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In such turbulent times a crisis can start gaping you in the face when you least expect it. An intelligent business must have the power of anticipating the issues, which may crop up suddenly and hamper its operations. In order to remain efficient, a business should also have the checklist for dealing with any crisis.
A crisis, which might lead you to take many crucial and decisive decisions, can come up at any point of time. The best thing that one can do is to develop the power of anticipating, so that you are able to construct a plan of action well in advance. It is equally important to have a checklist with regard to possible crises in an environment that one works in.
For me, the mantra to address a crisis is: Reboot, Re-invent and Re-ignite. It has three approaches. Firstly, think of the three things you can do when there is a first time crisis and make a checklist with suggested solutions against each.
For instance, if a server crashes, my immediate thought would be to find a quick alternative so that my staff of 5000 is not inconvenienced. Secondly, effort has to be made to manage work in failure mode with effective analysis to repose employee confidence in the system; and my third priority would be to take proactive measures to restore the server with proper near site recovery planning; and finally, DR would be another step forward in crisis management.
Nature of crisis
Crises can turn out to be extremely chaotic, ongoing and it might occur at a pace where quick response is difficult. Business related crises are uncertain, unpredictable and on the rise. For instance, we may have projected a 15% growth in the business, while the market actually grows by over 20%, leading to an internal crisis with pressure to meet market growth. Market oscillations sometimes are difficult to comprehend and need to be dealt in detail to avoid further pressures.
Information security is another area that can potentially lead to a crisis. The freedom that social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, provide can in some instances result in critical situations. The IT team has a greater role in managing the resultant challenges, which sometimes take the form of a major crisis.
Need of the hour
It is imperative to seek lessons from past crisis and develop appropriate skills that will allow us to handle similar situations effectively when they occur again in future. A good deal of communication skills, dialogue and change will be required to solve the problem. Domain knowledge across team heads is critical to work on a solution faster. Three Cs is the antidote: Communicate in crisp and clear tone; get Customer-Friendly; be Cool do not panic or explain the scenario and ensure that the problem gets fixed in real time.
Author is V S Parthasarathy, Group CIO, VP-Finance & M&A, Mahindra& Mahindra Ltd.
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