• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

About Us | Articles | Free Resources | Podcast | YouTube Channel

Contact Us Subscribe

Bryghtpath

Business Continuity and Crisis Management Consultants

  • Start
        • Start your Resilience Journey

          Moving your organization – or your career – forward on your resilience journey can be a difficult and scary proposition.  Often, we find that prospective clients aren’t quite sure where to start.

          To help you along your journey, we’ve outlined below four curated collections geared towards momentum-building action and advice perfectly paired with your organization’s current stage of resilience.

        • I want to learn more about Resilience

        • We’re just getting started with our resilience program

        • We’re seeking to optimize & mature our resilience program

        • I’m a Resilience Professional seeking to further develop my skills

  • Company
        • About Bryghtpath

        • Our Core Values

        • Meet our Team

        • About Bryghtpath
          • Case Studies & Results
          • Certifications and Awards
          • Contact Bryghtpath
          • Contract Vehicles
          • Media & Professional Appearances
          • Our Clients
          • Our Proven Process
          • Security & Compliance
          • Strategic Partners
          • Work with Us
  • Capabilities
        • Our Capabilities
        • We help your organization strategically navigate uncertainty and disruption.

        • Case Studies & Results

        • Business Continuity as a Service

        • Business Continuity
          • Business Continuity - Overview
          • Business Continuity as a Service (BCaaS)
          • Business Continuity Software
          • Coaching
          • IT Disaster Recovery
          • Resiliency Diagnosis®️
        • Crisis Management
          • Crisis Management - Overview
          • Crisis Communications
          • Crisis Exercises
          • Cyber Crisis Exercises
          • Cyber Incident Response Planning
          • Crisis Playbook®️
          • Global Security Operations Center (GSOC)
          • Resiliency Diagnosis®️
        • Other Capabilities
          • Intelligence & Global Security Consulting
          • Speaking
          • Training
  • Courses & Training
        • Courses & Training

          We’ve created a number of free and premium courses that have helped thousands improve their skills, build more resilient organizations, and lead through organizations through difficult critical moments successfully.

        • Coaching
          • 1-on-1 Coaching Call
          • Private Backchannel
          • Private Coaching Program
        • Free Intro Courses
          • Overview
          • Business Continuity 101
          • Crisis Communications 101
          • Crisis Management 101
        • Premium Courses
          • Overview
          • Custom Training
          • 5-Day Business Continuity Accelerator
          • Communicating in the Critical Moment
          • Crisis Management Academy®️
          • Preparing for Careers in Resilience
  • Expertise
        • Our Expertise
        • Here at Bryghtpath, in our core values, we state that we are humbly confident in our resiliency expertise.

          We write, publish, speak, and train others constantly – striving to share our thought leadership publicly to advance our industry and exercise our curiosity by interacting with other leaders in our practice domains.

        • Ultimate Guide to Business Continuity

        • Ultimate Guide to Crisis Management

        • Case Studies & Results

        • Free Resources & Frameworks
          • Overview - Free Resources
          • Bryghtpath Frameworks
            • Bryghtpath Business Continuity Lifecycle
            • Bryghtpath Crisis Management Framework
            • Bryghtpath Exercise Maturity Model
            • Bryghtpath Global Security Framework
            • Bryghtpath Long-Term Recovery Framework
            • Bryghtpath Professional Reading List
            • Bryghtpath Workplace Violence & Threat Management Toolkit
          • Resiliency Professionals Facebook Group
          • Resource Library
          • Webinars & Videos
          • Whitepapers & Reports
        • Our Thoughts & Insights
          • Articles
          • Lead Through Disruption. Stay Ahead with Bryghtpath.
          • Managing Uncertainty Podcast
          • Media & Professional Appearances
          • YouTube Channel
        • Whitepapers & Reports
          • Global Security Operations Centers & Resilience
          • Managing the Whole Crisis: The Ransomware Challenge
          • Mastering Uncertainty: Strengthening Organizational Resilience
          • Social Activism Campaigns
          • The Resilience Roadmap: 250 Ways to Fortify your Business against Disruption
  • Industries
        • Our Industry Expertise

          Bryghtpath has extensive experience in a number of industries working with clients of all sizes, geographical locations, and business models. As a team, we possess, deep global operating experience on every continent around the world.

        • Industries Overview

        • Case Studies

        • Start your Journey

        • Education

          Education Icon
        • Finance

          Financial Services 800x800
        • Government

          Government Icon
        • Healthcare

          Healthcare Icon 800x800
        • Hospitality & Leisure

          Hospitality & Leisure Industry Icon 800x800
        • Life Sciences

          Life Sciences 800x800
        • Logistics

          Transportation & Logistics Industry Icon 800x800
        • Manufacturing

          Manufacturing Industry Icon 800x800
        • Non-Profits

          Non-Profit Industry Icon 800x800
        • Retail

          Retail Industry Icon 800x800
        • Tech & Media

          Communications Industry Icon 800x800
        • Utilities

          Power & Utilities Icon
  • Products
        • Our Products

          College Classroom - Mature Teacher
        • Crisis Playbook™️

        • Exercise in a Box™️

        • Exercise in a Day™️

        • Books
          • From Panic to Poise: Crisis Management in the Modern World
          • The Continuity Code: Mastering Business Resilience
        • Crisis Playbook™️
          • Overview
          • Active Shooter Plan
          • Emergency Response Guide
          • Fatality
          • Food/Product Recall
          • Protest
          • Violent Attack
        • Maturity Models
          • Overview
          • ASIS Workplace Violence and Active Assailant
          • FFEIC Maturity Model – Business Continuity
          • ISO 22301 – Business Continuity
          • ISO 22361 – Crisis Management
          • ISO 27031 - IT Disaster Recovery
          • NIST 800-53 Contingency Planning Maturity Model
        • Templates & More
          • After-Action Process & Templates
          • Awareness Collateral
          • Business Continuity Plan Templates
          • Crisis Management Plan Templates
          • Disaster Recovery Plan Templates
          • Job Descriptions
  •  

Mobile Menu

  • Start
  • Company
    • About Bryghtpath
      • Case Studies & Results
      • Certifications and Awards
      • Contact Bryghtpath
      • Contract Vehicles
      • Media & Professional Appearances
      • Our Clients
      • Our Proven Process
      • Security & Compliance
      • Strategic Partners
      • Work with Us
  • Capabilities
    • Our Capabilities
    • Business Continuity
      • Business Continuity – Overview
      • Business Continuity as a Service (BCaaS)
      • Business Continuity Software
      • Coaching
      • IT Disaster Recovery
      • Resiliency Diagnosis®️
    • Crisis Management
      • Crisis Management – Overview
      • Crisis Communications
      • Crisis Exercises
      • Cyber Crisis Exercises
      • Cyber Incident Response Planning
      • Crisis Playbook®️
      • Global Security Operations Center (GSOC)
      • Resiliency Diagnosis®️
    • Other Capabilities
      • Intelligence & Global Security Consulting
      • Speaking
      • Training
  • Courses & Training
    • Coaching
      • 1-on-1 Coaching Call
      • Private Backchannel
      • Private Coaching Program
    • Free Intro Courses
      • Overview
      • Business Continuity 101
      • Crisis Communications 101
      • Crisis Management 101
    • Premium Courses
      • Overview
      • Custom Training
      • 5-Day Business Continuity Accelerator
      • Communicating in the Critical Moment
      • Crisis Management Academy®️
      • Preparing for Careers in Resilience
  • Expertise
    • Our Expertise
    • Our Thoughts & Insights
      • Articles
      • Lead Through Disruption. Stay Ahead with Bryghtpath.
      • Managing Uncertainty Podcast
      • Media & Professional Appearances
      • YouTube Channel
    • Free Resources & Frameworks
      • Overview – Free Resources
      • Bryghtpath Frameworks
        • Bryghtpath Business Continuity Lifecycle
        • Bryghtpath Crisis Management Framework
        • Bryghtpath Exercise Maturity Model
        • Bryghtpath Global Security Framework
        • Bryghtpath Long-Term Recovery Framework
        • Bryghtpath Professional Reading List
        • Bryghtpath Workplace Violence & Threat Management Toolkit
      • Resiliency Professionals Facebook Group
      • Resource Library
      • Webinars & Videos
      • Whitepapers & Reports
    • Whitepapers & Reports
      • Global Security Operations Centers & Resilience
      • Managing the Whole Crisis: The Ransomware Challenge
      • Mastering Uncertainty: Strengthening Organizational Resilience
      • Social Activism Campaigns
      • The Resilience Roadmap: 250 Ways to Fortify your Business against Disruption
  • Industries
  • Products
    • Books
      • From Panic to Poise: Crisis Management in the Modern World
      • The Continuity Code: Mastering Business Resilience
    • Crisis Playbook™️
      • Overview
      • Active Shooter Plan
      • Emergency Response Guide
      • Fatality
      • Food/Product Recall
      • Protest
      • Violent Attack
    • Maturity Models
      • Overview
      • ASIS Workplace Violence and Active Assailant
      • FFEIC Maturity Model – Business Continuity
      • ISO 22301 – Business Continuity
      • ISO 22361 – Crisis Management
      • ISO 27031 – IT Disaster Recovery
      • NIST 800-53 Contingency Planning Maturity Model
    • Templates & More
      • After-Action Process & Templates
      • Awareness Collateral
      • Business Continuity Plan Templates
      • Crisis Management Plan Templates
      • Disaster Recovery Plan Templates
      • Job Descriptions
  •  

Managing Uncertainty Podcast – Episode #117: What Successful Crisis Management Looks Like Internally

You are here: Home / Episode / Managing Uncertainty Podcast – Episode #117: What Successful Crisis Management Looks Like Internally
Managing Uncertainty Website Graphic

August 9, 2021 By //  by Bryan Strawser

 Managing Uncertainty Podcast - Episode #117: What Successful Crisis Management Looks Like Internally
Managing Uncertainty
Managing Uncertainty Podcast - Episode #117: What Successful Crisis Management Looks Like Internally
icon-loader Managing Uncertainty Podcast - Episode #117: What Successful Crisis Management Looks Like Internally
00:00 / 00:12:05
Apple Podcasts Stitcher
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:12:05

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser discusses what successful crisis management looks like inside of an organization – including some philosophy about how the team at Bryghtpath thinks about leading in a crisis.

Related Episodes & Blog Posts

  • Blog Post: How 3 companies have managed the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Blog Post: The Importance of Having a Crisis Communications Strategy
  • Episode #59: All roads lead to one – Crisis Management Framework
  • Episode #88: What is the goal of crisis management?
  • Episode #93: Crisis Management Plans – What your executives really want
  • Episode #96: Crisis leadership in the time of Coronavirus

WAYlTTcSWclkeF68_kk1yRqwLwHjcCH2N7Zryifeshn-r77UHUUE0moHk-UehUjkC-V3KQGy-qU6edOZdD0xZzY=s0 Managing Uncertainty Podcast - Episode #117: What Successful Crisis Management Looks Like Internally

Episode Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath. And this week, I want to talk a little bit about crisis management philosophy.

I want to hit on really two big topics. One is, as we’re demonstrating to clients in a lot of conversations, what does successful crisis management look like? When you’re inside of a company and you’re watching the company react to a crisis situation and go on to manage that crisis well, whether it’s an IT disruption, it’s a natural disaster like a hurricane, a violent attack like an active assailant, or active shooter situation or it’s a reputational crisis, what does that successful crisis management effort look like inside of a company?

The second is I want to talk a little bit about our crisis management philosophy here at Bryghtpath, how we think about structuring crisis management programs and leading through crisis situations. I’m going to have kind of five key points to make as we talk about that.

So let’s start by talking about what successful crisis management looks like. So, again, you’re inside of a company and you’re watching the company react to a crisis and if you’re managing it well, there are some core key factors that you’re going to see. There’s going to be some key things that will really stand out to you.

The first one is rapid response. The company is going to quickly move to react to the situation. And if they can, if it is a situation where they can prepare for it, if they can be on the left side of the boom, as Harvard professor Juliette Kayyem likes to say, like a hurricane where you know it’s coming, you have three, four, five, maybe even seven days to prepare for that, you’re going to position that response in advance of that incoming storm so you can move as quickly as you can. But no matter what the crisis is, you’re going to see the company respond rapidly. They’re going to get geared up and they’re going to activate their crisis process and they’re going to start to prepare and react.

The second thing you’ll see is that inside of the organization, there are clear roles and responsibilities. Again, there are clear roles and responsibilities. Someone is in charge of the response, the incident leader or incident commander if you want to use an incident command system phrase from ICS, but somebody is leading and coordinating this process. There’s an escalation path to be able to make those other decisions, but everyone understands what their roles and responsibilities are because they’ve been defined in the crisis management framework and plan.

The next thing you’ll see is good cross-functional coordination, that there’s a cross-functional crisis management team. It might be called something else. It might be called a committee or task force. It might just be your executive team in a medium-sized organization, but there is a good cross-functional team and level of coordination that cuts across silos in the organization.

The next one is that there are predefined decision-making rights, that not every decision has to be escalated to the CEO or the board for approval before it can be implemented, and certainly some things have to do that. But there are clear sets of decision-making rights that have been appropriately delegated in the organization to react and respond to and recover from a crisis.

The next is you will see a clear path of escalation for decisions. We will see that certain decisions need to be escalated. It might be about activating the crisis team. We’re declaring this as a crisis or as a disaster. It might be the commitment of capital or expense or headcount resources. It might be the escalation path to approve messaging that needs to go outside of the organization. Whatever that escalation is, that path has been defined, and it is clear who those decision-makers are.

This also means that there’s a clear path to say what is a crisis and activate the appropriate crisis processes, that it’s not something that’s buried down within the organization where you’re dealing with an IT incident, for example, that has broad impact on the organization, and we don’t start looking at that as a crisis situation, or at least a path to make it a crisis.

The next is that you will see that there is a single source of truth internal to the organization. This might be that you know you’re going to get an email at 3:00 PM every day updating you on the situation. That’s the single source of truth. That’s the reporting that you’re going to receive. It might be that you have a command center or an operation center where that’s where the source of truth is up on the displays and that they’re publishing some kind of product, or you can go to a page on your intranet and pull the current status. But there’s one single source of truth about what’s going on.

Next is that there’s planned communication products, messages, and templates. So this kind of ties to the previous one about having a single source of truth internally, but there are communication products and messaging and a strategy around communicating that is tied to this crisis. You might be using Microsoft Teams or Slack internally, or another collaboration platform. You might be using email, you might have an intranet. You may have all of these things and the crisis process, that source of truth, is communicating in a consistent way with consistently appropriately branded templates across all of those platforms.

Lastly, the thing you’ll see is that there is a documented and repeatable process within the organization. There is a crisis management plan, and it’s not 300 pages long and sits in a binder on the shelf, but it is something that people use. And after the crisis that there’s an after-action process that reviews what went well and what didn’t, and that gets incorporated into the next revisions of that plan.

So, again, rapid response, clear roles and responsibilities during an incident or crisis, cross-functional coordination cutting across silos, predefined decision-making rights, a clear path of escalation for decisions, a single source of truth internally to the organization, planned communication products, messages and templates, a documented and repeatable process, and an after-action process that captures lessons learned and leads you to further mature your plans.

With those things in mind, let’s talk just a little bit about the crisis management leadership philosophy that when you’re in the moment when you’re doing those things that we just talked about, to keep in mind.

The first is one of our philosophical principles of crisis management here at Bryghtpath is to over-respond to the situation, but don’t overreact. What we’re saying here is I want you to, when you have a crisis, to surge your resources, surge awareness at the start of that situation because it’s easier to subtract these things later on. It’s a lot harder to add them as the situation evolves.

A great example of this was back in my retail crisis management days, we had a broad crisis management team, including lawyers. When I got a hurricane going on in the Southeast and we’re responding to that, well, everyone comes to those first calls, including the lawyers. But two calls in, I don’t need the lawyers in a hurricane. Pretty well-defined process, not a lot of legal issues come up, I don’t need them to be at the table and on every call. I know that I can call them for resources and assistance as necessary. They’re still going to get the communication, they’re still going to get that single source of truth, but I don’t necessarily need them at the table. Now they’re certainly welcome to be there if they want, I don’t necessarily need them to be there. So, again, we over-respond and we surge the resources and awareness at the start. We subtract them later on.

The second thing is to get the right people into the right room to make the right informed decisions. That is at the core of how to work through a crisis situation where you’re cutting across silos in a collaborative way. This is where a lot of companies, a lot of organizations just over-complicate the entire process. This is at the core of crisis management. I need to get the right cross-functional leadership group into the right room, physical, virtual, or both, with the right information to make the best possible informed decisions. Anything else over-complicates this process. We’ve got to get this right before we can get the rest right.

The third philosophical principle is to leverage your culture as a force multiplier. Find ways to expedite preparedness, response, and recovery within the organization and connect this to your strategic business objectives.

Our fourth philosophical principle here is that complex plans do not equate to a better response or a better outcome. A 300-page plan in a three-ring binder is going to sit on the shelf and not get used in almost every circumstance. Keep things simple. Keep the process simple. You need leaders across your organization at every level to understand that plan, to understand their roles and responsibilities, to understand their decision-making rights, to understand how to escalate a decision or part of the situation. Again, what we’re trying to do is get the right people into the right room with the right information to make the best possible informed decisions. Complex plans don’t help us do that so keep your plans as simple as you can to achieve your objectives.

Lastly, a crisis management team is a team. It’s a team. A crisis manager team, like any team in your organization, has to be engaged regularly. They need to meet regularly. They need to train together. They need to exercise together. They need to share their knowledge and experience, and they need to be partners. They need to have trust in each other, and you can’t do that if you’re only pulling them together when you have a crisis. You can’t do that if you’re only pulling them together once a year to tick off the box that you’ve had an exercise. They need regular engagement so hold regular meetings with your crisis management team. Take them through drills and exercises to make sure they’re prepared and help them build muscle memory through those exercises so that when the moment comes and the critical moment strikes, they’re ready for that challenge to support you and your business.

That’s it for this edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. We’ll be back next week with another new episode. Be well.

 

Tag: Bryan Strawser, bryghtpath, bryghtpath llc, Business Continuity, crisis consultant, crisis leadership, crisis management, crisis management consultant, Managing Uncertainty, managing uncertainty podcastPodcast: Managing Uncertainty

About Bryan Strawser

Bryan Strawser is Founder, Principal, and Chief Executive at Bryghtpath LLC, a strategic advisory firm he founded in 2014. He has more than twenty-five years of experience in the areas of, business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis management, enterprise risk, intelligence, and crisis communications.

At Bryghtpath, Bryan leads a team of experts that offer strategic counsel and support to the world’s leading brands, public sector agencies, and nonprofit organizations to strategically navigate uncertainty and disruption.

Learn more about Bryan at this link.

Footer

Contact

BRYGHTPATH LLC
+1.612.235.6435

PO Box 131416
Saint Paul, MN 55113
USA


contact@bryghtpath.com

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Our Capabilities

  • Business Continuity
    • Business Continuity as a Service (BCaaS)
    • Business Continuity Software
    • Coaching
    • IT Disaster Recovery Consulting Services
    • Resiliency Diagnosis®️
  • Crisis Communications
  • Crisis Management
    • Crisis Exercises
    • Cyber Crisis Exercises
    • Cyber Incident Response Planning
    • Global Security Operations Center (GSOC)
  • Speaking
  • Training

Our Free Courses

Business Continuity 101

Crisis Communications 101

Crisis Management 101

Our Premium Courses

5-Day Business Continuity Accelerator

Communicating in the Critical Moment

Crisis Management Academy®️

Preparing for Careers in Resilience

Our Products

After-Action Templates

Books

Business Continuity Plan Templates

Communications & Awareness Collateral Packages

Crisis Plan Templates

Crisis Playbook®

Disaster Recovery Templates

Exercise in a Box®

Exercise in a Day®

Maturity Models

Ready-Made Crisis Plans

Resilience Job Descriptions

Pre-made Processes & Templates

Site Footer

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


Bryghtpath®, Crisis Management Academy®, Crisis Playbook®, Exercise in a Box®, Exercise in a Day®, Resiliency Diagnosis®, Resilience Operating Model™
and their respective logos are registered trademarks of Bryghtpath LLC in the United States and other countries.


About Bryghtpath LLC | Disclaimer | Privacy | Status Page | Terms of Use

Proudly powered by Mai Theme, the Genesis Framework, and Wordpress.