11. Crises management

Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a major event that threatens to harm the organization, its stakeholders, or the general public. Three elements are common to most definitions of crisis: (a) a threat to the organization, (b) the element of surprise, and (c) a short decision time.

There are types of crises: Natural disaster. Technological crises. Confrontation. Crisis of deception. Crisis of management misconduct.

There are a number of professional industry associations that provide advice, literature and contacts to turnaround professionals and academics.

Crisis Leadership Leaders should, but do not always, sense early warning signals (red flags) that suggest the possibility of a crisis. The detection stages of a crisis include: Sense-making: represents an attempt to create order and make sense, retrospectively, of what occurs. Perspective-taking: the ability to consider another person's or group's point of view.

How to prevent crisis First step in doing so starts with leader setting the tone by clarifying the goals and purpose of crisis management plan, which essentially are based on the philosophy and values of the organization. Leadership should help his top management team draft the crisis management policy, which provides definitions for generally used terms and identifies different levels of crisis in the organization. This demonstrates leadership’s commitment and promotes an enabling environment.

Second step in the process is to identify a core crisis management team, for identifying all possible crises that the company or any of its units may face and develop, plans, roles and responsibility for preparing and mitigating each of the crises. The role of leadership at this stage is empowering the core team for studying and analyzing crisis by various attributes such as industry, location, process, marketplace pressures etc.  Next step for leadership is to ensure effective and elaborate communication strategy and infrastructure even in the case of crisis / emergency / disaster, so that timely and consistent communication with internal and external stakeholders / partners is maintained at all times.  Establishing partnerships with external agencies is one of the critical leadership roles so that relevant knowledge and physical resources are available to the organization in times of crisis. Also the leaders at appropriate levels should ensure that training pertaining to crisis management is imparted to the people and organizational preparedness for facing the crisis.

12. Public speaking

Presentation to international audience is a key to success in being international, but a lot of people have a fear of public speaking. A certain amount of adrenalin and nerves can help you, but preparation (knowing topic, rehearsing, adopting talk and style according to audience) is also essential. Speaker should also consider: room set-up, seating arrangements, pace of delivery and tone of voice, gestures and body language, signs of approval and disapproval, which all may vary according to the culture.

Visual aids make a presentation easier to follow. A useful program to make a presentation is PowerPoint. Speakers prefer use overhead projectors with transparencies or slides as well as handouts.

To engage the audience or get them on his side speaker can use humor or appropriate anecdotes at he beginning, but should use it sensitively or not at all. Also speaker may start with some interesting brief, for example, surprising facts or figures. After presenting the company, products or research findings or etc. speaker needs to summarise or conclude the main points before signaling the end and inviting for further questions from the public. The most challenging part of speaking to audience is question and answer session, because not all questions can be anticipated. To solve particular issues speaker may refer the member of the audience to another authority or suggest further correspondence.

An important part of getting work done is building relationships and having an extensive network of contacts. Manager can participate in some training programs or try getting know people socially during coffee breaks, business lunches and etc., but way of socializing outside working hours depends on personal, company and cultural issues.

Practical ways of networking are exchanging business cards, listening actively and eye contact, but behavior of opponents will also vary from country to country.