Spec 2 - Activity 08

WMSU-ISMP-GU-001.
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Effective Date: 7-DEC-2016
Common Crisis Management Plan Weaknesses

Lesson 8
Introduction
Recall that a crisis management team is structured to deal with unexpected incidents
or series of events, accidents or crises that can have unique or wide-ranging implications.
There is in some situations little that a crisis management team can do to avert a catastrophe
like a natural disaster. Nevertheless, since there are no two planes for crisis management alike,
team leaders should be mindful of the most common flaws found in other plans.
Although with experience, practice and exposure certain vulnerabilities can be
minimized or removed, others can be detected only after a crisis has been dealt with and
individuals can look back and assess which elements of the crisis plan worked and which did
not. However, understanding the fundamental reasons why a crisis management plan can fail
or impede a successful resolution of the situation can help crisis management team members
avoid those situations wherever possible.
Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you can:
1. Demonstrate understanding on the weak links in a Crisis Management

2. Provide alternatives to address those weak links.
Try this!
List down common weaknesses of a crisis you encountered before. List down at least
three weaknesses.
There are obvious weak points when a certain organization handle a crisis. The three
common weaknesses that I encountered before are list down below which are;
 Slow respond - what I noticed when facing a crisis a person who has somewhat
authority will dig up more information to the situation and not just resolve it immediately
For WMSU Instructional Purposes Only Page 1 of 6
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or call a help. For example in our school there is this incident where a person got injured
but instead of calling a immediate aid to clinic they would mostly try to question the
victim about what happen rather than where or what is the injured part. This type of
respond will most likely slow down the respond which I think one of the weakness of a
crisis.
 Flow of command failure - Sometimes organization fail to distribute information to
the right person and it leads to failure in providing information to the other staff.
 Minimizing the confusion - When there is a crisis happening there are a lot of people
will be confuse and worried about the crisis. Sometimes people that are involve panic
from it and sometimes like teacher panic more from the crisis which elevate panic more.
People who are in charge cannot eradicate confusion well and this is also an obvious
weaknesses in a crisis.
Think ahead!
Reflective Feedback: What do you think are the biggest mistake managers do which often
leads them to a crisis?
I think the biggest mistakes managers do which lead them to a crisis is not making a
advance plan when a certain situation occur. For instance, a manager fail to make a
contingency plan when someone died or just a sudden absent and that person is task with a
important job. Making a plan about it would make everything more smooth than worrying
about what things they will do in that sudden crisis situation.
Good Job!
Read and Ponder
Common Weaknesses
Although finding any potential vulnerability of a crisis plan would be difficult, some
vulnerabilities may be more apparent. Some of the most popular ones include:
 Failure to adequately collect information or data and to plan around it. This
aspect of crisis management planning involves the identification of possible hazards
or crisis situations, their examination, and the preparation or development of a
variety of responses. Information may be required including company operating
procedures, organizational records, and regulatory rules and laws imposed by state
or federal mandates.

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 Failure to establish a command hierarchy or structure. For instance, handling a

primary school emergency or crisis needs strategies that are different from those
taken at a nuclear power plant. It is pointless to try to fit a standardized emergency
response strategy into insufficient scenarios. Each entity should formulate its own
crisis response by facility, industry, population and organizational structure.
Likewise, there may be elements of a hospital evacuation plan that are different
from those coordinated by a college, small business, shopping mall, or high-rise
building. Members of the crisis management team will concentrate on their
individual business or agency as they formulate their response to the crisis.
 Inability to clearly designate team or organizational responsibilities. Inability to
provide consistent instructions and knowledge about the particular roles,
responsibilities or functions of an individual team member in an emergency
situation can cause indecision, uncertainty and an inability to perform at optimum
levels. Identifying roles and goals is an crucial and critical part of team
management and should be periodically checked to ensure that each team member
understands exactly what duties and obligations he or she has at work.
 Inability to effectively communicate with outside community members. Other
participants comprise emergency services, including hospitals, police departments,
and fire departments. An emergency plan will state where people are to be
evacuated. This will recognize help groups and provide contact information so that
they are contacted immediately and without question. During emergency cases,
designating a lead person and a backup person to be responsible for contacting
primary off-site agencies helps streamline response time and effectiveness.
 Failure to consistently update and practice contingency plans. Getting a strategy
on paper is one thing, but if individuals have never practiced many possible
situations, including the response team, then the strategy can be useless.
Developing crisis solutions to meet regulatory requirements is one thing, but failing
to execute or enforce them is irresponsible. Continued evaluation, information
assessments, sharing of documents and contact numbers should be readily
accessible and given to all members of the crisis management team, along with
subordinates, managers and senior management staff. To ensure compliance,
everyone will practice elements in the program on a regular basis.
 Failure to make crisis information easily understandable, accessible, and
implementable. Every person on a crisis management team should be clear about
their roles and responsibilities at work. Materials should be readable and accessible
easily. For certain cases, all team leaders, department managers, and supervisors
should be readily provided with a simple reference guide during emergency
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situations. More essential still is appropriate preparation to execute emergency or

contingency plans..
As you can see, most of the above-mentioned shortcomings depend heavily on

communication and the free flow of knowledge and resources. Finally, it is especially
important for crisis management teams to meet regularly, share notes and ensure that
everybody knows what is required of him or her in an emergency situation, whether it helps
to evacuate a burning building, informs the chief executive of the failure or acts as an
intermediary in public relations in the event of a technological or supply issue.
Preventing Confusion
Daily reports and workshops on preparedness to handle emergencies will avoid

misunderstanding. Senior managers, supervisors, and boards of directors will meet with crisis
management teams fairly frequently to discuss preparedness for a wide variety of scenarios.
Managing the crisis is more than just cheap talk and false promises. This involves
taking decisions, holding ongoing meetings and, wherever possible, involving all levels of
staff. Practice makes for success. A contingency plan and ideas for responding to a number of
emergencies are important. It's foolhardy not to follow those plans.
Although the weaknesses mentioned above in the crisis management plan definitely
are not all the weaknesses found in other plans, they are the most common. Members of the
crisis management team need to work frequently and discuss potential action strategies, as
well as possible scenarios or consequences if things don't go well.
Not all of this is doom and gloom. Proper planning will help save not just human life
but millions of dollars in profits and corporate reputations that survive on the Boy Scout
slogan, "Be prepared."
Conclusion
Due to the value of coordination and information when planning emergency plans,
members of the crisis management team will practice frequently or come up with ideas for
coping with emergencies.

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See if you can do this!
With the common weaknesses you listed above, give these weaknesses solutions based from
the paragraphs you read above.
My above-mentioned weaknesses are slow respond, flow of command failure, and

minimizing confusion. First the slow respond the solution that would be suitable for this is to
be knowledgeable about a certain crisis that might occur and be responsive to a crisis. Having
enough knowledge and information about a certain crisis will help identify well on how to
take action on a certain crisis. The second is flow of command failure and the solutions
would be organization staff should have a clear roles and responsibilities when dealing with a
crisis. For example, in a school there is a student who got injured and teachers would not be
suitable to the task to ask question and victim blame the student. Teachers should
immediately call an aid to a clinic to have the student a first aid help then the next step would
be calling a hospital for a full help. Staffs in an organization should be well inform on what to
do or who to call when a crisis occur. Lastly, minimizing confusion suitable solutions would
be to make sure that people in a certain organization are prepared to handle a certain crisis
situation. This solution would help eradicate or avoid more confusion when a crisis occur. On
a final note, I believe having the right knowledge, information, and preparedness would help
greatly when facing a crisis.
Good Job!

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WMSU-ISMP-GU-001.

Common Crisis Management Plan Weaknesses

At the end of this lesson, you can:

1. Demonstrate understanding on the weak links in a Crisis Management

Read and Ponder

For WMSU Instructional Purposes Only Page 2 of 6

 Failure to establish a command hierarchy or structure. For instance, handling a

situations. More essential still is appropriate preparation to execute emergency or

As you can see, most of the above-mentioned shortcomings depend heavily on

Daily reports and workshops on preparedness to handle emergencies will avoid

For WMSU Instructional Purposes Only Page 4 of 6

See if you can do this!

My above-mentioned weaknesses are slow respond, flow of command failure, and

For WMSU Instructional Purposes Only Page 5 of 6

For WMSU Instructional Purposes Only Page 6 of 6

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