Tag: EDMG420

Through conducting a crisis inventory a business or organization can better prepare itself in handling the crisis and the related media communications. As an example, a company may ignore the opportunity—or may not have the forethought—to develop an inventory; this company will be ill-prepared in the organizational process for reacting to any given crisis. Furthermore, the company will face multiple issues in the realm of media relations—if there is a declared PR official for the company, he/she may not know how to properly communicate the situation. Once the company responds with a comment which is uncertain—if comment is made at all—the media can highlight the response with negative light, and/or make efforts to gather further information through investigative tactics which may lead to the questioning of employees which may have no knowledge or a negative view of the company. An ill-informed or vengeful employee’s remarks would certainly give the media and public better chance for viewing the company and the crisis in negative light.

Proper development of a crisis inventory can also yield positive results among the employees. To be able to fully view some areas for concern, the company can conduct the inventory or survey in conjunction with the staff or segments providing representation of certain staff functions. This sort of camaraderie with the employees will show that the management has concerns for the well-being of the workforce and allows for better instruction on possible crises with the employees (Fearn-Banks, 2011).

As the only organization that I can lay claim to is the local EM, I find difficulty in applying the list of possible crises provided in the text—aside from those which are natural or man-made disasters. Scandalous crises, such as drugs, alcoholism, etc. would in theory be possible; I can, however, say that these events are not likely to happen as the only member or the agency which the public would raise concern would be the director—my father—who is the only paid employee on staff.

Of the natural/man-made disasters listed on pages 301-302 of the text (Fearn-Banks, 2011), the five most likely would include earthquake, fire, flood, tornado and transportation—not necessarily in that order. If one were to attempt to evaluate the probability of these events taking place, earthquake would rank with the lowest possible occurrence, tornado as the second lowest, and the remaining three sharing close proximity in the top positions. If one were to rank these disasters on the potential of damage, earthquake would likely lead with flood, fire and tornado following; transportation has the possibility of jumping into any position as we can include any manner of transportation—air, rail, truck—with any possible combination of onboard goods. Developing a table or chart to represent these assumptions can prove to be difficult based on these variances without conducting proper studies and risk evaluations.

Based upon my assumptions, however, one might see the data represented in a manner similar to the following chart:

As this chart reveals, the potential of damage from and occurrence for flooding rank fairly high and within a near equal range. The thought behind these rankings are based on the frequency of flooding event s in the area and the damages sustained from said events. Frequently the county receives damages to roadways and parks from flooding events. Transportation and fire come in close of another with transportation leading based upon the potential of damage. This assumption is made on the greater risk of spills effecting the population as opposed to the spread of fire within the community. Tornados produce a greater risk of damage if the winds were to travel over certain areas—likelihood of such an occurrence is limited if consideration is given for the sparse population outside of the county seat. Damage potential for an earthquake ranks high as many of the structures in the county are well-aged and not built to withstand such an event.

The following was originally submitted as a homework assignment:

Please post this week’s assignment here for discussion. You should comment on at least two other students. I am looking for feedback on constructive criticism, questions, and general comments on their work.

Consider the Rescola story, what should offices in skyscrapers and large buildings do other than plan for evacuations? Imagine the employees who objected to the training: what would be persuasive messages to them? The 1993 attack was considered a prodrome by Rescola. Why didn’t others see it?

In a crisis situation, using the image restoration theory, how could an organization determine which publics should receive which messages? Why would you send different messages to different publics?

There isn’t much more that any office, organization, or individual can do than plan for an evacuation of the structure in an event which may cause collapse or other significant damage; those involved, however, have varying decisions to make in regard to the extent to which they make their plans. In the example given with Team Rescola and the preparations of another terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, we can see how Morgan Stanley had planned for such a scenario. Rescola had gone so far as to conduct an outside, in-air evaluation of the building, pondering the possibilities of a flight-related attack—how many other businesses went to this extreme? Security staff for the WTC had issued the recommendation for everyone to stay by/return to their respective tower; Rescola continued to clear his firm’s personnel out of the building. These employees had also experienced evacuation drills through Rescola’s planning.

It would be difficult to imagine having to find creative ways of persuading or pressuring employees into evacuation training today—to motivate a reluctant employee, all a safety coordinator would have to utter is “9/11.” Rescola, however, would have likely found his task to be a bit more difficult as his theories of another attack were imaginative at the time and based on a bombing that took place underground. An effective argument could be made, however, through clever descriptiveness in print or verbal communication and visual presentation—backing these claims with “research” and including a personal connection to the individuals. Proper “marketing” of the possibilities should convince the naysayers and those with the Titanic—unsinkable—mentality.

To discover which segment of the public needs addressing an organization needs to monitor public feedback. Obviously, the organization would want to discover which section or class is speaking the loudest and with the most negative tones. In finding this section of the audience, the organization can then tailor any statement or fashion new images that address and/or rectify these concerns. It is possible for the organization to feed this information and image to other classes, increasing the positive image that has already been carried forth; consequently, it is possible for these statements or changes to have the reverse effect in the favoring camps—there also exists the possibility of making a public statement/commitment and having that information reach an audience that was not even knowledgeable that an issue existed in the first place.

It is imperative for any organization to know their markets and to know which area needs addressing, and whether or not the attention should only be given to a certain sect; otherwise the organization could experience troubles similar to Jack-in-the-Box, where an entire nation is made aware of food poisoning, when the restaurant only served certain markets—and only a small portion of a market was affected.