Crisis Management: How Do You React?
We at b5media experienced a “crisis” of sorts the other day: our servers went wacky. At first I reacted with, “Oh well, I’ll just ride this one out”. Later in the day, after continued error messages while attempting to get into my blog, I said to myself, “Crap (the worst cuss word I could muster), now my page views are going to be messed up.” Once again however, I resolved to ignore the problem for a day.
To what do I credit this seemingly “blase” attitude about a crisis? Well, I’ve been through it before, I’ve raised three daughters, I’ve been laid off three times- hey, there are a lot worse things that can happen. The best thing to do in a crisis is to look forward, see if you can help the people trying to solve it (in this case, the poor tech guys sweating this out), and know that “this too will pass”. It did.
What recent crisis have you weathered? How did you react? Did you help resolve it somehow? Did you contribute or did you wait it out- why?
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Sorry to hear about your travails with the servers.
I am fortunate to have a team of people who work best under the gun. Everyone comes together and acts as each other’s barometer and balance each one another. And they work like dogs – I’m lucky that they work for me.
http://activeengine.wordpress.com/2007/11/16/surely-you-must-be-joking/
Sensei- the funny part of these types of things is that the root cause is elusive- probably many things going wrong at the same/different times. The “users” are always wanting to know exactly what the problem was during the crisis- some resorting to “pressure” thinking that somehow their repeated complaining will “assist”. Afterwards they are just happy it’s solved.