135-145

• Ntanos, Anastasios

The ability to manage a crisis calmly requires perpetual and vigilant crisis management planning. When a major disaster strikes, businesses that had failed to adequately make provisions for potential crisis situations tend to be unable to react and cope with the sudden impact of the event. As is seen every day, issues or crises played out in the public domain are unpredictable, demanding and fast-moving. The attendant pressures have always put senior management in a danger zone where every action or response carries the potential todefine or destroy the future of products, reputations, strategies and well-laid plans. Under the scary spotlight of public, regulatory, political and media scrutiny, crisis situations become all absorbing of management time and attention. But unless properly handled, experience shows that crisis management can become no more than a series of despairing attempts at damage limitation or mere survival. Experience of working alongside corporate management in crisis has shown that turning around these complex situations is most successfullyachieved by well-prepared, trained and drilled management groups. Each and every team player needs to appreciate the dangers of the situations they face, while at the same time looking for every chance to leverage opportunities – however fleeting. At a time of crisis, the ultimate challenge for senior management teams becomes how to win back trust and credibility, both of which will have been undermined, damaged or destroyed. Over and above the corporate and financial stakes, the corporate team must consider how bestto defend and bolster the reputations of the company, products and services – even management itself – all of which will have come under fire. Finally as far as the conflicts in the business environment are concerned with the large number of people each employee must work around and see daily, and the wide spectrum of backgrounds, it is almost a sure bet that conflicts will occasionally arise. There may be personality clashes, misunderstandings, miscommunications, disagreements, or just plain dislikes. Whatever the reason, every employee, sooner or later, must learn how to cope with, or handle, conflicts.

• Economics and Business

• Economics

crisis, crisis management, conflicts, business environment, crisis management planning, corporate management

JEL classification: J50, M12