Crisis Management

Catalog description

Effective crisis management is a competitive advantage and a critical attribute of leadership. It isn't the nature of the underlying crisis that determines whether a company emerges with its operations, reputation, and financial condition intact, but rather the nature of the response.This seven-session elective focuses on the business decisions, management processes, and leadership skills necessary to anticipate, plan for, manage through, communicate about, and recover from crises. A key focus of the course is organizational behavior, especially the ways companies in distress and the stakeholders who matter to those companies predictably behave when things go wrong. Another important focus is leadership: how those who lead organizations can maintain the confidence and trust of internal and external stakeholders.The third is strategy: how to navigate a crisis in such a way as to protect long-term business interests and deliver on critical business strategies. The course examines examples of effective and ineffective crisis management, from BP, HP, Home Depot, Netflix, Toyota, and many others. Topics covered include: Defining crises and mobilizing resources in a crisis; Predictable corporate mis-steps in a crisis; How to be forgiven when people have been hurt; Maintaining public support in an era of mistrust; Corporate governance and corporate responsibility; Vulnerability analysis, strategic crisis planning, and crisis prevention; Avoiding mistake chains; Communicating bad news to investors, employees, customers, and regulators; Case studies in effective and ineffective crisis management.