Europe has been struggling with a virulent E.coli outbreak which appears to have originated and is most severe in Germany. With accusations flying back and forth between several countries during the initial stages, crisis management was slow to get started, and less than effective once it did, as the opinions of the populace show. A quote, from a Reuters article:
In a survey of 1,003 people by pollsters Forsa, 58 percent of respondents considered Berlin’s crisis management in what is the deadliest outbreak of the bacteria in modern history as less than satisfactory or poor.
Only 31 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with the government’s information policy during the outbreak, according to the poll, published by Stern magazine.
More than 3,200 people have so far been taken ill with the E.coli strain, about a quarter of them developing a complication called haemolytic uraemic syndrome, which affects the blood, kidneys and nervous system.
Poll results are always ugly in the midst of crises, but when an outbreak continues to expand after the cause has been discovered, clearly the opinion that the government’s information policy was weak is well-founded. One of government’s primary roles is to disseminate information to the public, so there’s no excuse for not having a crisis management policy in place and ready for action.
——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-
In any discussion of educating or training our young, we must talk about both education and training. We want our managers, and certainly our CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CTOs, and quite a few others to have impressive degrees and from impressive institutions of higher learning. The levels have changed over the years. A long time ago, a college-educated man was rare, and he could rise to the top of the corporate ladder. It mattered what school. Then it was ratcheted up a notch so the higher-ups had masters degrees, then MBAs, and then later they had to be from the prestigious business colleges as well–with the MBA.
The chief complaint: our institutions of higher learning were simply not putting out the graduates capable of going into a company and being ready to go to work. Hence, the development of the means of which to take those new employees and train them in the company or industry-specific areas.
That’s not to say those requirements weren’t needed as the world became a more complicated place. As business became more worldly, it took a sophistication requiring well-educated individuals who could operate in the broader context; however, business is still “nuts and bolt”s so it had to develop requirements separate from those at other levels where education wasn’t enough to get you in the door; you needed special skills besides–and experience. As everyone focused on getting the education to get the degrees that opened doors, someone had to say, “who’s going to do the work.” Who is going to be the backbone of the company.” Mr. Ivy League School? Mr. Premiere Business Institution? Mr. Prestigious Law School? And, to attack that glass ceiling, the ladies had to do the same and more.
Still, discussions in the community are centered around how to attract qualified workers to do the work-work. Can’t find them here, some companies go overseas, where workers are cheaper and are willing to learn your business and will pay for the opportunity. Oops! You go where you can find qualified workers or you don’t grow or succeed. Workers overseas don’t often have the options of the right schools to get them in the door. Next best thing: corporate universities. Can we develop our home-grown workers? We’d like to. For the right price.
No one was saying forget higher education and concentrate on the practical, but it would have made the job of finding workers easier if someone could walk in off the street and immediately go to work. Granted there are some sharp individuals who can do that, but only in very remote instances.
Of course, if they could all walk off the campus and go to work, where would we trainers be?
Make it specific to the company’s needs and ta-da!–a corporate university. Apparently they work. Look around any industrial area and you’ll find institutions of higher training, better known as Corporate Universities.
So, now that we have education and are willing to take only a certain level of a job because we have that education, what now?
David Baucus and Melissa Baucus authored a piece, titled The Changing Shape of Corporate Universities. The gist of the article is how the e-learning and corporate universities we know today grew out of the technological innovation that came several years back. They say that there is no doubt that the e-learning industry–a part of that technological innovation–contributed to the growth of corporate universities. Both authors have the education to tell us this authoritatively. Check their website and bios to be sure.
“Early in the evolution of the industry, corporate universities represented a reasonable deployment of learning technologies. They enabled companies to deliver the right content to target markets (e.g., employees, partners, and customers) and to reduce training costs by substituting technology for labor.”
Many years ago before the article above was written and when I was teaching at a small proprietary college in Virginia, I remember sitting on a committee looking at the direct education and placement of students in the workplace. The committee was made up of educators, trainers, business, corporate and community leaders all looking at what education could do in the world of work. The little guys can’t afford to create a corporate university. No longer were we talking about the value of general education, but how we could mold future workers, managers, and leaders of the business and corporate world. Education alone wasn’t the answer.
No longer were we talking about the value of general education, but how we could mold future workers, managers, and leaders of the business and corporate world. Education alone wasn’t the answer.
The chief complaint: our institutions of higher learning were simply not putting out the graduates capable of going into a company and being ready to go to work. Hence, the development of the means of which to take those new employees and train them in the company or industry-specific areas.
Bring in the trainers and the technology. Make it specific to the company’s needs and ta-da!–a corporate university. Of course, it’s not that simple, but apparently they work. Look around any industrial area and you’ll find institutions of higher training, better known as Corporate Universities. McDonald’s Hamburger University, Motorola University, Boeing University, TD Bank University, Pfizer University, Trump Institute–to name a few. Some are well-established, and some are new to the scene. Look around your own neighborhood. Pretty much any large corporation will have one. In 1997, there were around 400 in existence in the U.S.; today that number in the thousands changes daily, and they are also worldwide. Like it or not, they will soon eclipse regular institutions of higher learning in number.
Technological innovation wasn’t responsible for it alone. We grew up and we grew wide. We became international. We can communicate and operate around the world without leaving out desks. It’s a good thing we can concentrate what we know about the company in one place; however, we should probably do it with an eye toward broadening our awareness of other companies and what they do and how they differ. Mergers are commonplace. Companies don’t just change names; they change focus; they expand.
Training programs should expand or at least be expandable. (Trainers everywhere are rejoicing, and not just those who work for a corporate university.) There are joint university and corporate university projects in all areas of the business and corporate world. There are corporate universities within traditional universities. There are universities that exist only online. Not the correspondence schools or diploma mills of the past, but the basic idea of long distance learning–only bigger, and hopefully improved. As the educators mulled over the problems of putting graduates directly in the workplace, I suspect they weren’t sitting on their hands either; this is bigger than business alone. It’s our economy, our very lives at stake. Our GNP and the stability of our currency in the world economy. We are dominoes in this affecting economies internationally. If those dots are eyes, they need to be wide open.
Just my thoughts on corporate universities and the world. Broad topic. What are your thoughts? For more of my hopefully not-so-crazy thoughts, check out my website. I have more to say on training, on communication, on performance, and even on theatre arts, but I can only be in one place at one time.
By the my way, my next post will be a little different, but certainly affects all trainers. What if can do as others say I can with training your company? Any good making that pitch? Next time. Meanwhile, next time. Serious with a playful streak. For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training.
Today we venture up the Risk Chart to explore New Markets for Existing Services or Products. The focus is on researching who else could use, and pay for, what you already provide. Continue reading “Finding Good Venture Ideas (Part 3)”
Shakespeare penned the famous line, “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” in the year 1600, but it’s managed to remain quite relevant every since then. Major crises today present perhaps the biggest “stage” of all, as millions of people from around the world are not only able to track every happening via traditional media, but also to contribute their thoughts and discuss those of others using the Web and especially social media.
In a guest post for the Mr. Media Training blog, crisis management pro Jane Jordan-Meier, author of “The Four Stages of Highly Effective Crisis Management,” took this analogy even deeper as she described the four stages of a crisis.
STAGE ONE: In Stage One, the spotlight is beaming squarely on the incident. This is the “breaking news” stage. “What happened?” is the key question. And the news travels very fast in Stage One to Stage Two – it doesn’t take long for the story to jump the “fire line.”
STAGE TWO: Stage Two is characterized by the focus on the “victims” and the response. The light moves quickly from the incident itself (although new facts will continue to emerge) to the “drama.” How could this have happened? How many people are hurt, missing and/or dead? How is the organization responding? How quickly did the responders get to the scene? The light will shine brightly on the perpetrator – or who we think the perpetrator might be.
This stage is key. This is the make it or break it stage, the reputation forming stage, the stage where the rallying on social media sites, both negative and positive, becomes a focal point.
The spotlight, with widening and growing intensity, points at the organization and persons who appear to be at the center of the storm. It will roam around and catch whoever will talk about what’s just happened. Experts start to appear on CNN, victims start talking in-depth about their experiences, and the organization starts to give its side of the story. And it can last at least 72 hours.
STAGE THREE: Stage Three is the one best avoided, although inevitably we all want to go there – yes, the Blame, Finger Pointing Stage. Think back to the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico when the executives of the three companies at heart of the massive oil spill were severely chastised over attempts to shift the blame to each other.
In this Finger Pointing Stage – everyone has an opinion about you, your product, your organization, your industry, even your country (ask Iran) – lots of “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”
Stage Three is all about blame with the key question focused on “why.” The spotlight is more like a floodlight. Your crisis is beamed everywhere.
STAGE FOUR: The light begins to dim in Stage Four which is the fallout/resolution stage. The spotlight now dims, but can easily be turned to full glare again if you slip up, or something similar happens in your industry. Your crisis is perpetually in print, on Google, in Wikipedia – searchable and discoverable. Your “sin” will be for everyone to see forever – you can’t take it back.
Typically, this stage marks the end of the crisis; there is some resolution. There might be a funeral, a government inquiry, or a Senate hearing. Your product goes back on the shelf, workers go back to the plant, victims return to their homes.
Stage Four is perhaps the most dangerous, as many organizations relax too much rather than focusing on the effort to drive reputation higher and regain stakeholder trust. The slip-up can be nothing more than a few errant words spoken by an exec as they leave work late, but make the wrong move and nobody will hesitate to drudge up the recent past and make you pay for it.
——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-
As we discussed last time, when most nonprofit staff and Boards think about earned income, they typically think about doing “something new”.
This Risk Chart helps organizations to clearly see how risk increases as they go from “things and people they know” to those they have no experience with.
One of the most common questions business owners are asking now is, “how do I get take advantage of social media?”
Thankfully for those who are still worried that the process is difficult or overly stressful, marketer and self-proclaimed social media addict Pam Moore has laid out a simple list of how to get started in a Social Media Today article. A quote: Step 1: Do your own research on how to best leverage social media to meet business goals and objectives.
Step 2: Develop a business and integrated marketing plan inclusive of goals and objectives. Be sure to focus clearly on your target market segments with a goal of knowing them and getting in their head the best you possibly can.
Step 3: If you don’t have the skills and knowledge of social media internally, hire the agency or consultant to help you integrate social media into your business. Be sure that they understand integrated marketing, the importance of setting goals and objectives and can help you develop and execute a plan to meet yours! Refuse to accept a list of random acts of social media (RAMs). If the plan is not integrated then the RAMs will eat your ROI for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
Step 4: Integrate social media into your business plan with a focus on leveraging social media to support biz goals and objectives. Your business plan may need to be adjusted based upon your new findings and research of the social media landscape.
Step 5: Develop an integrated social media strategy, approach and plan that best supports your business goals and objectives.
Step 6: Execute the integrated marketing, social media and business plan.
Step 7: Continuously analyze, measure and refine your approach, strategies and tactics based upon achievement to goals and objectives.
I like this list because of the advice to focus on not just creating new pages and profiles all over the Web, but tailoring the focus to the business’ individual marketing or communication wants, needs, and goals. Without this, you will fail to attract stakeholders and especially to create a rapport that will keep them engaged and coming back for more.
——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-
When most nonprofit staff and Boards think about earned income, they typically think about doing “something new”. The Risk Chart helps organizations to clearly see how risk increases as they go from “things and people they know” to those they have no experience with.
People love a good political scandal, and the saga of what may or may not be Congressman Anthony Weiner’s underpants is currently dominating Twitter and the network news circuit. With his story changing by the day, it’s clear the Congressman isn’t done explaining, and that whoever is giving him crisis management advice is going in the wrong direction, as this guest article from crisis communications pro Mark Macias explains:
Did he or didn’t he?
No one knows yet whether Congressman Anthony Weiner is lying about tweeting a picture of his bulging boxers to a pretty female college student. In fact, even Weiner admitted he “can’t say with certitude” whether the picture is of him.
As a crisis communications consultant, here’s one thing I can say with certitude. Weiner’s handling of this scandal has been a botched case from day one and if he was acting on the advice of PR consultants, they should be fired.
Guys may be oblivious to the obvious, but when it comes to boxers, we know what we wear. This evasive kind of answer only gets reporters salivating because they know when words are minced, raw meat is likely close by.
Originally, Weiner tried to dismiss this scandal, telling reporters it was nothing more than a prank and he was going to focus on his work. Nice try, but it doesn’t work like that with reporters. Hiding the story only makes reporters hungrier and if there is a political scandal brewing with an “up and coming” politician – complete with photo- reporters will pursue it to break news.
Apparently, Weiner got the message a few days later because he decided to go on a 9-hour speaking tour with the media. It’s a good start, but he was willfully unprepared. He couldn’t even answer the most basic question: is that you in the picture?
Lesson number one: If you’re in the middle of a scandal and you fear it will make news, you better prepare yourself for the tough questions. In Weiner’s case, he didn’t even prepare for the easy questions. Don’t mince words when framing your argument because it will only make you look guilty. If you’re innocent, be clear and concise with your denial. Speak with words people will understand. If you’re guilty and you have a lot at stake to lose, then consider hiring a professional crisis consultant to manage your message. It’s always easier to manage the message before the narrative has been written.
Lesson number two: Don’t go after reporters. It is their job to ask the tough questions and if you don’t like it, tough luck. Reporters and producers have strong personalities so don’t try to challenge them as Weiner did when he called a CNN producer a “jackass” for asking a tough question during a press conference. The purpose of a media interview is to court viewers and readers into your corner, not to alienate them. If you come across as haughty or angry, you have already lost the battle over image.
Lesson number three: Don’t crack jokes to downplay the story, like Weiner did. He did several interviews and seemed to come up with every kind of sexual innuendo that suggested where his mind was. In one interview, Weiner said this Twitter scandal wasn’t a national security threat: “I’m not sure it rises — no pun intended — to that level.” For those who suspected Weiner had a dirty mind, he just reinforced it with his words.
Lesson number four: Don’t delay a response. Weiner made the mistake of believing if he ignored the problem it would go away. If the story is salacious, the media will pursue it at all costs. If you go into hiding, reporters will find you and ask questions when you are least prepared to answer them. In Weiner’s case, a reporter for a local TV station arrived unannounced at his office on Capitol Hill, trying to get answers. But rather than answering questions, his staff called the Capitol Hill police. This is why you need to always get in front of the story. If a crisis situation is beginning to brew, consider releasing it before the story breaks. Or in Weiner’s case, answer the calls on the first day, not several days later.
Lesson number five: Don’t lie. Originally, Weiner said his account was hacked but he didn’t want to go to police. That’s possible, but here’s another take. If he lied to police about his account being hacked, this would have turned into a criminal act for filing a false report. In 2010, I was the Communications Director for a Congressional challenger when my personal email account was hacked. It quickly became a criminal investigation that involved the NYPD crimes division with detectives quizzing me on lots of personal information. I had nothing to hide, so I answered the questions without fear of reprisal. What did Weiner do? He hired an attorney and clammed up, which reinforces the image that he doesn’t want to answer the tough questions.
I can’t predict the future, but I am willing to make a wager on this scandal. I’m going on the record now, predicting that more pictures will soon surface with Weiner in uncompromising photos. Why? Weiner admitted he couldn’t say “with certitude” whether that was him in the picture. I think he is leaving himself some wiggle room just in case more pictures of himself –complete with his Weiner smile- surface on the Internet.
——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-
ABOUT MARK MACIAS — Crisis Communications Expert
Mark Macias is a crisis communications consultant and author of Beat the Press: Your Guide to Managing the Media. You can reach him at www.KilltheStory.com
(Editor’s Note: As this guest story was being posted, Congressman Anthony Weiner admitted he was guilty of Tweeting a lewd photo.)
It’s very rare for social enterprises to merge. And when they do, it’s usually because one of them is failing. But let’s consider a situation where impact and sustainability might be enhanced if two successful social enterprises were to merge. Should they? Continue reading “Are Mergers Good for Social Enterprises?”
House Majority leader Eric Cantor has taken the unpopular position of denying federal aid for tornado victims in Joplin, Missouri, even making the rounds of TV press shows in attempt to defend his choice. It doesn’t appear to be helping convince the average American though, as the ever-creative denizens of the Web fire back with gems like this, from The Borowitz Report:
FEMA Declares Eric Cantor a Disaster Area
Congressman Denies Funds to Self
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – One day after Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) stirred controversy by withholding funds for tornado relief, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took the extraordinary step of declaring Rep. Cantor a disaster area.
Within hours of the declaration, FEMA officials were dispatched to assess the damage to Mr. Cantor’s status as a human being capable of empathy.
“I’ve seen a lot of hurricanes and tornados, but this is something new,” said FEMA spokesman Tracy Klugian. “Rep. Cantor appears to have been caught up in a moral vacuum.”
While concerned FEMA officials looked on, the morally ravaged House Majority Leader took to the floor of the House to make the case for denying funds to repair himself.
The FEMA spokesman said that the agency was currently trying to estimate the cost of rebuilding Mr. Cantor’s soul.
“Quite frankly, I’ve never seen devastation like this,” Mr. Klugian said. “It’s like there’s nothing there.” More Borowitz here.
——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-
We Value Your Privacy We use cookies to better serve our customers through site functionality and user personalization.
We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as cookies and process personal data. This includes unique identifiers and standard information sent by a device for personalized ads and content, ad and content measurement, and audience insights.
With your permission, we and our partners may use precise geolocation data and identification through device scanning. You may click to consent to our processing as described above. Alternatively, you may click to refuse to consent or access more detailed information. You may also change your preferences before consenting.
Please note that some processing of your personal data may not require your consent, but you have a right to object to such processing. Your preferences will apply to this website only. You can change your preferences at any time by returning to this site or by visiting our privacy policy.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
I’m okay with functional and analytical cookies for website functionality. I agree to the use of cookies under these circumstances:
Will be used if you visit Managementhelp.org
Are necessary for the proper functioning of the website
Enable you to use the site securely
Do not collect personal information that’s not needed for personalization
Help us detect any bugs and improve our website
Collect anonymous information about your visits to our website
Are never used for remarketing
I’m okay with the functional and analytical cookies for marketing purposes and not for website functionality.
Are used to monitor the performance of marketing campaigns
Enable us to compare performance across our marketing campaigns
Are used for individual targeting
Can be used for retargeting on other partner platforms
Enable a more personalized experience
