Crisis Management - an overview

I've found myself in the position of managing some crisis situations recently and I decided to do some research on the subject - various sources through Google, Wiki's etc have allowed me to collate the following - and I thought I'd share it to save you the struggle of trawling the web if you face the same situation:

Crisis management involves:

• Identifying a crisis
• Planning a response
• Responding to a sudden event that poses a significant threat to the firm
• Limiting the damage
• Selecting an individual and team to deal with the crisis
• Resolving a crisis

Stages of a crisis

Pre-crisis
Prior to the event

Warning
Indications that there is or may be or could be an event liable to cause a significant impact on the organisation

Crisis point
When the event begins to cause significant impact on the organisation

Recovery
The acute stage of crisis has passed and the organisation is able to focus on a return to normal operations

Post crisis
Evaluation of the effects
Repair to the organisation

Role of the crisis manager

• Crisis assessment
• Event tracking
• Managing human considerations
• Damage assessment
• Assessment or resources and options
• Development of contingencies
• Managing communications
• Co-ordination with external bodies
• Controlling information
• Controlling expectations
• Managing legal requirements

Advice on handling a crisis

• Appoint a crisis manager
• Recognise that the crisis manager is likely to adopt a more authoritarian style than is normal
• Do an objective assessment of the cause (s) of the crisis
• Determine whether the cause (s) will have a long term effect or whether it will be a short term phenomenon
• Project the most likely cause of events
• Focus on activities that will mitigate or eliminate the problem
• “Look for the silver lining”- opportunities in the aftermath
• Act to guard cash flow

Dealing with the financial aspects of a crisis

• Accelerate accounts receivable (payment by debtor)- by offering a discount if necessary.
• Slow up payment to creditors where possible.
• Increase short term, sales
• Reduces expenses - especially “non mission critical” expenses
• Outsource non mission critical operations.
• Re-schedule loans

Dealing with the “people” aspects of a crisis

• Form a crisis team
• Designate one person only to speak about the crisis to the outside world
• Act to prevent or counter the spread of negative information
• Make use of the media to provide a counter argument
• Do not tell untruths - trying to manipulate or distort the information will backfire

Good luck!

Powerpoint - the 10/20/30 rule - does powerpoint suck for business presentation?

I was keenly reminded last week about the painful powerpoint. I was on the receiving end of a powerpoint presentation from a person who wanted to explain their company and IT programme to me.

Four hours...

Seriously - four hours of powerpoint (non-stop) - and as we progressed throught the slides, the point size of the font decreased to allow for more text to get onto the slides. I was reminded of one of the guys I work with (Jeff) favorite phrase during a power point "If you can read that, you are in the wrong job - you should be a sniper" Apart from the fact that powerpoint is one of the most poorly conceived tools for presentation, the way you use it can either make or break a presentation.

I've a rule for myself that I try to stick to - I call it the 10/20/30 rule:

• 10 slides per presentation maximum
• 20 minutes on a slide deck maximum
• 30 point font on a slide as a minimum

Now, if you need more material, then fine - have a different presentation on a different topic - but keep the presentation singlular in focus - humans have a terrible retention rate and remembering more than 1 concept thread in a presentation is asking a lot of an audience - particularly if it is a mixed audience of technical and non-technical.

Personally I use the whiteboard for almost everything - where I need more formality, I tend to use mind-maps. I prefer mind mapping as a technique because it allows for non-linear presentation, where I can go with the flow of the conversation and work with the people I'm speaking to. If they indicate a topic is more interesting through their body language or questions - I can quickly move diffent parts of the mind-map to address those areas - of course I've build lots of maps to help me - as a last resort, I'll use a powerpoint - a short powerpoint - with pictures and large font text - oh, and gothic fonts apparently (so research shows) carry more "weight" than arial as a font - non serif fonts convey a more "friendly" tone.

So, stick to the 10/20/30 rule and try to make things non-linear but with a single coherant thread or message to your presentation (three at most) and maybe we can train our business community that four hour eye tests are not the way to win friends and influence people!

So, no - powerpoint doesn't suck, what we do with it though - can leave a lot to be desired.

Why do I use a fountain pen while presenting on an iPad?

I was presenting at a prospect last week and one of their managers in the audience was impressed with the performance of my iPad tablet displaying through their projector from my drop-box account sync'ed pdf presentations. He commented that it looked good and showed him what was being done with mobile technology.

He then watched as I took out my silver Viceroy fountain pen and opened a Rhodia high-clay content notepad and started taking notes.

"Why on earth are you using a fountain pen when you have an iPad?" he asked.

What an interesting question to get in a prospect meeting - how should I answer? Would my answer colour his judgement of me, and therefore Progress by association - you always have to think before answering anything - as I've said before, "Perception is nine tenths the truth."

I thought about the question and realised that the answer was simple for me - it's all about the experience. I find that in all products I have ever purchased, the user experience is the number 1 driver for myself. This is from the services I buy, the products I use, the restraunts I visit, the work I deliver and the things I expect in life. Quality is very important to me - but more the quality of the experience.

If you have ever used a finely crafted fountain pen on paper that was designed specifically for the ink that you placed in that pen then you know what I mean - if you have not, then I encourage you all to have a go - I enjoy my tablet computer because I like the tactile nature of the device and it's simplicity - you don't get much more simple than pen and paper. But if you are going to write something down, make sure it is for a reason, and then write in something and with something that attaches importance to what you write. The written word is a very powerful thing and one worth doing with care in my opinion. I explained this and the manager listened much more intently than I expected, it seems I passed some sort of test when I finished speaking.

Ten minutes later, he told me who the competition was - even down to the names of their pre-sales people!

Oh, and a victorian fountain pen makes a GREAT talking point in a meeting when you are developing relationships with a customer - there is nothing like handing the above pen to someone to "have a go" compared to anything else - its like giving a gift for a brief moment or two.

Cool video on time management

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0

worth spending some time on - I watched it after people started leaving the office for the evening - I enjoyed his thoughts.