By Mike DuBose and Blake DuBose

It was Sept. 11, 2001, and Mike was lecturing in front of 150 professionals who had traveled to Austin, Texas to hear him speak. He, Blake, and his staff had just conducted the same class in New York City near the World Trade Center towers. The lecture was going well until the company’s vice president alerted Mike to the disaster unraveling in New York. His first words to everyone were, “Don’t panic!”

As a leader within any organization, sooner or later, you will face a crisis or disaster that could make or break your company. We were not prepared for the 9/11 attacks, but we became  therapists, comforters, humorists, and guides to those 150 people in Austin who spent five days with us in a class we will never forget. We have trained more than 25,000 individuals over 22 years, but that class was memorable because we all loved on each other, prayed, and survived a crisis together. Like it or not, we were their leaders, and though we wanted to cancel the class and hit the road, all forms of transportation were cancelled due to the fear of more terrorism. We were all stuck in Austin during one of the greatest crises our country has ever faced!

Since then, we have learned to “expect the unexpected.” Great companies must be prepared for the unimaginable. Everyone in your organization will look to you to lead them out of the crisis, and your job is to remain strong, calm, logical, and decisive. We have sometimes gone home with burdened hearts because of very difficult decisions we have made that negatively impacted human beings, but in front of our employees, we had to be strong leaders who would make difficult corrections to problems we saw ahead. It also meant we would have to stand in front of staff members and apologize for hard, painful, and unpopular decisions we had made.

Leading during a crisis means that you must “put your president’s hat on.” Case in point: In 2006, we realized that we had to cut expenses in order for one of our companies to survive. Senior management was forced to lay off four employees in order to balance the budget. There had been warning signs, but we had prepared for the future based on past successes and refused to see the problems brewing. We did everything we could to save those four employees, but in the end, they had to go. Every day for a month, we stared them in their faces, knowing we would soon have to tell them of their departures. Then, at an employee social held one week before we had to tell them the bad news, one of the employees announced that she was pregnant! Now, we had to tell a very competent pregnant employee who we really cared about that she would be laid off. But that is what crisis leadership is all about: making the tough decisions (with care) and being the rock-solid foundation that your employees will learn to depend upon and hopefully respect.

We know what you’re thinking right now: “These are some cold-hearted human beings.” But we know that as CEOs, our jobs are to:

• Make the company better than it was the year before.
• Create an environment where staff like coming to work.
• Develop outstanding products and services.
• Ensure that we take in more money than we spend.
• Exceed customer expectations.
• Forge a clear path to the future where everyone has input and knows where we are going and how to get there.
• Guarantee the survival of the company.

That last one requires having tough skin, making difficult decisions, thinking logically, soliciting facts and input, leading, and yes, a good dose of paranoia!
Great companies prepare for, predict, manage, and learn from crises. The most successful strategy in dealing with a crisis is to think of everything that could happen, then prevent it. Thus, it is important for all leaders to encourage everyone in the organization to “think about the unthinkable.” For example, we “plan to die tomorrow” and have spent hundreds of hours implementing detailed succession strategies for our companies.
Crises go through different stages and the leader must be prepared to spring into action in every phase:

• Predicting Disasters: Assemble your staff and discuss possible problems, crises, and disasters that could occur. Encourage everyone to “think outside the box” and focus on the worst-case scenarios for every phase of product development, sales, delivery, and post-sales.
• Action Strategies: After you and your team have identified threats, think about solutions to address the problems. At our Columbia Conference Center, for example, we conduct fire and tornado drills where we ask customers to participate, sending hundreds of people downstairs to our staff in an unexpected drill.
• Assembling a Crisis Team: Steven Fink, author of the first book ever written on crisis management, says that “every crisis demands a crisis management team to run the plays.” Designate certain individuals within a company (usually leaders) to prepare for the unexpected. This team provides the final decision-maker with multiple inputs for the best possible decision.
• Communicating During a Crisis: The team should react immediately to the situation, analyze the facts, and then determine who should be informed (after ensuring that the information is correct and as complete as possible).
• Crisis Management: The crisis team’s primary responsibilities are to identify crises, develop solutions, and meet the crises head on. Once a solution or strategy is developed, stick to it unless new information emerges; if it does, move quickly. The crisis team should focus on managing the crisis and bringing in experts and support (when needed), while the rest of the company should continue marching forward, creating the products and services that will keep it alive and pay the bills. Don’t let the entire company become distracted or paralyzed by a crisis!
• Crisis Learning: After the crisis passes, reassemble the crisis team and using Total Quality Management (TQM), dissect the crisis and carefully examine causes, symptoms, system weaknesses, and solutions. Don’t point fingers or blame, but encourage an open environment where people can come forward to offer opinions on preventing the problem in the future. Share what is learned with everyone so that gift is multiplied, and implement processes and procedures to alert your staff if the problem threatens to resurface.

While on vacation in Hawaii in November 2009, soon after finishing this article, we were faced with a serious business crisis. We calmly followed its suggestions to avert a serious problem, then stepped back and learned how to prevent similar crises in the future. Yes, it put a damper on our vacation, but the lessons we learned turned out to be great Christmas gifts!

A crisis can be a very painful event, but can also be a great learning opportunity. Of course, the best kind of crises are predicted and prevented. The bottom line: hope for the best and prepare for the worst!

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Mike DuBose has been in business since 1981 and is an instructor with the USC graduate school. He is the servant leader and owner of three debt-free corporations, including Columbia Conference Center, Research Associates, and The Evaluation Group. Mike has completed his book The Art of Building a Great Business, to be released in 2010.

Blake DuBose is president of DuBose Web Group (www.duboseweb.com). 

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