Crisis management: is there an instruction manual?
One of the main characteristics of a crisis is its duration. It has a beginning and an end, but how long will it last? In most cases, this question is impossible to answer. Going through a crisis situation is uncomfortable, disturbing and destabilizing. Which brings us to the first fundamental question: Is it possible to return to the situation prior to the changeover, or will we have to find a new equilibrium?
In this article, we’ll look at several critical situations and try to answer the following questions: How do you manage a crisis when you’re a company director? Are there any instructions to follow? To what extent is crisis management a strategic issue for the company? By sharing and analyzing my most memorable professional crisis experiences, we’ll see how to approach crisis management, what resources are available and what links exist between crisis management and company management.
War, crisis, instability and uncertainty have been an integral part of my work ever since I started out.
Passage to local crisis management….
February 2005: Attack on the Lebanese Prime Minister in downtown Beirut in broad daylight
At the end of 2004, having just graduated, I jumped at the chance to set up and manage a sales office in Lebanon for a French airline. We were still in the pre-launch phase when the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Rafic Hariri took place. The office was located just a few meters as the crow flies from the site of the explosion: all the windows shattered, the team on site was traumatized, and business came to a standstill, giving way to stupefaction and incomprehension.
How do you keep staff motivated in this uncertain environment? How to manage the running costs of an office with a team in place and no financial income? How could we communicate with the public to announce the postponement of the flight launch and avoid distrust and disengagement from the target audience even before the start of commercial activity?
At the time, it was crucial to keep in close contact with every member of the team to maintain confidence and motivation in the project. We were forced to assume heavy financial losses due to the postponement of the project. Obtaining a launch date three months later finally enabled us to anticipate the end of the crisis and keep our objectives in line with our initial strategy.
July 2006: Israel-Lebanon war: bombing raids across Lebanon, brutal closure of Beirut airport and forced cessation of activity for all airlines operating to and from Lebanon.
We are just recovering from the security and economic crisis linked to the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. In the meantime, our determination to stay on course with our business development strategy has resulted in a number of new contracts. The signing of a partnership with the French hotel group Accor – to promote their various hotel chains to Lebanese tourists – was successfully completed. At the end of June 2006, we organized an event to inaugurate this new activity.
In attendance were key figures from French diplomacy in Beirut (Ambassador, Economic Mission), French and Lebanese companies, travel agencies and the press. It was a success… but it lasted only two weeks before the situation exploded between Israel and Lebanon, bringing this growth dynamic to an abrupt halt at the height of the tourist season.
How can you stay calm when your own safety is threatened? What is the employer’s responsibility when the company’s operations come to a complete standstill? How do you deal with employees: their safety, their concerns, their employment contracts? How can we make strategic decisions for the company without knowing how long the conflict will last?
The first step in crisis management was to ensure the physical safety of all employees, and the office was closed for several days. We then set up a hotline to respond to customer requests (refunds of airline tickets and hotel nights sold during this period). The impact on sales was catastrophic for this young organization. Despite drastic restructuring – cost-cutting, change of premises, termination of several employment contracts – it will not be possible to maintain a viable economic activity for this company.
… to tackle more global crises
A few years later, I try to avoid “risky” situations. I try to avoid the “region” risk as well as the “country” risk. In 2016, I moved back to Paris with my family. I’m also turning to another business sector: career coaching and outplacement. But is it realistic to think we’re finally safe?
In 2020, the Covid 19 crisis is taking us by surprise and causing us to lose many of our bearings. The most important thing is to find refuge somewhere other than where we are when the crisis hits. Our personal and professional lifestyles have been profoundly disrupted by the fact that life as we know it has been put on hold, with very limited geographical movement and social ties. Issues such as telecommuting, remote management, work/life balance management, “silent resignation” or employee disengagement from the company are now the order of the day…
Management, talent management and the HR function are becoming central to the performance, management and economic viability of organizations.
What’s more, the war in Ukraine since February 2022, and the recent resumption of conflict in the Middle East since October 2023, have put the subject of crisis management back at the heart of managerial concerns. Against this backdrop of repeated crises, how can you manage and develop your business when uncertainty, instability and risk are omnipresent?
Crisis management: a few guidelines
Mes expériences m’amènent à vous proposer quelques clés de lecture dans la gestion de crise en tant que chef d’entreprise.
La préparation : Savoir se poser les bonnes questions
When a crisis occurs – whether internal or external to the company – the manager will have very limited time to make decisions, stay the course, reassure his or her teams, and cope with the ordeal.For this reason, it’s essential to be totally clear about how your company is organized, and what resources it has available upstream.
How is the organization structured? Who decides and how? Is the strategy clear and well-defined? What are the key skills needed to position the company in the best possible conditions in the marketplace? What financial resources are available? What investments should be prioritized? What communications plan should be put in place?
Mindset: Adopt a “growth mindset ”*(1) or a mindset of learning and growth.
The concept of the “growth mindset” – developed by American psychologist Carol Dweck – is a state of mind in which adversity, the unexpected and difficulties are seen as a source of personal progress.
The process is as important as the outcome, as we develop our neurons, creativity and adaptability. Carol Dweck, on the other hand, opposes the concept of the “fixed mindset” – or limited state of mind – which considers our intelligence and talents to be innate. We find it hard to question ourselves and face failure. We apply the recipes that have always worked, without asking too many questions. This leads to blocking behavior and great difficulty in making decisions and managing crises in the face of emerging risks. So, by adopting a certain state of mind, crisis develops our intellectual agility by enabling us to adapt to unforeseen situations.
Action: Continuously develop your managerial skills
Managers have little, if any, preparation for the profound and rapid transformations that take effect at the time of a crisis. Yet this is a strategic issue for companies. There is no longer any doubt that retaining and developing employees is crucial to managing talent for optimum performance. Numerous studies have shown that, more often than not, talent leaves a manager, not a company.
As an entrepreneur or manager, how can you develop the right posture to lead your teams to success?
Leadership: How do you unite a team and, at the same time, motivate each individual within the company? How can we continue to inspire confidence in our teams, partners and customers when we have very little information about the course of events? How do you take care of yourself and take care of others? (“Care management”, Cécile Dejoux(2))
Talent management: A crisis can be a trigger for unlocking potential or bringing it to light. It can reveal talents in a particular context, where they can bring to the fore their previously unused abilities, to achieve exceptional performance.
Creativity: In turbulent times, what has always worked may no longer be appropriate. Crisis can be a time to give free rein to new ideas and new ways of working.
Resilience: Confronting difficulties finally helps to develop resilience – or the ability to overcome critical trials. Learning from each crisis enables us to plan organizational systems that can withstand crises, while promoting the values of resilience and even courage(3).
Conclusion
We are living through increasingly frequent and global crises, as they impact on our daily professional and personal lives. The burning news of the last three years reminds us that it is illusory to think of living in a world where the external context is totally under control. From my point of view, the term “development” is inseparable from the company. It invokes the fact that the company is an organism in perpetual motion. Whether in times of crisis or calm, there is no single set of instructions to be applied in order to successfully deploy your business with the aim of achieving human and economic performance. In my opinion, adopting a growth mindset, analyzing your organization from different angles and activating your capacity for resilience are the keys to your company’s performance and success in times of crisis. It’s crucial to know how to ask the right questions. The answers may change depending on the situation. But above all, seize the opportunity to question yourself as events force you to do so, because “crisis is an opportunity to reflect on what is essential” (Albert Camus).
*(1) Ted Talk « The Power of Yet », Carole Dweck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxa2r8kpWcg
*(2) Le Management par le care, Cécile Dejoux https://www.ceciledejoux.com/publications/care-management
*(3) « Oser le courage : Une valeur nécessaire à la survie des organisations » Violette Bouveret et Jérémy Lamri – Editions Dunod
https://www.amazon.fr/Oser-courage-valeur-n%C3%A9cessaire-organisations/dp/2100857568
Originally publish : Mag RH N°25