facing crises
Crisis response goals
Control and eliminate the movement of the crisis
Stop the deterioration and losses
Benefiting from the crisis in reform and development
Study the causes and factors of the crisis to take preventive measures to prevent similar crises from occurring.
Factors of success in facing the crisis
Realize the importance of time.
Create an information base.
Provides an early warning system.
Constant readiness to face crises.
Make the appropriate decision.
Active communication system.
Media discourse on the crisis.
The ability to mobilize and mobilize resources.
1- Realizing the importance of time:
The factor of speed is required to absorb the crisis and take the appropriate decisions at the right time. That is, the speed in mobilizing the crisis management team, carrying out damage containment or limiting operations, and restoring the organization's activity.
2- Create a database:
Having a basic database of data and information characterized by accuracy, accurate classification and ease of reference may greatly help in laying strong foundations for proposing alternatives, choosing between them and making appropriate decisions.
3- Availability of early warning systems:
The early warning system is an effective tool for discovering advance signs of a possible malfunction in the system, through which it can identify the dimensions of its transformation into a serious crisis for the organization.
4- Constant readiness to face crises
Develop practical capabilities to prevent or respond to crises
Review the prevention measures
Develop plans and train individuals on the various tasks for them while facing crises.
5- Decision making in times of crisis
Efficiency of crisis decisions:
Effectiveness in the decision: is the extent to which it is appropriate to the technical aspects of the crisis, that is, the objective aspect.
Acceptance: concerned with the human element, its response to the decision, and the extent to which the decision takes into account human feelings.
Speed and good decision-making is subject to complex processes and calculations, represented in:
Lack of time, especially in security and environmental crises...
Widening the circle of uncertainty and lack of information.
The aggravation of the consequences of the continuation of the crisis and the aggravation of its consequences.
6- The ability to mobilize and mobilize available resources
The ability to mobilize human, material and financial energies in order to face the crisis and preserve life.
External challenges facing organizations or societies may play a major role in uniting the groups of society to face them.
7- An efficient and effective communication system
Crisis communications play a critical role in the flow of information and data within and outside the organization.
The greater the speed and abundance of information, the more successful the administration is in mobilizing the resources and energies of the organization’s personnel, confronting rumors, and winning or at least neutralizing public opinion.
8- The media discourse of the crisis
It is based on the general strategy for crisis management developed by the senior leadership.
Realizing the special nature of each party contributes to the formulation of a unified vision during the crisis.
Understand the nature of the target audience (local or external, educated or ordinary..)
Awareness of the distinctive characteristics of all means of communication (audio, visual...)
Objective analysis and scientific analysis of reality.
Crisis coping methods
Traditional methods of coping with crises.
Unconventional methods of facing crises.
The scientific method for facing crises.
traditional approaches to crisis management
1- Escape method (ostrich):
Direct escape: Acknowledgment of the inability or failure to confront and his willingness to bear the consequences of this flight.
Indirect escape: It is the fabrication of situations that show the responsible leader away from the events during the time of the crisis or the inability to contact him or his unawareness of them.
Disavowing responsibility: Justifying the situations that led to the crisis with logical reasons that seem sound on the surface, but do not change the actual reality.
2- Focus on another aspect:
Avoiding the crisis: where the official works to avoid the expected failure in facing the crisis by focusing on another aspect of the issue and not at the heart of the crisis.
Projection: where the official works to cover his perception in the face of the crisis by focusing the spotlight on the shortcomings of others and the shortcomings in their performance.
3- Jump over the crisis
This approach focuses on the concern that the crisis has been controlled by dealing with the familiar aspects of dealing with it.
This method often leads to leaving the fire under the ashes, as the official himself and those around him believe that it has been controlled
4- Denial of the crisis:
Where a media blackout is practiced on the crisis and the denial of its occurrence, and to show the solidity of the situation and that the conditions are at best in order to destroy the crisis and control it. This method is often used under a dictatorial administration that refuses to acknowledge the existence of any defect in its administrative entity: denying exposure to the epidemic...
5- Suppression of the crisis:
Postponing the emergence of the crisis is a kind of direct dealing with the crisis with the intent of destroying it.
6- Putting down the crisis:
It is a very violent method based on a public, violent confrontation with the forces of the current crisis, regardless of human feelings and values.
6- Underestimating the crisis:
The existence of the crisis is recognized, but it is considered an insignificant crisis in terms of its impact and consequences.
7- Venting the crisis:
The method is called venting a volcano, where the manager resorts to venting pressures inside the volcano to relieve the state of boiling and anger and prevent an explosion.
8- Unloading the crisis:
According to this method, multiple alternative paths are found in front of the main and secondary impetus that generates the current of the crisis to turn into many alternative paths that absorb his effort and reduce his danger.
Unconventional approaches to crisis management
1. Teamwork Method:
It is one of the most widely used methods at the present time, as it requires the presence of more than one expert and specialist in different fields in order to calculate all the factors and determine the required behavior with each factor.
2. The tactical reserve method for dealing with crises:
Where weaknesses and sources of crises are identified, a tactical and preventive reserve is formed that can be used if a crisis occurs. This method is often used in industrial organizations when there is a crisis in raw materials or a shortage of liquidity.
3- How to share
Democracy to deal with crises:
It is the most effective method and is used when the crisis is related to individuals or has a human component. This method means disclosing the crisis and its seriousness and how to deal with it between the boss and subordinates in a transparent and democratic manner.
4- Containment method:
Trapping the crisis in a narrow and limited scope. An example of this is labor crises, where the method of dialogue and understanding is used with the leaders of those crises.
5- The way to escalate the crisis:
It is used when the crisis is not clearly defined and when there is a lump at the stage of the formation of the crisis, so the person dealing with the situation deliberately escalates the crisis to break up this agglomeration and reduce the pressure of the crisis.
6- How to unpack the crisis from its content:
It is one of the most successful methods used, where each crisis has a specific content, which may be political, social, religious, economic, cultural, administrative, etc., and the task of the decision-maker is to lose the crisis’s identity and content, and consequently the loss of the power of pressure on the forces of the crisis.
7- The method of breaking up crises:
It is preferable if the crises are severe and dangerous. This method relies on studying all aspects of the crisis to know the forces forming the crisis alliances and to determine the framework of conflicting interests and potential benefits for the members of these alliances, and then multiply them by creating artificial leaders and finding gains for these trends that conflict with the continuation of the alliances of crisis forces, and thus transforms Major crises into small fragmented crises.
8- The method of self-destructing the crisis and detonating it from within:
It is one of the most difficult non-traditional ways to deal with crises. It is called (violent confrontation) or direct confrontation. This is where its danger lies. It is used in the case of certainty that there is no alternative. This crisis is dealt with as follows:
The crisis hit hard from its weak sides.
Attracting some elements to motivate and motivate the crisis.
Elimination of the leading elements of the crisis.
Finding new leaders who are more understanding.
9- The Phantom Abundance Method:
It uses the psychological method to cover up the crisis, as in cases of loss of food supplies, where the decision-maker takes into account the availability of these materials to control the crisis, even if temporarily.
10- Turning the course of the crisis:
It is used with very violent crises, the escalation of which cannot be stopped, and here the crisis is transferred to alternative paths, and the crisis is contained by absorbing its results, acquiescing to it, recognizing its causes, then overcoming them, and treating its secretions and consequences, in a manner that reduces its dangers.
Scientific methods for dealing with crises
This scientific method in confronting crises represents the surest way to control them and direct them to the entity's interest in the crisis.
Initial study of the dimensions of the crisis
Analytical study of the crisis
Planning for confrontation and dealing with the crisis.
1. Initial study of the dimensions of the crisis.
Determine the common factors in the crisis.
Determine the causes of the friction reached by the situation.
Determine the extent of the crisis.
Arrange the common and influencing factors according to their severity.
Identify the forces for and against.
2. Analytical study of the crisis:
A clear distinction between phenomena and causes.
Ascertainment and certainty of the reasons.
The stage of the crisis life cycle.
Predict the nature and costs of the risks arising from the crisis and the impact of time on its spread.
Knowing the role of human, natural and material elements and their impact on the crisis.
Determining the available capabilities that can be obtained at an appropriate time to use them.
3. Planning to confront and deal with the crisis.
1- Prepare for the confrontation:
Determine the set of actions to be taken
Giving the necessary instructions and warnings
Restructuring of human and technical resources.
Dealing with human emotions such as enthusiasm, fear and panic.
Determine the type of information and the timing of its release.
Organizing communication
3. Planning to confront and deal with the crisis.
2- Planning to face the crisis:
Determine the starting point for the confrontation.
Strive to control the situation.
Work to reduce losses.
Addressing the psychological and social effects of the crisis.
Improve practical performance better than before.
Use of preventive and immune systems against similar crises.