Last Wednesday Kenon Brown came in and talked to us about organizational crisis management. Mr. Brown is in his second year of pursuing his Ph.D.
We first started out by talking about the BP Oil Spill and the impact it had on our country and Gulf Coast lines. The oil spill stretched 320 miles of the Louisiana Shoreline and all the way down to Destin. I could see the affects of the oil spill because I live in Orange Beach, Al and we were one of the places that was hit hard by this spill. We also talked about the stress that it caused on the different communities around the shorelines. We said that it causes numerous anxiety, stress, and health problems for the people. The fishing industry also took a hard hit. The reaction of the CEO of BP acted like it was not his fault and did not take the blame. When the stepped down, the person who took over, also took over the blame and started trying to make amends. In the end the United States government blamed BP responsible for the oil spill.
Next we talked about the definition of crisis? A crisis is a perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of stakeholders and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes. A crisis is also unexpected. You never know when a crisis is going to arise and it can spring up at any moment. We had know idea that the BP Oil Spill, Katrina, or any other natural disasters were going to happen.
We also talked about the importance of crisis management. Here are the things to keep in mind:
1. Value of reputations
2. Stakeholders activism (very important)
3. Communication technology (all correct information, and get it fast)
4. Broader view of crises
5. Negligent failure to plan
The last thing that we talked about is the best practices in crisis management
• Process approaches and policy departments
• Pre-event planning (we need to plan for these things, so when they arise we are not in total shock.)
• Partnerships with the public
• Listen to the public’s concerns and understand the audience
• Honestly, candor, and openness
• Collaborate and coordinate with credible sources
• Meet the needs of the media and remain accessible
• Communicate with compassion, concern and empathy
• Accept, uncertainty, and ambiguity
• Message of self-efficacy
The last thing that we did in class was play out crisis scenarios. We had to come up with a message to tell the media, and make a client look in a good light. Even though the situation they might be in are bad. After we came up those messages we had breaking new, where get received another message where something else went wrong. It was fun getting to play out these scenarios because some of these could actually happen.
My question to the class is: have any of you ever been involved in a crisis? If so what did you do to prevent and/or help the situation.
By: Reed Ellis
Monday, April 18, 2011
Managing a Crisis
During class Wednesday, Kenon Brown gave a presentation on organizational crisis management. He first discussed the recent BP Oil Spill, providing an example of lack of crisis management preparation. A crisis is a perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of stakeholders and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes. Crisis management is vital to all organizations. Lack of preparation or an inappropriate response to crisis can negatively effect the reputation of the organization and can cause stakeholders to show negative criticism towards the organization. There are four steps to the ongoing process of crisis management: mitigation & prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. When faced with a crisis, there are a number of practices an organization can use to guarantee the best outcome. The organization must first have a plan in response to given situations, and must then act on that plan. Strong partnerships with the public and media can help organizations receive positive criticism while dealing with the crisis. Meeting the public’s needs with honesty and openness can help build the organization’s credibility.
After discussing crisis management, its process, and the best practices when dealing with crisis management, Mr. Brown divided the class into groups for an activity. Each group was given a situation when organizations were forced to deal with crisis management. We were asked to determine what each organization should do in response to the crisis it was dealing with. Our group was given an example of a crisis that Regions Bank was faced with. The CAO of Regions was indicted on charges of fraud. Regions claimed they had no knowledge of this and that he acted alone. In response, our group chose to explain that it was an ongoing investigation and made no comments about the CAO at the time. After each group announced their statement or plan of action to deal with their particular crisis, we were given new information about the crisis, forcing each group to rethink their proposal. It turned out that the CAO of Regions was framed by a member of the SEC who was previously fired from Regions for stealing funds. Have you been a part of an organization that was forced to deal with a crisis management situation? If so, was the organization prepared for the situation? What did the organization do in response to the situation?
By: Drew Snider
After discussing crisis management, its process, and the best practices when dealing with crisis management, Mr. Brown divided the class into groups for an activity. Each group was given a situation when organizations were forced to deal with crisis management. We were asked to determine what each organization should do in response to the crisis it was dealing with. Our group was given an example of a crisis that Regions Bank was faced with. The CAO of Regions was indicted on charges of fraud. Regions claimed they had no knowledge of this and that he acted alone. In response, our group chose to explain that it was an ongoing investigation and made no comments about the CAO at the time. After each group announced their statement or plan of action to deal with their particular crisis, we were given new information about the crisis, forcing each group to rethink their proposal. It turned out that the CAO of Regions was framed by a member of the SEC who was previously fired from Regions for stealing funds. Have you been a part of an organization that was forced to deal with a crisis management situation? If so, was the organization prepared for the situation? What did the organization do in response to the situation?
By: Drew Snider
Monday, April 11, 2011
Desiring Ethics To Be Real in the Business World
Ethics are an individual’s moral principles. Companies incorporate ethics into their corporate profile through mission statements and/or code of values. However the meaning of ethics is hard to pin down. When someone asks you what are ethics you may replay, “Ethics are what my gut tell me is right or wrong." or “Ethics are what the law requires” or “Ethics are what society views as appropriate behavior”. There are many views of what ethics are and this was reflected in subjects of the Inside Job. As a class we were angry after watching the movie but the “economic experts” that contributed to the US economic crisis felt they did nothing wrong. Their moral principles, we view as flawed, told them they were profiting so what was the problem. The economic crisis destroyed the credibility of corporations along with our trust in ethics. After watching the movie I feel that companies disregard their code of values. So why are ethics important if companies simply disregard them? Ethics are important because they might be a step to help us out of the economic crisis. Ethics help us organize our activities, create a sense of community, remind people what is important, create positive role models for others to follow, and keep people in line. If companies can follow their code of values then public trust can be regained. People like those who are strong and committed to their values.
In life we find ourselves in many different situations that require us to make difficult moral choices. The one that most people find themselves in is “having a life” versus “making a living”. How do you choose? You use your moral code as a guide. No choice is easy. The choices the subjects of the Inside Job made upset us and changed our lives but no matter our feelings the choice was not easy. They gave up apart of themselves when they made their choices. Our belief system, our ethics, are different from theirs and allows us to come up with a better decision. But as we discussed in class, we were not in their shoes so how do we really know what choice we would have made. It is easy to say you would stick to your ethics when you are not faced with a decision. In the book there was a survey of MBA that demonstrates how easy ethics can change. “MBA students enter B-school with relatively idealistic ambitions, such as to create quality products and be of service to consumers. By they time they graduate, though, these goals have taken a back seat to such priorities as boosting their company’s share price”. How do we prevent this, how do we keep our ethics intact?
We also discussed in class who is the blame, who do we hold accountable. As an individualistic society we like to blame individuals but by doing this sometimes we miss the larger forces at work. Sometimes there is no individual to blame. Especially when powerful organizations can control who we blame. Organizations like to acquire power and scatter accountability thus making it difficult to assign blame and hold people accountable because we can’t find who really did it. Organizations say, “it was done in the name of__(inset political ploy here)___”. We should stop trying to find someone to blame because as the movie showed the “economic experts” are not going to jail, they are getting better jobs. The public needs to start talking about the importance of ethics. Organizations need to recognize how important they are and encourage their employees to follow their own morals and the company’s code. Really commit to their ethics and stop pretending they are committed. But how do you talk about ethics when they are hard to spell out? A few questions I believe are important to ask are: How do you justify or excuse your own actions? Do you blame or take responsibility? Are ethics only important when someone is watching or holding you accountable?
Amanda Bjorklund
In life we find ourselves in many different situations that require us to make difficult moral choices. The one that most people find themselves in is “having a life” versus “making a living”. How do you choose? You use your moral code as a guide. No choice is easy. The choices the subjects of the Inside Job made upset us and changed our lives but no matter our feelings the choice was not easy. They gave up apart of themselves when they made their choices. Our belief system, our ethics, are different from theirs and allows us to come up with a better decision. But as we discussed in class, we were not in their shoes so how do we really know what choice we would have made. It is easy to say you would stick to your ethics when you are not faced with a decision. In the book there was a survey of MBA that demonstrates how easy ethics can change. “MBA students enter B-school with relatively idealistic ambitions, such as to create quality products and be of service to consumers. By they time they graduate, though, these goals have taken a back seat to such priorities as boosting their company’s share price”. How do we prevent this, how do we keep our ethics intact?
We also discussed in class who is the blame, who do we hold accountable. As an individualistic society we like to blame individuals but by doing this sometimes we miss the larger forces at work. Sometimes there is no individual to blame. Especially when powerful organizations can control who we blame. Organizations like to acquire power and scatter accountability thus making it difficult to assign blame and hold people accountable because we can’t find who really did it. Organizations say, “it was done in the name of__(inset political ploy here)___”. We should stop trying to find someone to blame because as the movie showed the “economic experts” are not going to jail, they are getting better jobs. The public needs to start talking about the importance of ethics. Organizations need to recognize how important they are and encourage their employees to follow their own morals and the company’s code. Really commit to their ethics and stop pretending they are committed. But how do you talk about ethics when they are hard to spell out? A few questions I believe are important to ask are: How do you justify or excuse your own actions? Do you blame or take responsibility? Are ethics only important when someone is watching or holding you accountable?
Amanda Bjorklund
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
To Change Or Not To Change…
We read Chapter 11 “Organizational Change and Change-Related Communication” to prepare for class on Monday and apply the concepts we had read to the movie Inside Job. Our textbook defines change as “ the process by which alteration occurs in the structure and function of a social system; the difference between two or more successive conditions, states, or moments of time; or, a succession of differences in time within a persisting identity.” Our book explains a model of change as suggested by Kert Lewin that makes it easy to apply to organizations: see that there is a need, come up with a plan for action, imply that new plan, and make that new plan a routine. It seems so easy, right?! If change seems this easy then why is implementing a change in routine so difficult to grasp in organizations?
Change is the result of communication. Lewin’s model involves COMMUNICATING a need for change, COMUNICATING a plan, and COMMUNICATING that new plan and making it happen by implementing it throughout the organization. Communication is very important to change because without it, there would be no change. What would it be like with no change? Boring. Same routine every day, every week, every month.
Communicating the change to different people involved with the organization is very important. Our book explains that communication must be designed around whom the change is being communicated to. For example, if a new plan for change is being implemented in the organization and they are letting the employees know then they might tell the facts, hold a meeting where the groups of employees are all present, and target the important information to the supervisors. Where is the stakeholders are being informed then it might be on a “need to know basis” and information may be released often enough to keep participation equal. There are six dimensions of change: degree, type, intentionality, timing, impetus, and control. All of these are important to successfully implementing change. To whether the degree of change is major/minor or when to execute the new plan for change, each dimension serves as an important role for successful change. Successful change is then measured by whether it is accepted, if the goals of the organization were fulfilled, and what the consequences were of the new change and how those are managed within the organization.
In class, we watched Inside Job, which is about events that happened over time to result in our current economic crisis. Different “key players” in the banking industry were interviewed and they talked about their roles or the roles of others in the banking industry to result in this crisis. The information that was so shocking to me was the amount that the CEO’s and other executives in the banking industry take home each year when our economy was dwindling down. Executives were said to have several airplanes, helicopters, yachts, vacation homes, etc. Is all this necessary? We were given a note sheet to keep track of interesting facts and answer questions that required us to apply concepts from Chapter 11 to this movie.
What do you think could have been done to implement change in the banking industry to lessen the crisis that we are currently in? Are organizations that you are a part of communicating change effectively? If not, what do you think they can do to change the way they communicate change to make the process of implementing new plans more effective?
By: Randi Bellew
Change is the result of communication. Lewin’s model involves COMMUNICATING a need for change, COMUNICATING a plan, and COMMUNICATING that new plan and making it happen by implementing it throughout the organization. Communication is very important to change because without it, there would be no change. What would it be like with no change? Boring. Same routine every day, every week, every month.
Communicating the change to different people involved with the organization is very important. Our book explains that communication must be designed around whom the change is being communicated to. For example, if a new plan for change is being implemented in the organization and they are letting the employees know then they might tell the facts, hold a meeting where the groups of employees are all present, and target the important information to the supervisors. Where is the stakeholders are being informed then it might be on a “need to know basis” and information may be released often enough to keep participation equal. There are six dimensions of change: degree, type, intentionality, timing, impetus, and control. All of these are important to successfully implementing change. To whether the degree of change is major/minor or when to execute the new plan for change, each dimension serves as an important role for successful change. Successful change is then measured by whether it is accepted, if the goals of the organization were fulfilled, and what the consequences were of the new change and how those are managed within the organization.
In class, we watched Inside Job, which is about events that happened over time to result in our current economic crisis. Different “key players” in the banking industry were interviewed and they talked about their roles or the roles of others in the banking industry to result in this crisis. The information that was so shocking to me was the amount that the CEO’s and other executives in the banking industry take home each year when our economy was dwindling down. Executives were said to have several airplanes, helicopters, yachts, vacation homes, etc. Is all this necessary? We were given a note sheet to keep track of interesting facts and answer questions that required us to apply concepts from Chapter 11 to this movie.
What do you think could have been done to implement change in the banking industry to lessen the crisis that we are currently in? Are organizations that you are a part of communicating change effectively? If not, what do you think they can do to change the way they communicate change to make the process of implementing new plans more effective?
By: Randi Bellew
Bully or Be Bullied
We started off class by defining workplace bullying. The definition of workplace bullying according to our slides; repeated health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following traits: verbal abuse, offensive conduct, and/or work interference. I was thinking this was more of someone just messing with another person in a joking matter, not as someone intentionally trying to harass someone. Next, we were asked if we had ever been bullied, the majority of the class had been bullied and some were in jobs while most appeared to be during high school or even younger. Then, we were asked if we had ever been the bully, there were still a lot of people that had but not quite as many as those that had been bullied. The fact that there were so many that had been both bullied and the bully surprised me especially since I assume that most were the ones being bullied before they bullied someone else. If we know what it feels like to be in that situation then why would we put someone else in the same or even worse situation?
In class it seemed that most of the women in class agreed that they would not say anything to the one bullying them, while most of the men said they would confront the person. Regardless of the reason women are targeted more than men it is important to stop bullying. There can be severe psychological and physical health issues and even death from bullying. Some people have even committed suicide over bullying like the example we were given when two adults bullied a young girl over MySpace. According to several videos we watched it is obvious to see that bullying is happening and something needs to be done about it. So what would you do if you were being bullied or knew someone that was? If you were being bullied how would you handle it, would you confront the person even if it was your boss?
By: Zachary McCoy
In class it seemed that most of the women in class agreed that they would not say anything to the one bullying them, while most of the men said they would confront the person. Regardless of the reason women are targeted more than men it is important to stop bullying. There can be severe psychological and physical health issues and even death from bullying. Some people have even committed suicide over bullying like the example we were given when two adults bullied a young girl over MySpace. According to several videos we watched it is obvious to see that bullying is happening and something needs to be done about it. So what would you do if you were being bullied or knew someone that was? If you were being bullied how would you handle it, would you confront the person even if it was your boss?
By: Zachary McCoy
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