Crisis Management- Malaysian airlines MH370
“The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall”-Nelson Mandela
What if the fall is so severe, deep and painful, how does one rise again?
Crisis Management is difficult to impart, learn and practise, the real experience comes after a crisis, until then its only theory! Every Organisation & individual goes through a crisis at some point of time, both due to internal or external factors.
But if the prime reason is external factors-then many a time we can predict based on past experience and in cases where external factors beyond the control & unknown factors have induced the crisis it will be so tough for the organisations and its leaders!
One such case which is unparalleled in the history of Aviation is- Malaysian Airline flight MH370 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members went missing & its whereabouts still unknown after 9 years, killing all 239 on board & the most intriguing part is the reasons still unknown! Organisations & leaders are wired to get to the root cause, analyse the reasons and fix it, but in this case there is no past history, no information and no clue what went wrong. In such a situation how does the leadership address the same?
Cases like these will push the company to the wall as, everything built over several decades goes for a toss- Brand, confidence, morale, safety and security and above all the trust of multiple stakeholders: Employees, Investors, Shareholders, Management, Vendors & Suppliers, statutory bodies including the Government and social trust too.
As a leader how does one act in a major crisis like this and address the concerns of all stakeholders and face the challenges and relook & rebuild the organisation from the scratch and regain the trust of the all the stakeholders?
In this case, Yin May Lau, CMO, Malaysian Airlines, has revealed how the company went through the worst crisis and the entire crisis was handled and managed exceeding well and regained the trust of all stakeholders. Some key take aways and quotes:
1. Learning from difficult times- “The biggest lesson for us is realising how a lot of things may not be in our control. But what matters is how we recover and what we do after that. Being agile and planning in advance so we can move immediately was another big learning”.
2. Believe in Data: “We have a saying:In life we believe in God, in work we believe in data. Don’t do things that you ‘feel’ like, everything must be data based. Everything we do, from retargeting to our marketing communications and campaign management is based on data”.
3. Safety & Security- “Safety & security are a non-negotiable part pf the brands DNA, the moment either is compromised, all other parameters in the corporate score-card turn to zero”.
#crisis management # Decision making
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