Crisis Management

. Replies should be no less than 75 words.

1. This question should be addressed to Christy Bruno

Organizational learning is the process of detecting and correcting errors. It seeks to improve the operation of the organization by reflecting on past experiences. In the context of crisis management, learning should occur when the organization experiences a crisis (Crandall, Parnell & Spillian 2013). I have been with the same company for sixteen years and we have never ran into a crisis situation. I am a Human Resource Manager for a security company, and we hold quarterly learning meetings to go over our plan in case of a crisis. It is mandatory that each new hire signs off on all training performed before on the job training begins.

Securitas has an effective crisis management plan. This plan should be communicated company-wide and periodically rehearsed like a fire drill. Preparing for a crisis is an essential step, but if you fail to thoroughly educate, communicate and train the staff and then follow up with after-action reports the plan’s shortcomings may not be apparent until the worst possible moment (www.securitasinc.com).

The it won’t happen here mentality is so pervasive that many companies are ill-equipped to prevent violence and unprepared to respond to a crisis. Many have no violence prevention and intervention program, or have cobbled together some well-intentioned (but misguided) policies. In addition to increasing the risk of injury and death, employers without a violence prevention and intervention program, or with a poorly designed one, may result in exposure to legal liability (www.securitasinc.com).

Reference

https://www.securitasinc.com/globalassets/us/files/knowledge-center/whitepapers/workplace-violence—prevention-and-response_whitepaper.pdf

Crandall, W., Parnell, J., & Spillian, J. (2013). Crisis Management Leading in the New Strategy Landscape. Thousand Oaks, CA: Savant Learning Systems. Retrieved from https://www.betheluniversityonline.net.

2. This question should be addressed to Stephen C. Davis

Organizational learning is defined as” the process of detecting and correcting errors” (Crandall, Parnell, & Spillan, 2013, p. 225). We learn inside our facility on a regular basis. The two most recent examples which come to mind are a quality issue on one of our forming presses, and several fires inside a dust collecting unit. Both issues are crisis situations in their own way. Obviously, the fires could damage the building or worse, injury or kill an employee. Every time we had a fire, the building was evacuated because of smoke, all production ceased, and the filters had to be replaced. This is a huge safety issue and financial burden. The quality issue has impacted our customers because we cannot make the truck axles they want without the proper halves from this press.

We discovered the fires were caused by the length of the duct work going from the machine to the dust collector. The machine is a plasma cutter so it produces sparks, and the sparks need time to burn out before reaching the filters. We brought in the manufacturer of the dust collector to help identify the problem, and they helped us fix the machine. We have other dust collectors in the building, so we found the same issue in two other areas. Luckily, these machines have not caused any issues, but we fixed them before we had issues.

The quality issue has been ongoing for over a month. We used this situation as a learning experience for everyone in the facility. I am trained in Shainin, Red X, which is a set of problem solving tools designed to take the guess work out of a problem. When we guess at the cause of a problem, we work on things that are not necessary, while overlooking the root cause of an issue, Red X takes the guess out of the equation (Shainin, The Red X Company, 2017).

All of the employees in the area told us what the issue was, at least they thought it was. By using the tools in my training, we were able to identify the problem was in the tooling, it had nothing to do with the machine. The final repair cost us nothing, but had we followed the guesses of everyone involved, we would have spent $50,000 on a machine that was in good working condition.

Our company is spending a lot of money training others in Red X. Since using the tools a couple of times, the money will be well spent. One thing is for sure, we do not know, what we do not know.

References:

Crandall, W., Parnell, J. & Spillan, J. (2013). Crisis Management Leading in the New Strategy Landscape. Thousand Oaks, CA: Savant Learning Systems. Retrieved from https://www.betheluniversityonline.net.

Shainin, The Red X Company. (2017, November). Shainin, The Red X Company. Retrieved from Shainin Website: https://www.shainin.com/