Tag Archives: crisis

Blog, Politics

A Serious Exercise In Damage Control: Protecting Ourselves From The Crisis Prone President

Originally published January 27, 2017 on the Huffington Post

By virtue of his endless stream of hateful tirades, constant campaigning, pettiness, deep character flaws, repeated refusals to share his tax returns, and to separate himself clearly from his countless businesses, President Trump has earned the dubious distinction of being The Crisis Prone President. And, this is only his first week in office! The major question is, “What we can do to protect ourselves from the never-ending crises he’s capable of fomenting?”

Damage Control Mechanisms are generally acknowledged as one of the most important parts of Crisis Management. Nevertheless, a great deal of misunderstanding surrounds them, the prime one being that they exist primarily to contain the damage after a major crisis has occurred. While it’s certainly true that damage containment is one of their main purposes, more importantly, Damage Control Mechanisms basically exist to prevent major crises from occurring in the first place. This is precisely why they must be invented far in advance. It’s also why creating them in the heat of battle is self-defeating.

The classic example is BP’s oil spill in the Gulf. Millions of gallons of crude spewed before the well was finally capped. Sadly, the environment continued to suffer damage long afterwards. The disaster revealed the folly of not having well-tested and maintained Damage Control Mechanisms prior to being allowed to operate in highly sensitive areas of the world.

Given their extreme importance, how do President Trump and his advisors fare with respect to Damage Control? Are they acting in accordance with best principles, or are they instead in violation of them?

Physical Containment is one of the major forms of Damage Control. One creates an actual physical barrier that walls off and thus keeps a crisis such as a massive uncontrolled fire or oil spill from spreading and doing damage to other unaffected parts of an organization, sensitive regions, and even whole societies. In President Trump’s case, his repeated failures to “build a wall” between his far flung business interests and the Presidency is not only in direct violation of the whole idea of Physical Containment, but it actually increases the chances of a major crisis due to direct conflicts of interest. What’s particularly onerous is that the particular type of crisis is already well known. There is thus no excuse for not preparing well in advance.

Another major form of Damage Control is Dilution or Dispersion. In this case, one deliberately takes steps to decrease the concentration of a toxic chemical, or more generally, neutralize a potentially dangerous situation. It also includes Deflecting a crisis onto another part of the environment or party. Trump constantly uses this tactic. He is constantly shifting blame for his own self-created problems (berating the intelligence agencies, treating women and minorities with derision, etc.) onto others such as the “crooked news media.”

One of the more important and positive forms of Damage Control is Openness and Transparency. It preempts a crisis before it takes root. In Trump’s case, he would have to reveal his tax returns, which he adamantly refuses to do, thus adding to the perception that he has serious issues to hide.

Finally, Admitting Mistakes, Accepting Blame, and Responsibility are also critical. They are key in establishing and restoring trust. But then Trump rarely if ever apologizes for anything. And of course, his base doesn’t want him to apologize for that would mean that he’s not the all-powerful superman they need him to be.

In short, the best Damage Control is preventative, proactive in the best sense. It is not reactive, or after the fact.

Against this, what does Trump consistently do? First, he’s heavily (“bigly”) into denial. Instead of acknowledging facts, he constantly makes up whatever suits him, never mind that it conflicts what he just said a moment ago. Denial thus leaves no room for Openness and Transparency, Admitting Mistakes, Accepting Responsibility, etc. He also constantly attacks, bullies, demonizes, insults, mocks, and threatens his enemies real and imagined. He thereby constantly makes crises for himself and others. To protect his overly fragile ego, he uses the most primitive defense mechanisms such as sharply dividing the world into good and bad guys. And, God help you if you’re a bad guy.

In sum, Trump is a living, breathing veritable “swamp” of crises. Our only protection is to engage in pre-emptive Damage Control.

Of course The Constitution is our ultimate safeguard and form of Damage Control. But as always, it’s people who enforce The Constitution. That’s why the women’s marches across America are only a beginning. There need to be mass protests every day. For instance, ordinary citizens who are in serious danger of losing health care need to make their faces and bodies known. They need to besiege the halls of Congress wearing signs, “Without Health Care, I am certain to die! Is that what you want to do to me?”

And yes, the Democratic Party must relearn how to reach out to a broader base with a more inclusive message. It must demonstrate sincerely that it not only cares about the harsh lives of those who voted for Trump, but that it can truly help them.

In short, we have to do everything in our power to Neutralize Trump.

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Blog, Crisis Management, Philosophy + Systems

Ebola Is a True Systems Crisis: It Must Be Managed Systemically or It Cannot Be Managed At All

Originally posted October 21, 2014 on the Huffington Post

As most know by now, the response in the U.S. to Ebola has been mixed at best. On the one hand, the infectious disease has not spread uncontrollably. Despite serious snafus, the health system is learning how to manage the disease. On the other hand, the health system should have known from the very beginning that it was dealing with a disease and a situation that demanded a true systems understanding and appropriate response. The appointment of an “Ebola Tsar” is a belated acknowledgement of the fact that Ebola must be managed systemically or it cannot be managed at all.

Let me address briefly some of the many systems factors.

First, of all, without exception, all crises are due in large part to the fact that a series of key assumptions that we have been taking as fundamentally true prove to be completely invalid, if not outright false. But more than this, virtually all of the key assumptions on which we depend collapse all at once and in their entirety. Most of us can live with the collapse of one or two of our basic assumptions, but few can still function when our entire belief systems collapse. This is precisely why crises are so devastating.

Thus, a basic taken-for-granted assumption was given that hospitals essentially know how to contain infectious disease that originate within their immediate boundaries, they would be equally good at containing severe infectious diseases that not only originate from outside, but from afar. Obviously this was not the case.

Another key assumption was that encasing humans in state-of-the-art astronaut-like protective gear from head to toe was more than adequate in protecting aid workers from catching and spreading the disease. That is, current protective gear and procedures were more than satisfactory. As we now know, protection has had to be revised so that it has become even more stringent. Even more parts of the human body have had to be encased.

Next, there was the assumption that government agencies were not only sufficiently well-coordinated and would thus work together, but that they knew how to present the message that Ebola was a serious health threat, but that there were no reasons to panic. In other words, how do we “scare people enough to get their attention, but not enough to cause wide-spread disruption and panic?” The international airline industry has seen the result in lost revenues as people are afraid to fly.

The international transportation system is of course a big part of the problem, and as such, the disease. How indeed are passengers to be monitored and induced to report that they may have been exposed to dangerous viruses? Threatening to embargo all flights from West African countries is not only simple-minded, but actually is counterproductive. It just induces people to enter the U.S. by other less monitored means, and by doing so, just adds to the danger. But then, fear is never wholly rational.

A truly systemic approach to Ebola and the next inevitable animal to human transmitted disease would start by listing as much as is humanly possible the key assumptions upon which we are basing our recognition of the disease and our efforts at controlling, better yet coping, with it. But even more, a truly systemic approach would recognize that the various assumptions are interdependent, not independent. They affect one another in ways that we are struggling to understand.

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Blog, Business, Crisis Management

The Age of Super Crises

Originally published in Tikkun, Winter 2011

The notion of healing or repairing the world is more vital than ever. Indeed, with the advent of super crises, it has taken a whole new meaning.

For over twenty-five years, I have researched and consulted on some of the major crises of our time. These include the Tylenol poisonings in 1982, September 11, Katrina, BP’s spill in the Gulf, and the latest toxic sludge in Hungary.

Crises have the potential to destroy entire industries, bring down governments, and adversely affect large regions of the globe. Not only are they bigger, costlier, and deadlier, but they come at us faster and faster. We are engaged worldwide in the wrong kind of contest.

Consider the latest toxic spill in Hungary. To put it in terms that anyone can grasp, it is as though we filled up the entire Empire State Building with some of the worst stuff imaginable, tipped the building completely on its side, and then spilled the full contents on the ground. The resulting mess would have filled an area of approximately seventeen square blocks, or slightly over a half-mile in any direction. The Hungarian spill is estimated to be 264 million gallons, compared to the 190 million gallons that BP spilled in the Gulf. In the long run, it may also be more toxic.

As BP and the latest disaster demonstrate all too well, reacting after a crisis has occurred is not sufficient. If one is not well prepared before, then reacting not only fails to contain the initial crisis but actually makes it worse.

The good news is that there are model companies that not only want to do the right things to protect the environment, but have actually learned what to do in order to substantially lower the chances of producing super crises. In short, they have learned how to be prepared for a wide range of crises. Unfortunately, the bad news is that crisis-prepared companies make up only 15 percent to 20 percent of all companies at best. The remaining 75 percent to 80 percent are thereby crisis-prone. They are mega disasters just waiting to happen.

If crisis-prone companies are unwilling to learn and change on their own, then government has no alternative but to step in, monitor them closely, and require them to behave responsibly.

This will not, of course, please those who are calling for less government. But, government exists to protect its citizens from those dangers from which they cannot protect themselves.

Make no mistake about it. Super crises pose as severe a danger as any we face. The risks are now as dangerous as terrorism. They are certainly as big a threat as global warming.

Originally published in Tikkun, Winter 2011

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