Crisis management (crisis management) differs significantly from ordinary management. While management routinely seeks to stabilize, grow, develop, invest, and make a profit, crisis management in difficult situations, emergencies, seeks to survive and survive. Crisis management should be part of every management so that the company is prepared or prevents crisis situations. In this section, you will find articles from consultants who have participated in or resolved crisis situations with their customers. These include crisis plans, scenarios, crisis communication, restrictive action, etc.

WHAT IS A CRISIS?

A crisis is a situation where safety, the existence of the company, life and health, or know-how are endangered… It is a state that can cause the company's demise, environmental damage or other major losses. The crisis from the company's point of view can be:

  • Economic Crisis
  • Personnel crisis
  • Security crisis
  • Cyber crisis
  • …

We can only describe a situation as a crisis when heads of departments and managers can no longer handle situations with normal daily operations and set standard processes. In addition, time has a decisive influence here. If the crisis situation does not change within the specified time, the company will be dissolved or there would be large irreversible losses.

CRISIS COMMUNICATION

Crisis communication is an essential part of crisis management. Communication in times of crisis must change fundamentally. It is necessary to take into account the huge stress factors, the possibility of image damage, the loss of securities, the need to react immediately and flawlessly, even though it is necessary to implement a large number of changes in resolving the crisis.

Crisis communication is intended to limit the negative impact of the crisis on:

  • internal environment of the company
  • external environment of the company

CRISIS PLAN

The crisis plan is a document that contains an overview of measures and procedures to help solve the current crisis, the crisis situation of the organization. All measures must be managed within a precise time limit and must not interact negatively with each other. The crisis plan is a basic management document, where managers optimize crisis measures among themselves and also according to newly acquired information or a changed crisis situation.

I have prepared a template for you / contingency plan pattern.

CRISIS TEAM

Crisis team is a temporary team whose task is to resolve a company's crisis or crisis situation. They must be capable workers who have the knowledge and are able to react quickly and create ideas with high quality and solutions. Only capable people can solve the crisis. Mostly they are not the ones who got the company into crisis. Special responsibilities and powers must be established for the crisis team, eg for HR, finance, production, communication. It is not possible to have long approval procedures in a crisis. It is necessary to find a solution, decide immediately and implement it.

CRISIS MANAGER

A crisis manager is a manager that is able to work in a demanding environment and manage severe mental stress. Despite all this, he is able to make the best decisions and bring the company out of a crisis. He can evaluate situations very fast, select key factors, determine the causes of the crisis, propose solutions and quickly bring them to a successful end.

Interim Manager

Do you temporarily need a manager to make a specific change or transform a company? Then the right Interim Manager is for you. It is a manager that you hire for a specific task, for a specific project. After the solution leaves the company. This is how a crisis manager actually works. Interim manager is a very experienced professional who can lead a given area of the company or the whole company at the level of TOP manager, executive, executive director, etc.

How it works and how much is the price of the interim manager

Read our articles and offer for Real Manager:

CRISIS MEASURES

In every crisis situation, it is necessary to prepare measures of at least 2 types:

  • Eliminating a crisis situation - a measure that stops the current crisis situation and thus stops the increase in losses and damages. These measures should primarily target the causes of the crisis, but these may not be immediately apparent.
  • Preventive measures - should prevent the emergence of the same or similar crisis.

The task of crisis measures is to eliminate or alleviate the crisis situation and prevent the emergence of another crisis situation.

HOW TO RESOLVE THE CRISIS

Resolving an organization's crisis is usually a matter of weeks to months. It all depends on the resources, the type of crisis and the state of the organization. The crisis usually affects the main areas of the company - poor management system, poor work with customers, money management, poor process performace, non-professional employees but also a bad strategy. As a result, a crisis manager has a hard time deciding what to change first. Try this technique as follows: 

  1. Define a crisis situation
  2. Calculate resources and survival time
  3. Define a crisis team
  4. Develop a contingency plan
  5. Identify crisis measures
  6. Prepare crisis communication
  7. Monitor changes
  8. Decide your business strategy again
  9. …

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

It is necessary to prepare for the economic crisis even when there is no crisis. Every rational business owner knows that it is a matter of time before the economic crisis, the customer crisis, the labor market crisis, etc. come. 

If you want to prepare for the crisis, then try:

  • Company strategy - re-evaluate the state of the market, economy, your products, customers several times a year and look for new products, new customers, new business
  • Reserves - never spend everything. Learn to create reserves in different places (eg in multiple currencies, banks,…)
  • Eliminate dependencies on third parties - banks, energy suppliers, materials, services
  • Promote knowledge - develop the knowledge of your employees. Only smart and knowledgeable people can come up with the best solution.
  • Be active - constantly look for new chances, opportunities to earn. Once you've been doing the same thing for a year, look and think about how to do it differently.
  • Gather assets - stratify assets into different areas - money (different currencies), commodities (gold, lithium,…), movable assets and immovables,…
  • Introduce modern technologies - new technologies will help you simplify your work and also automate it. They are significantly cheaper than any labor force.
  • Digitize - data is real gold these days. Collect them and digitize all the necessary information so that it is promptly available and ready for automated processing.
  • …

PRINCIPLES OF CRISIS COMMUNICATION

Crisis communication is an absolute necessity for resolving a crisis. It helps people to understand what is at stake and to engage their potential. It provides the right information for the implementation of the solution and also shows the correct attitudes to the situation. The main principles of crisis communication include:

  • Communicate first
  • Look to the future and don't mess with the past
  • Communicate regularly
  • Support your claims with evidence
  • Communicate even unpopular measures
  • Use the news map
  • Crisis messages must be simple and easy to remember
  • Verify your understanding of crisis communication
  • …

CRISIS MANAGEMENT TRAINING

When a crisis arises in an organization, it is too late to learn how to handle the crisis. Managers should be familiar with at least knowing the basics of crisis management. In addition, a number of crisis management rules are applicable in everyday managerial life. We highly recommend going to crisis management training in time. First, choose a suitable lecturer who has experience in crisis management. Try the online training, Crisis Management webinar first. If the instructor suits you, then go to a multi-day training, ideally in combination with training.

KNOWLEDGE LINES / CRISIS MANAGEMENT

The knowledge line is a specialized online training, e-learning from Vlastní cesty. Step by step you are guided to the basic goal - to learn to solve the company's crisis. In addition, the author of the Crisis Management line helps you to understand the individual knowledge correctly. You can consult with him your own specific cases at any time. You can find the introduction of the knowledge line here - Crisis Management.

CRISIS SCENARIO

A crisis scenario is a detailed step-by-step procedure for dealing with a specific crisis situation. Scenarios are usually prepared in time times before the crisis so that when a crisis occurs, you pull out the appropriate scenario and start solving it right away.

EXTRAORDINARY EVENT

An extraordinary event is defined by Act No. 239/2000 Coll., about the integrated rescue system. It is an event that is threatening lifes, health, property and the environment. Extraordinary events include, for example, floods, fires, storms, major accidents, leakage of hazardous substances, epidemics, lack of water, etc.

risk/">RISK

Risk is a situation, a condition that creates loss or danger. It can endanger health, life, property, the existence of the company, etc. The risk usually exists with a certain probability of occurence. The task of managers is to identify risks and either prevent them, eliminate them or remove them completely.

RISK ANALYSIS

Risk analysis is the analysis or examination of risky (undesirable) conditions, hazards that may occur with a given probability. Through analysis, we look for the most significant risks, which we need to eliminate or completely prevent their occurrence by appropriate measures, if possible.

INSOLVENCY

Insolvency is a situation where a company or other debtor is unable to repay its liabilities even though they want to repay.

SECONDARY INSOLVENCY