CRISIS LEADERSHIP: Planning for the Unthinkable, by Ian I Mitroff.

CRISIS LEADERSHIP:
PLANNING FOR THE UNTHINKABLE
by Ian I. Mitroff

“IT SHOULDN'T TAKE A CRISIS TO CREATE A LEADER.

“From product defects to environmental disasters-almost every day a new
corporate crisis
hits the headlines. In the majority of cases the results arc disastrous: costly and
time-consuming efforts to establish a positive public image can be wiped out in
seconds.
The inadequate, and often damaging, response of American business to such
adversity
proves that we don't need better crisis management - we need crisis leadership.

“Ian Mitroff offers a new proactive approach that focuses on doing everything
humanly
possible to prevent crises before they happen, rather then merely putting the best
possible
spin on the aftermath. In easy-to-read, accessible language, Mitroff presents the
critical, key
lessons that will help managers lead the organization through a major crisis.”

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HIGHLIGHTS

- Focuses on the multitude of factors and forces that you need to consider
to
implement
effective, proactive leadership.
- Shows how various corporate functions-such as legal, security, manu.
facturing,
finance,
and public affairs-work together to respond to crises and minimize their occurrence
and
impact on the organization.
- Offers a truly integrated and systematic approach based on a combination
of
models,
including a comprehensive look at what happens before, during, and after a crisis.
- Discusses the extreme importance of Emotional IQ in handling of,
respond. ing
to,
and
preparing for any crisis.
- Reports on the latest findings from new national surveys.

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EXCERPT FROM THE PREFACE

“THIS BOOK HAS THREE MAJOR OBJECTIVES:
1. To explain what effective Crisis Leadership is;
2. To explain why effective Crisis Leadership requires organizations that are
effective, and
vice versa; and,
3. To present a compact and integrated model of human behavior that applies
equally to
individuals and to organizations.

“Today's organizations are the result of a distinct and specific set of historical
forces. These
forces have combined to produce organizations that are highly fragmented. This
fragmentation affects every aspect of their operations.

“Despite the fact that we live in a world where increasingly everything interacts with
everything else, we persist in designing and managing organizations as if they
were
machines. Even worse, we are managing extremely complex and highly interactive
systems
as if they were simple machines.

“Machines have the quintessential property that they can be broken apart into
independent
components. For instance, when corporate functions such as Legal, Public Affairs,
Finance,
Marketing, and Production are put into self-standing departments with little or no
substantial
contact between them, then we are acting as if organizations are machines. We
also do this
when different products and geographical regions are put into different operating
divisions
and units. The result is that most organizations still are run as if they were nothing
more than
independent, self-standing silos, i.e., machines. This is the case despite the fact
that years of
research have demonstrated unequivocally the superiority of alternate ways of
designing and
managing organizations.

“All of this flies sharply in the face of globalization. Traditional geographic time
zones and
political boundaries are irrelevant. To take but one example, information flows freely
across
countries and organizational units according to its own “logic” and pace. For
another,
whether they start in a particular region of the globe, or with a particular product or
brand, all
crises quickly become global. That is, they quickly escalate to affect the home
organization
and major brands.

“On every front of our existence, we have produced a world that is a complex,
interconnected,
and interdependent system. There are no aspects of our lives that are not firmly
planted in
the Systems Age.

“One cannot emphasize too strongly that the fundamental problem is that we are
trying to
manage the problems of the Systems Age with a Machine Age mentality. As
Albert Einstein
observed over fifty years ago, the same mentality that is responsible for creating
our initial
problems in the first place cannot be used to solve them in the second place. I
would go even
further: the same mentality that created our problems cannot be used to formulate,
or state,
them correctly, let alone solve them.

“In large measure, our problem is caused also by the fact that our educational
system is as
fragmented as the organizations we have constructed. In fact, the organizations
directly
reflect what we teach and how we teach it. For instance, despite the fact that the
technical
and the human aspects of all problems are completely intertwined, we act as if
they are
independent can be contained and managed in separate departments or
disciplines.
Indeed, we persist in teaching scientific, technical, and human subjects in
altogether
separate university departments. In this sense, our educational system is a
significant part of
the problem we face. It is certainly not the solution.

“Walk into almost any organization today. If it even has a Crisis Management, not
to mention
a Crisis Leadership, function or program, then more likely than not it will be highly
fragmented. The responsibilities for Crisis Management will be split among myriad
corporate functions such as Legal, Security, Manufacturing, Finance, and Public
Affairs. The
fragmented nature of Crisis Management directly reflects how we have designed
organizations.

“For years, I have taught courses in individual and organizational behavior. I have
also taught
courses in Crisis Management and critical thinking. No matter what the particular
course,
however, I have attempted to integrate the concepts that are used in each of them.

“Far too many courses in individual and organizational behavior are taught as if the
various
topics are independent of one another. As a result, very few texts provide a
framework that
shows how, where, and why all of the topics fit together as an whole. This lack of
integration
prevents students from forming an integrative “roadmap” of the material. The result
is that
students are unable to see how the various topics relate to one another. This also
means that
they are unable to use them in an integrated and coherent manner.

“This book exists to correct these and other defects. It can be used in a variety of
ways. First
of all, it can be read as a self-standing textbook on Crisis Leadership. It can also
be used as
a supplementary text in courses on Organizational Behavior and Crisis
Communications. It
can also be used in executive programs on Crisis Leadership and General
Management. It
can also be used in a wide variety of courses at both the undergraduate and the
graduate
levels in psychology, sociology, and philosophy.

“Since I have not presupposed that the reader is familiar with complex
organizations or
crises, I have written the book for a wide audience. In this way, the book can be
read by the
general public, certainly by those who are interested in why crises hap pen. Since
crises
affect everyone, all of us need to understand why they occur and what can be done
to lessen
their occurrence and impact.

“Most of all, I have written this book to give readers a comprehensive framework so
that they
can understand the multitude of factors and forces that need to be considered in
framing an
effective program of Crisis Leadership.

“Because it is so important, I want to emphasize that the primary purpose of this
book is to
give the reader a broad overview of Crisis Leadership so that he or she can
understand the
general nature of Crisis Leadership. For this reason, it deliberately avoids
discussing many
important topics in detail.

“This book focuses on a broad overview because it is precisely the Big Picture that
is
missing in nearly all of the current books on Crisis Management. Most books zero
in on
detailed topics such as Business Recovery, i.e., how to get a business back on its
feet after
a crisis. While such books certainly cover the details, they fail to show how the
various
"parts" fit together into a more “coherent whole.”

“In addition, many important topics such as Stakeholder Analysis have been
treated in a
cursory manner in this book. This is certainly not because the topic is
unimportant. Indeed, it
is vitally important. Rather, I have treated the topic exten sively in previous books.
The reader
is referred to these with regard to the details of Stakeholder Analysis. The purpose
of this
book is to show where Stakeholder Analysis fits into the general framework of
Crisis
Leadership.

“In sum, this book is more about the general philosophy of Crisis Leadership than
it is about
the technical details. Unless the philosophy is understood first, the details will
make little
sense.”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction-People, Technologies, and Crisis.
2. The Failure of Conventional Thinking.
3. The Failure of Conventional Organizations.
4. The Failure of Conventional Responses.
5. The Rise of Abnormal Accidents: A Brief History of Crises.
6. The Different Languages of Managers and Executives: The Personalities of
Individuals.
7. The Personalities of Organizations.
8. Crisis Leadership and the Myers-Briggs.
9. The Role of Conflict in Crisis Leadership.
10. An Expanded View of Signal Detection.
11. Thinking the Absurd.
12. The Vital Importance of Spirituality in Crisis Leadership.
Index.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“DR. IAN I. MITROFF is currently the Harold Quinton Distinguished Professor of
Business
Policy at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. He is
also the
Director of the USC Center for Strategic Public Relations and a Professor of
Journalism in
the Annenberg School of Communications at USC. Dr. Mitroff founded
Comprehensive
Crisis Management, Inc., which has consulted some of the nation’s leading
companies on a
broad array of crises. He has also published over three hundred articles and more
than
twenty-three books.”
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2003, 144 pages. Order #DR708
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Crisis Management, Crisis Communication

Crisis Leadership (Mitroff)

Rothstein Associates Inc.