The role of great CEOs during a crisis is of particular importance to maintain the reputation of your organization.
Anyone in a leadership position who is unable to rise to the occasion of a crisis is of little use to the organization. In the construction industry, health and safety is paramount to every company in this country. In the aftermath of a traumatic incident, the general competence of leadership is often assessed solely on how well it demonstrates caring and compassion.
A better method of assessment is to consider how well it was prepared for what happened and how well it moves to ensure nothing similar happens again. Too often the response to a crisis tends to be reactive, concentrating on immediate, urgent and tangible threats resembling the process of putting out a fire.
While there is an obvious need to get emergency medical care quickly to the injured, secure sites and ensure that a cascade of related incidents does not occur, attention should be given to the most suitable long-term response.
The goal of long-term response to a crisis is to mitigate the risk of future recurrence.
Leadership fails in this respect when it:
- Disregards any crises or symptoms of crisis that have occurred.
- Downplays unreasonable risks inherent in any recurrence of the crisis. It is not advisable to overreact, but the appropriate response should be determined through a proper process of risk analysis measuring the full range and assessing the probabilities and implications of the risks that the organization faces.
- Proposes weak or incomplete responses or makes no provision for the testing of plans. Unless a crisis plan has been thoroughly constructed and tested, it is unlikely to protect the organization effectively should a real crisis occur.
No one likes to contemplate the effects a catastrophic incident might have and there is always a reluctance to allocate resources to what very often seems a highly unlikely contingency.
Nevertheless, there is no question good planning is essential to be able to deal with such problems when, rather than if, they do arise and to minimize the adverse consequences that results from them.
By taking the steps necessary to allow quick and effective response, the organization will recover quickly, or at least quicker than it otherwise could.
Crisis management, both before and after the event, is a critical element in managing an organization’s operations and assets and ensuring that should any such event occur the organization can be returned to normal productivity.
All organizations from time to time encounter a crisis that utilizes the resources of the organization to the greatest extent imaginable. They are an unpleasant, and although atypical, normal and expected feature of organizational life that must be properly managed.
Most constituencies are sufficiently sophisticated to understand that the occurrence of such an event is inevitable and that it may well provide the organization with a genuine opportunity to emerge stronger and better prepared to deal with the future.
As it relates to procurement and construction, it seems every week we are in some mode of crisis. Supply chain shortages are causing a tremendous amount of issues in relation to our ability to keep operations and schedules on track.
Crisis management should be a part of training for senior level executives in every organization.
We are told from childhood that if life gives us lemons, we should make lemonade.
While this may be a cliché, it describes an essential element of leadership.
No organization and no leader will continually enjoy good times. The most successful leader is likely to be the one who is best able to turn a crisis into his or her advantage.
Stephen Bauld is a government procurement expert and can be reached at [email protected]. Some of his columns may contain excerpts from The Municipal Procurement Handbook published by Butterworths.
