CRISIS MANAGEMENT 



William Woodruff 

 Consultant/Lecturer 

 Martinsville, Virginia 



The principles of crisis management hold true whether the crisis is a 

 63,000,000-gallon Amoco Cadiz disaster, one tank car off the track in rural 

 Ohio, or an emotional upheaval within a Regional Response Team. 



Every crisis provides the opportunity to experience either pain or gain. 

 Under similar conditions, some people are overwhelmed by a crisis and others 

 seem to grow stronger and better, using crises as stepping stones to im- 

 proved performance. The natural questions are: "what is the difference?" 

 "Are there 'good' and 'bad' people?" 



The inner strength and the coping skills that are helpful in crises can 

 be developed in two ways. First, a healthy self-image and experiencing 

 numerous past crises seem to help in learning to cope with new episodes. The 

 crises can be medical, financial, organizational, or ecological. They all 

 provide good training. Being well organized and having the ability to 

 separate important issues from trivial ones are also helpful traits. 



Luckily or unluckily, many people have not been subjected to excruciating 

 crises in their lifetimes. This does not mean, however, that they have to 

 stumble around for years and learn "the hard way" before doing a good job in 

 a crisis. 



There is a second, perfectly valid way to learn to develop coping skills, 

 and that way is behavior rehearsal. 



When crises and people's reactions to them are analyzed, there are 

 three phases: before, during, and after the crisis. The crisis that "jumps 

 out of the bushes" without warning can be the most devastating, which is why 

 the before phase is so important as far as maximizing positive results is 

 concerned. The elaborateness and thoroughness of preparations should depend 

 on how big the stakes and what the probability is that this particular crisis 

 will happen. 



How can a person learn crisis management skills without successfully 

 coping with past crises? The situation is comparable to the young person 

 who cannot get a job because of lack of experience and cannot get the ex- 

 perience without having a job. This problem has been solved by an important 

 discovery that allows the creation of experience in the mind. Experimental 



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