Unit 11 crisis management

Pre-discussion

• When does a business problem become a crisis?

• What crises that business managers have to face can you think of?

• What sort of crisis might you own company or institution have to deal with?

• What do crisis management teams do?

The Context of Crisis• Crisis events threaten the viability of the or

ganization (Pearson and Clair, 1998), • Are rare in nature (Cornell and Sheras, 1998), • Have the potential to dismantle an organiza

tion (King, 2002), • Fall under close media scrutiny (Fink, 1986) and • Can be a turning point in an organization (Borod

zicz and van Haperen, 2002).

2008,September 29:

• U.S. House of Representatives rejects the $700 billion rescue plan in a stunning 228-205 vote. The Dow Jones falls by a record 777 points.

• Wachovia agrees to sell most of its assets to Citigroup in a deal brokered by regulators.

2008,October 1:

• U.S. Senate passes a modified U.S. financial rescue plan aimed at restoring global financial stability, sending the measure to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote on Friday.

2008,October 3:

• President Bush signs the historic $700 billion rescue bill approved just hours earlier by the U.S. House of Representatives in a 263-171 vote.

• Wells Fargo agrees to buy Wachovia for $15.4 billion or $7 a share, better than Citigroup’s earlier offer of about $1 a share.

discussion

• What’s your opinion about the economic crisis in America?

• Do you agree with the crisis management of Bush government?

Before the crisis

• Write down and circulate your crisis management program

• Try to predict what crisis could occur• Pratise making decisions under stress• Role play a potential crisis

During the crisis

• Set up a crisis management team• Inform the director• Disclose as much information as you can

After the crisis

• Find out what happened and how it happened

• Analyse the actions you took to deal with the situation

• Work out an action plan to ensure the crisis does not happen again

Building Better Crisis Leaders

• Need to experience adversity and failure early in career

• More likely to advance to a higher level over those that experience only success

• Most common issues: – Mistakes in business issues, dealing with important

people, career setbacks and personal trauma – Change can only happen if they take responsibility

and overcome• Immerse people in a wide variety of company

problems

Your Logo

vobcabulary

• batch [countable]1 a group of people or things that arrive or are dealt with together batch of Every day another batch of papers reaches the manager demanding his attention.

• 2 a quantity of food, medicine etc that is produced or prepared at the same time batch of She was in the kitchen taking a batch of bread out of the oven.

• 3 a set of jobs that are dealt with together on a computer: an overnight batch file

• seepage [uncountable and countable]a gradual flow of liquid or gas through small spaces or holes

• pirate [transitive] to illegally copy and sell another person's work such as a book, video, or computer program: pirated video tapes

• bribe [countable]1 money or a gift that you illegally give someone to persuade them to do something for you: The officials said that they had been offered bribes before an important game.

• accept/take a bribe • A Supreme Court judge was charged with t

aking bribes.• 2 something special offered to someone, es

pecially a child, in order to persuade them to do something

• casualty[countable] someone who is hurt or killed in an accident or war: Our aim is to reduce road casualties.

• civilian casualties (=people who are not soldiers who are injured or killed)

• lambast , lambaste [transitive] formalto criticize someone or something very strongly, usually in public [= slate]: Democrats lambasted the President's budget plan for being 'inadequate'.

Listening:coping with crisis

• A crisis management expert talks about how to deal wth crisis situation, and gives some examples.

• Listen to the recording 11.1,11.2

Reading: airline crashes

• Imagine that you are a crisis management consultants, you are required to draw up a list of recommendations in the form of dos and don’ts.

Crash site North American cosat/Europe

casualties No survivors

Cause of crash Not fully explain

Effect of reputation Increased confidence, if anything

Production of passenger list

Full manifest issued within hours

Telephone communication

Fully functioning hotlines set up within hours

Treatment of relatives Hundreds of counsellors ready to receive grieving families, immediatee travel expense covered

Political reaction Praised by mayor

Case study: game over

• Target store is accused of selling pirated software.Ss analyse the related information and role play target’s directors and media representatives at a press confrence

• Stage one:read the article about Target Stores• Stage two:listening the recording 11.4• Stage three:press conference preparation• Stage four: press conference