La gestion de crise (in french)
Which organization and strategies to implement in order to set up crisis management systems?
Author(s): Laurent Combalbert, Eric Delbecque
Publisher: Presses Universitaires de France
Date of publication: 2012
Manageris opinion
Regularly confronted with organizations and companies in crisis, the authors have seen their crisis management models become ineffective. Indeed, crises are decreasingly made up of specific events which can be modeled, and are increasingly provoked by dynamics which are constantly present at varying levels. The authors even label crises as “permanent exceptions.” In their view, crisis management is an everyday activity that must be integrated into the normal roadmap.
Following this introduction, the authors endeavor to provide practical advice to companies
on setting up crisis management systems: How can you organize in advance? How do you
build a crisis unit? How do you negotiate? What influence strategies do you implement? In
particular, we retain the example of the skill hierarchy, which enables teams to organize
themselves according to the situation at hand, in order to give leadership to the most
competent person, who is not necessarily the team leader. This model is borrowed from
high-reliability organizations, such as aircraft carriers. The authors analyze these examples in light of behavioral and cognitive psychology studies to point out the importance of the human factor.
This brief tome from the Que sais-je collection makes it possible to rapidly grasp the key
principles and action items. The bibliography cites more detailed publications.
See also
How to take safety to the next level?
As atypical as they may be, the high-reliability organizations—aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, space travel installations, etc.—are characterized by a remarkably low number of incidents. How to learn from their methods to raise the bar on safety?