CRISIS MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS

The 2010 year has begun and we seem to already be on a path which indicates we will continue to be challenged in our crisis management planning.

Alabama suffered two shootings, one at a high school where a ninth grader was killed and a second at the University of Alabama where three lost their lives to violence.

A Christian school in Jacksonville, Florida lost a female student to gunfire at the hands of two of their own students; an act that appeared to be an accident but turned into homicide while they recklessly played with a stolen firearm.

Parts of our nation endured flooding while the east experienced record snowfall causing early dismissals and the closing of their schools.

These incidents, along with many others, have caused the affected schools and communities countless problems, stress and pain. This is easily defined as crisis.

The term “low probability, high consequence event” defines the purpose of crisis management. As you consider your current crisis management abilities; ask yourself how you would respond if it happened to you. There is no doubt that the folks where this did happen never wanted it. I can only hope, however that they did plan for it.

This is the perfect time to evaluate your current crisis management plan. Does your plan cover severe weather, natural disaster, acts of violence, unplanned school closure and so on? As you ponder what to include in your plan, remember the phrase “low probability, high consequence”. In other words, these are events that truly don’t happen that often but when they do, they hurt!

Crisis management is something you should do before the crisis actually occurs. Write the plan, train the plan, drill the plan and then assess your actions to learn what worked and what failed. As a matter of drill, take an incident from current events and place it at your facility. Then lay your plan over the top of it and see if you would have been ready. If not, it’s time to go to work.

William L. Byrd The Troas Group Inc. 2010