Crisis Management Experts

Here’s the scenario:

John is a very valuable employee at your company. His efforts have largely been responsible for the company receiving very lucrative contracts on a regular basis. Recently, it came to the attention of management, that on many days that John says that he is out of the office on business, he is really not working. Sometimes he’s on the golf course with personal friends; at other times, he’s out and about with his girlfriend.

As a member of the management team, how would you handle John’s behavior? What are the factors that you would consider, in determining your approach?

I am hoping that some of our readers will share their ideas with us. You can comment by clicking on the link that is directly at the bottom of this post.

Everywhere I go, I meet management and organizational consultants. It’s a field that keeps growing and with some very good reasons: 1) It’s impossible to maintain full time staff, with every possible management skill that might ever be needed; 2) Even if there are folks on staff with the skill set needed to address an organizational issue or design a new system, etc., they often cannot break away from the work they are already doing, to dedicate time to the new urgency; and, 3) Since effective consultations are based on objective analyses and recommendations, it can be exceeding difficult to complete this from the “inside”.

Management and organizational consultants hail from many different disciplines and can provide an array of services. Some review hiring practices; others address accounting procedures; yet others assess benefit structures. These are but a few examples. Our group consults on the impact of human behavior on organizational dynamics and productivity. When contracting for the services of a consultant, it is crucial to verify that he/she has the specific expertise that is needed. Resume and references should be checked and not taken for granted. Initial conversations and the initial project proposal should clearly reflect the person’s ability to do the work.

While a consultation cannot be successful if the consultant does not have the required expertise, this is only one characteristic of a good organizational consultant. There are others just as important, if the job is going to get done:

1) He/she must have excellent organizational skills. The consultant’s initial proposal should reflect her/his ability to design a plan with clear goals and objectives, and with specific methodologies that will be utilized to reach them. Time frames in which each phase of the project are targeted to be completed, should also be part of the proposal.

2) He/she must have superior communication skills. To be on target, the consultant must be an attentive listener, who takes time the time to understand the intricacies of the problems that will be addressed. He/She must also be able to utilize feedback effectively, so that as the project progresses, necessary adjustments can be made. And, in order for the consultation to have enduring value, she/he must be able to convey the information and skills to others, that will be needed for the results of the consultation to be integrated into ongoing processes.

3) The consultant also must have good professional boundaries. The one you wish you had never hired arrives on site and needlessly interrupts everyone’s work; the seasoned consultant is mindful of organizational processes that should not be interrupted, and works to complete the project without unnecessarily hindering ongoing company operations.

Additionally, the consultant must have good personal boundaries. He/she must stay focused on the work at hand, without excessive socializing during consultation hours. He/she must also avoid forming personal relationships with company personnel, that in any way could compromise the consultation’s objectivity or create a conflict of interest.

3) Finally, the consultant must highly ethical. In the course of a his/her work, the consultant will often have access to information about the organization that is confidential. It is highly recommended that there be a written confidentiality agreement be established, that prohibits the consultant from revealing proprietary information and communications, or trade secrets.

The consultant also must see her/himself as a consultant and not as a permanent fixture! Consultants should be ethically committed to completing their work as expeditiously as possible. And if, in the course of a consultation, a separate problem surfaces that needs attention, the organization should be presented with the option of establishing a new consultation agreement around that issue.

If you have additional thoughts about the attributes of a good consultant, or some experiences from which we can all learn, please consider sharing them with us!

It’s time to dedicate a posting to the introduction of Dr. Ottenstein, of the Workplace Trauma Center in Baltimore. Rick is a very special colleague of ours, with a plethora of experience consulting, teaching and providing Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) services, both nationally and internationally. Take a look at Rick’s practice website, to learn more about all of the services that he and his group offers.

Cohen Associates provides CISM services in Texas for Rick’s national network, which stretches from California to New York. We also work with him on international assignments, whenever we can. I had the honor of traveling with Rick to the Middle East this past February, for a Critical Incident assignment, and found it to be a rich, collaborative experience.

One of Rick’s very exciting projects is his Armed Robbery Survival Skills training, which prepares bank employees to negotiate a robbery as safely as possible. The training is quite unique, as it includes role plays and simulations, to help bank tellers and others, to develop the skills to manage their emotional reactions during an robbery. This greatly increases an employee’s ability to function safely under extreme stress and helps to minimize post-traumatic reactions. It’s one thing to know how to behave and another to be prepared to carry it out!

I am one of the clinicians, along with Marcelo Matamoros, LCSW, in Dallas, TX, who works with Rick on providing this training, which we make available across the United States. Rick customizes the training for other industries with high risk of robbery, as needed. I’ll be writing about this training more in future posts.

Recently, I worked with Rick to develop an Industrial Safety and Wellness Training for heavy industry, to lower the incident of accident in manufacturing and processing facilities. We are in the process of developing additional trainings, to address the planning and prevention needs of other industries.

With his wealth of experience, Rick has intriguing and valuable comments to offer, on trauma, human beings and their coping capacities. We’ll see if we can get him to share some of those pearls, as time goes on.

As I read the news this week, I noted a number of critical incidents that were reported. Two firefighters died fighting a fire in a skyscaper in lower Manhattan, that has been vacant since 9/11. Hurricane Dean claimed lives as it ripped through the Southern Caribbean. The earthquake in Peru killed 500 people, injured 1500 others, and left thousands of people without potable water, food or shelter. Six men are missing in a collapsed mine in Utah and three rescue workers died trying to rescue them. And these are just some that were reported in the national news. There were more. Local news media in my community reported others, that will not make national headlines, as will be the case in many communities, nationally and globally.

It’s not easy to hear such devastating news, especially when there is so much of it at one time. Of course, the closer it comes to touching our lives, the even more difficult it becomes to negotiate.

There’s many ways that people try to cope with such reports. The following are some of the more common ones I hear and some thoughts about their effectiveness:

Some folks that I talk with say they just “don’t watch the news”. We certainly recommend that parents keep young children away from the news, and it is often good for adults, as well, to limit the their exposure to the graphic details of a tragedy. However, as anyone who has tried to avoid hearing the final score of an important football game knows, the news can filter down to you, even when you try not to hear it. So, it might help to have an additional strategy in the wings.

Other folks tell me that they sit down, have a good cry and feel more able to face the news as a result. I’m always glad to hear that one. If we can tolerate our more intense emotions, experiencing them releases tension and can return us to a calmer, more relaxed physical state. It can also help us to confirm that we have the emotional resources to face tragedy. And, after facing our feelings, we are able to return to our usual routines, with less conflict and distraction.

Have you noticed that many people have the need to tell others about the news they’ve heard? When we call up a friend to talk about something that happened in the news, we are putting a very powerful coping mechanism into action. Sharing our shock or distress with another person we trust, helps us to feel less alone with our concerns and fears, and that can be very comforting to human beings. Discussing the critical incident with someone else, also allows us to sort out our thoughts and feelings, and the ways the event is impacting us. This can help make the events feel more manageable.

Yet other folks cope with the news by doing what they can to help. When we have the availability and resources to do so, taking action can counteract feelings of helplessness, which are very uncomfortable for most of us. Additionally, when we make a donation, or speak out for some change to make people safer, or provide some type of direct assistance to those affected, we reconfirm our empathy and caring for others. This not only helps those in crisis, but lets us feel good about ourselves. And the more comfortable we are with ourselves, the better the chances that we will cope well.

Those that recognize that previous traumas are surfacing often tell me that they took the opportunity to do more work on them, either formally, with the assistance of a helping professional, or informally. A move to address these is a positive step, which can increase coping capacities and pay emotional, behavioral and interpersonal dividends in the future.

If you have some other helpful ways of coping with what you hear, when you turn on your television or log on to your computer, I hope you’ll share them with all of us. For tomorrow’s news is coming…

I am hoping that our readers will pay special attention to the website links that I am adding to our Blog. The web is rich with resources and information related to trauma, grief, organizational, management and general mental health issues. I will be trying to list as many of the best of these sources that I can.

Some of the links lead to international sites (which I will try to include whenever possible), while others focus on services available in a specific country. All provide information, however, that is relevant, regardless of geographical location.

I’ll also be adding the websites of other practices and businesses with which we work closely, so that you can become acquainted with some of our very special colleagues.

Additionally, please don’t forget that the majority of the websites in the blogroll have link sections themselves, which are worth checking out. The link section on our website is worth exploring, too, as I will be adding to those reguarly and not all resources listed there will appear on the Blog.

If you know of other sites you would like to see included in the roll, please let me know about them. And let us all know, by posting a comment, of any source that you’re searching for, that you haven’t been able to locate. Then, we can all try to offer you a hand.

I mentioned, in my last post, that it is helpful for managers to reach a comfort level with themselves, to successfully negotiate complicated work relationships and fare well under stress.

A good measure of self-knowledge goes far in helping people to reach that comfort level and improve functioning under stress, whether related to everyday life events, or the extraordinary ones, that are experienced during a critical incident. The more we know about our reactions, the less likely we are to be caught off guard, and the more opportunity we have to increase our tolerance to varying situations and conditions. Of course, people can learn a lot about themselves through stress and crisis itself, but prior awareness of the ways in which one is impacted and responds to events certainly helps people to flow through difficult periods more easily.

One way to get to know oneself better is through systematic observation over time. This approach usually provides more accurate information about the ways we function than the quick impressionistic survey that we often make. For example, I might have the impression that I am comfortable with confrontation; but when I note specific instances over time, I find I withdraw when confronted and avoid the issue.

My recommendation is to begin a log that tracks your reactions under different conditions over time. The more descriptive and detailed your entries, the more helpful it will be for identifying patterns and trends later.

To continue with the example above, if you are interested in knowing more about the ways that you react when others confront you, you could chronicle who said it and when, exactly what was said (quoted), what you felt, how your body reacted, what you said or did. After you collect information from several instances, you could then review the log for trends in both the nature of the confrontations and the ways you responded to them. You can then decide how you will use the information: to be more aware of ways that a particular type of confrontation affects you, so that you to get through them more calmly and comfortably, or to reach a new level of tolerance by modifying your emotional, cognitive or physical responses.

A log can track reactions with specific people or events. You could also use it to track your reactions across events and situations, by logging, for example, all of your angry or anxious moments, the times your overeat, etc.

If you decide to use the information that your gathered in your work with a psychotherapist or counselor, additional observations and areas of exploration might result, leading to even more self-awareness…and growth.

A very common complaint that I hear from employees is that management “doesn’t care” about them. As a matter of fact, I would say that, across industries, this is the leading complaint I receive. I’ve come to refer to this issue as the “Great Disconnect” between management and non-management groups. As it is so widespread, it certainly merits some attention.

Why is this sentiment so pervasive? Especially in an era, in which the corporate world has spent so much time and money learning how to manage people effectively? There is, of course, no one simple answer to this question. But the following are the observations that I have made, as I pass through different organizations, that may have some bearing on the issue:

1) People in the workplace are overwhelmed. In an attempt to remain competitive in an increasingly international marketplace, the workforce is “lean and mean”, and management and employees alike have huge workloads and competing priorities. Even with the best of intentions, and with awareness of the importance of attending to employee feedback and concerns, management is struggling to find the resources to do so. I have had more than one manager tell me that they “cannot do it all “…and that the squeaky wheel approach is the way that they are forced to function.

2) Management has information that they are not at liberty to share with employees, for a variety of legal, proprietary and operational reasons. Without this information, however, managerial decisions can seem arbitrary and mindless of their impact on individual employees and employee teams. This has always been a dilemma for management, and from my observations, it is still relevant today.

3) With all the seminars and trainings in the world, it is still very difficult to be an effective manager! To negotiate relationships well, managers must reach a level of comfort with themselves that can sufficiently “hold” even when under stress. This is not a small accomplishment for most human beings, under any circumstances. Managers must also establish a level of rapport with their employees, which facilitates a productive communication flow. The larger the number of people one supervises, the more exponentially difficult this can become.

The “Great Disconnect” can be bridged, but requires in-depth study of the issues as well as the careful development of strategies over time. The solutions must also be ones that can practically be applied within the specific industry, and with the specific managers and employees involved. In my view, the popularity of coaching and team building is testimony to the need for such customized solutions and hands-on assistance in operationalizing them.

What’s been your experience with the “Great Disconnect”?

Beyond our critical incident response services, we also work with corporations when organizational conflicts and difficulties surface. Sometimes, these issues are identified as a result of a critical incident. More often, however, we are requested to assess and propose services for difficulties that are not related to a traumatic occurrence.

The problems that we address run the gamut, from conflict between key employees, to a manager who is struggling with the leadership of his/her team, to productivity issues among an employee group, to complaints of sexual harrassment or bulllying, to alcohol and drug problems, or the mental health problems of a specific employee. These are just a few examples.

Our recommendations may include conflict resolution or organizational development services, coaching, mediation, workshops, trainings, leadership seminars, or a combination of these. Each situation is different and each plan will involve different elements, executed in different ways.

During some consultations, we bring in specialists from other fields, beyond our own, such as lawyers, security consultants, accountants, etc. They can often be key to clearing the way for us to reach the goals of our work.

While most of our clinicians provide conflict management and organizational development services, some specialize in mediation, trainings, drug free workplace services or coaching. This broad area will need to be addressed by several clinical voices, beyond my own. We hope our readers will let us know which issues are particularly of interest to them, so we can be sure to include those, as we go along.

This past Wednesday’s steam pipe explosion, which tragically took the life of one person and injured many others, was a critical incident that touched and frightened many in New York and across the country.

Rumors were reported to have spread quickly, in the midst of the panic immediately after the incident. One was that this was another terrorist attack; another was that buildings around Grand Central Station were about to collapse. I’m sure there were many others.

New York City officials demonstrated their current sophistication with managing disaster situations during this crisis. Two and a half hours after the blast, Mayor Bloomberg held a news conference, providing factual information about the blast and addressing concerns that a terrorist attack had occurred. His announcement was key to avoiding additional panic and to beginning to quell anxieties. The New York City Office of Emergency Management also kept their website up to date with information related to the explosion and to the risk of asbestos exposure to area workers and residents.

An early official announcement about the critical incident is one that we recommend to companies as soon as we are engaged. Some delay in making this announcement, for fear of providing inaccurate information themselves, or because of liability or other issues. However, quickly disseminating facts, as they are known, is critical to beginning to manage critical incident stress and to keeping an already difficult situation from becoming more complicated and stressful. When rumors are widespread, it is also helpful to disspell them, as quickly as possible, if they are known to be inaccurate.

The first crisis communication is meant to provide: 1) “accurately as known” information about the incident (what happened, where it happened, the status of those in proximity); 2) current safety issues and precautions, if any; 3) workplace operational announcements; 4) communication plan information (the systems that will be utilized for updates, questions, reporting, etc.); and 5) resource availability (such as transportation, shelter, food, clothing, equipment, first aid, and emotional support and intervention).

The critical incident stress management team can also provide information at this time, about the common physical and emotional reactions to critical incident stress and self-care strategies that can be employed. If basic medical and physical needs are still of primary concern, this mental health information can be provided at the next possible juncture.

The first steps taken following a critical incident can greatly influence, positively or negatively, the course of events to follow. The goal is to reduce people’s anxiety and return their sense of normalcy and control as quickly as possible.

This corporate crisis management briefing procedure is our application of multi-disciplinary emergency management principles utilized in the public sector and of the Crisis Management Briefing, developed by Jeffrey Mitchell and George Everly, as one technique within their Critical Incident Stress Management model. Let’s give credit where it’s due.

And kudos to New York, for their effective, early emergency management efforts! In hopes that those, who were directly and indirectly affected, continue to receive the best of services that the emergency management fields can provide.

What has motivated you to make major changes in your life? Think about it.

If you’re like most people, you’ve made changes when challenges have presented themselves and your usual solutions weren’t helping you to meet them. When I ask most people what led them to make some significant change, I usually get answers such as, “After my divorce…”; “After my wife died…”; “After my after my house flooded…”.

Most of us avoid making major shifts in our lives under usual circumstances. Even when we’re not satisfied with the way things are going, we hesitate to go down a new path. There’s no certainty that untried solutions will make things better and that can be scary.

Traumatic events, such as accidents, robberies, or the death of a child, can present us with some of our greatest life challenges. In the midst of high stress and often overwhelming emotion, people can find that their usual choices and ways of coping are not providing them with enough relief from the anguish they are experiencing. And at the moment that we recognize this, we are presented with unprecedented opportunity.

As horrific as critical incidents can be, we can now discover strenghths we never knew we had, solve problems in ways we never considered before, and come to a new understanding of what is important in our lives.

The fact that people, families and organizations can grow and end up healthier, more productive and more satisfied following crisis, is a very exilerating part of this work for most clinicians. We always hope that the opportunities will be seized.