Crisis Management

The Internet may have opened worlds for businesses and consumers, but it has also created a public relations nightmare for businesses. Forums, opinion Web sites, blogs, and anything that is publishable can smear a company's name in moments.

Keywords:

crisis management, crisis planning, reputation, company, business, planning

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The Internet may have opened worlds for businesses and consumers, but it has also created a public relations nightmare for businesses. Forums, opinion Web sites, blogs, and anything that is publishable can smear a company's name in moments.

Remember, "Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel" presentation that described one customer's bad experience with a hotel chain? Hotels are run by humans. Humans make mistakes. It's how you handle the mistakes that can make the difference in customer service. Since the hotel's employees didn't try to help the customer overcome a bad situation, the customer lashed back and bloggers blogged it.

If the hotel is on top of its game, it would unleash its crisis management (also known as reputation management) team to salvage its reputation while it can. It's possible for a company to overcome bad PR and come out ahead as in the case of PG&E (California's Pacific Gas and Electric company).

Another strategy is to use Internet monitoring to monitor online articles regarding a company's activities to prepare for negative publicity. Some go further and monitor chat rooms, newsgroups, and online discussion forums.

It's like the story of the town gossip who spread false stories about its people. One day, he felt terrible and went to the chaplain [Rabbi, pastor, priest, or other &mdash take your pick] to ask for forgiveness. The chaplain said,"I will forgive you, but you must do something first."

"Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds." The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the chaplain that he had done it, the chaplain said, "Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers."

The same can happen to a company without a crisis management plan in place. It's possible to survive the crisis and thrive as PG&E did. Don't expect Worldcom to pull out of its Enron-like mess. Fraud is not excusable. And Martha Stewart? She has hired a public relations strategist firm in an effort to do damage control. It'll be worth watching to see what happens in her case and how the PR firm attempts to save her reputation. Did you know there is a recall on one of her products? Adds fuel to the fire, doesn't it?

Career Test - Are You A Crisis Creator And Manager?

Management by crisis has become one of the most popular terms. These people allow a crisis to develop and then act upon it.

Keywords:

career,manager,time,management,success,

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Management by crisis has become one of the most popular terms. These people allow a crisis to develop and then act upon it. They never try to anticipate a crisis, but act only when the full-blown crisis arrives. Why do they manage like this? They behave in this way because they subconsciously enjoy fighting crisis, and for that they manufacture one.

A good manager has few important tasks. To set goals, to achieve them, to manage resources effectively, to anticipate problems, to fight them if they come un announced, to think and plan of future and to prepare the organization to stay ahead. Some managers ignore the problems when they are small. Instead they pay their total attention to achieving given work. They sometimes believe that a problem may get solved in the course of time. Some times that does happen, but most of the times, it does not. At that point they have a crisis with them that needs immediate attention. They then leave all other work and put all the resources of the organization to fight the crisis. After fighting the crisis they present the case study to top management about how they fought the crisis successfully. Most of the top managers don't ask - why was the problem not tackled in infancy, but applaud the manager for doing excellent fire fighting.

If you know that the electrical wiring in your building is old and needs immediate repair, why ignore it? Why not get it replaced in time? But that will never be recognized. That will be classified under general maintenance. If afire engulfs the building and you are able to save most of the precious papers, you will be applauded. This looks very improbable, but look around you and you will find a person with these characteristics.,