The Responsibility For A Business' Crisis Management Procedure Is The Responsibility Of Its Board

Patrick Woods, Dec 6, 2019 10:15:00 AM


In our industry lots of people travel and many of these fly (considerably more than they should – a
topic to come back to in a later blog).

Like many of you I suspect, I find the pre-flight safety demonstration an easy thing to tune out of,
but a long time ago decided I would pay attention to it on every flight. Yes, the probability of the
plane experiencing difficulties is low and the crew are highly trained, but it’s important that I know
what would be expected of me to maximise mine and my family’s chances of surviving an air
accident were I ever to be unfortunate enough to be involved in one.

This got me thinking about the kind of training airline crews must go through. They are expected to
remain perfectly calm should an airline disaster scenario begin to unfold. This is so they can both
provide reassurance to petrified passengers and ensure, should extreme circumstances unfold, that
a full evacuation can be carried out. Of course, the scenario planning and training they go through
will be rigorous, after all this is the industry that has created the concept of the flight envelope. This
gives me great confidence that a potential emergency can be handled professionally by a team who
are up to the challenge.

But a disaster or crisis can and does occur in all industries. The question is, how prepared are we for
the one that will one day be ours to manage? How many of us are even aware of the existence of a
business crisis management procedure in our organisations, apart from those pertaining to fire
evacuation and call chain testing?

It’s easy to say that such procedures are the responsibility of our leaders and that so long as they
have it covered the rest of us will be ok. Applying this logic, would we be as content to travel with
our favourite airline were planning for a flight evacuation the sole responsibility of its board?

At least once in all of our careers we will experience the discomfort and upheaval associated with an
organisational crisis. Its causes will be kick started either by events in the external environment or
by issues within our company – by factors either outside or inside the plane so to speak. When it
happens will we, whether we are a crew member or passenger, have a clear understanding of the
role we must play to maximise the chances of a good outcome for everyone impacted by it?

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