plan and execute your business recovery goals and actions
9. Learn from your moments of truth.

The Guide also points you towards a document set that should give this all some structure. You don’t need to use the templates slavishly. Scale them as you need. Discard some if you don’t think you need them.

If you don’t do anything else:

1.     Set your agenda for the next 4 fours, 8 hours, 24 hours and 48 hours. 

2.     Work out what the situation actually is for your business.

Just remember:

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy." 

- Dale Carnegie

Your Author. Normally cast as an expert in personal and professional performance and productivity improvement, Prof. Clive Smallman has spent 30 years practising, teaching and researching risk and crisis management. He’s turned around two enterprises from crisis back to business as usual. He’s been an expert witness on inquiries into a major transport accident and a public health crisis. Clive recently finished working on a multi-year project with Coca Cola, looking at their crisis management leadership and teams.