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Crisis Response Guiding Principles

Crisis Response Guiding Principles

Dec 15, 2016 | Infographics

When crisis strikes, leadership turns to Legal, Communication and Human Resources professionals for guidance. Invest time now in planning how you manage a crisis. You hope you never need the plan, but if you do, it’s too late to initiate the process once something catastrophic happens. Rapid response is critical in times of business crisis.

Here are the guiding principles, the DOs and DON’Ts of effective crisis management:

1. All responses should start with a focus on safety (employee, customer, community, environmental).

2. Cooperate with authorities and emergency personnel.

3. Plan to do more that what is needed in order to build back goodwill with employees, customers, partners, vendors, other stakeholders and the community.

4. Communicate quickly:

  • Be open and honest about what is happening or has happened.
  • Remain calm. Don’t retaliate. Don’t react to abrasive remarks.
  • Focus on safety and protecting the rights of employees (for privacy) and the company (legal rights).
  • Avoid waiting until you have all of the information to communicate. Say what you know now or today. Do not speculate, guess about what happened or offer your opinions.

Everybody makes mistakes. But having a solid plan in place to address the negative whiplash or complaints in a timely and transparent manner will not only help preserve your company’s reputation, but confirm yet again that you are a business that cares about its customers and willing to go an extra mile to make them happy and live up to your reputation.

10 Tips For Reputation And Crisis Management In The Digital World, Ekaterina Walter, Forbes

Will You Change the World? Top 5 Characteristics of a “Change Maker”

Will You Change the World? Top 5 Characteristics of a “Change Maker”

Dec 2, 2016 | Insights

Are You a Change Maker?One person can change the world. Just look at inventors, politicians, political activists, religious figures, business leaders… History is full of people that have made a difference – for better or worse. What do these people have in common? Is there a formula for their success?

While many people may have wonderful ideas that could change the world, there is a core set of characteristics that define successful change makers. They are:

Curious and Creative Problem Solvers: Change makers become passionate about solving a problem (or problems). Inherently, they ask questions and look for creative ways to find solutions.

Risk Takers with Confidence and Courage: Instinct and intuition as their guide, change makers trust in themselves and preserver into new frontiers or against popular opinion.

Open-minded with a Positive Perspective: In order to succeed, change makers are optimistic about their results and success, and are open to different and new perspectives. This positivity and openness is what helps them see the solutions that lead to great change.

Engaging communicators: By the nature of a change maker’s passion for the change they seek, they must be able to inspire and motivate audiences for support. Change makers are storytellers that inspire action.

Doers with Ambition and Drive: Because of their passion for results, successful change makers will roll up their sleeves and dig into the work. They set up lofty goals and are willing to put in the hours until they reach them, very committed to success.

To become a Change Maker, you’ll have to learn to trust yourself. Check out this piece from Healthline to learn how.

Who is your favorite change maker and what should we learn from him or her?

Schedule a Complimentary Clarity Call with me to learn how to build this core set of characteristics.