Skip to main content

Crisis does not have to be Chaotic


Sure, we get it, resilience is the new "buzz word", all of us must have the ability "to bounce back" when faced with a crisis.  You could see the eyes start to roll back in Frazzled Franks head, who always had a negative opinion.  Heck, come to think of it, Frank gives Natalie Naysayer a run for her money.  Frank, started Old Ollie, resilience is not that black and white.  Ollie, taking off his ballcap and resting his chin in the butt of his hand, started to reminisce about his days working at the refinery.  Back then, we had a process known as reliability centered maintenance.  It was pretty straightforward, take a look at the approach, rationalize what is the most important, and support your hypothesis with data.



Ollie, you are talking about maintenance and we are trying to make sure that our building is resilient; blurted Frank.  Ollie continued; the trick is the balance between what areas will have the greatest impact on your customers (revenue) and those items which you can change (span of control).  For instance, let's say your building is five stories and the elevator lands on your customer impact list.  Upon further assessment you determine that the juice may not be worth the squeeze as occupants could take the stairs.  However, when you float this idea with your tenants you discover that they hate the dimly lit stairwells, certainly an easy problem to solve.  Without significant investment this operation has become more resilient.  Thanks Ollie, that was a simple example said Frank in a sarcastic voice.  Let's talk about those items out of our control such as loss of power or water.



Frank, here are some considerations to get you started in identifying potential crisis points within your operation:

  1. Starting with the consumer or employees input, ask them; from your perspective, what is the one thing that could turn your day upside down?
  2. Organize the feedback into broad categories, whatever fits your business
  3. Once in categories, blend the feedback into themes or focus areas and score them based on impact to the customer experience (which will translate to revenue)
  4. Now, shift your way to think about the themes and go back through the categories and themes now scoring them based on your collective opinion on how much ability you have to control the crisis event 
  5. Finally, taking the scores, reorganize and start getting creative with solutions for the top three ONLY
    1. Once the top three are completed, start over again from the top



Fantastic Ollie, thank you for the logical plan.  Frank, getting outsiders involved in contemplating solutions can be a real eye-opener, often we are too close and cant see the forest for the trees.



-----

Next post:  from the field to the office

Thoughts?  feel free to leave replies or direct message

See all of the "last mile worker" posts here:  http://lastmileworkersolutions.com

-----
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

expert at everything...not a problem

Well... I would say sometimes there certainly is a perceived notion that one person is an expert at everything. For the worker "everything" may be defined as the specific area in which you were hired or are constantly scheduled. Our opinions are frequently influenced off of past experience, or information we've received from their coworkers. Unfortunately this only gives us partial insight to that workers expertise and often is limited to their most recent history. Narrowly focused accounting is made of the skills that this individual possess. Come on, can't we figure out a way to leverage all of the skills of a particular worker? One of the challenges has always been that relationship between the activities which need to be accomplished and the myriad skills of individuals within your workforce. In addition, even if you could inventory and get a pretty good handle on the skill sets, they are constantly changing (with any luck) and thus the ineffective process of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

In$pired

As the steam from Avid Andy's coffee fogged his glasses on this crisp January morning, he reflected on last year and thought enthusiastically about the year ahead.   Sometimes the noise of business is deafening, we rarely take the time to contemplate our moves, instead are often thrown one direction or another.   Hey, face it, if you are reading posts to gain perspective you fall in the group of folks who pride themselves as obsequious hoop-jumpers.   We live to help others and expect that all of those around us feel the same way.   I just love Influential Irene.   Okay, it is out in the open, she is an inspiration for me and so many others.   Irene reminds folks every year, without fail, these three statements which she fondly refers to as "the punchline" (although this is no joke).   Businesses, of any size, will be successful if they remember that it is people that make a company.   Put this advice into practice, today: Sincerity |...
Post a Comment
Read more

What happened to Customer Service?

Leaving your customer with the sensation that they are highly revered to your organization, isn't that what customer service is all about? However, in order to obtain that level of connection wouldn't it help if every individual which touched the customer sincerely understood what service you are providing? If we go back to my core belief, expressed in other posts, "people want to do the right thing". Taking that at face value, it leaves our primary jobs as mentors and educators. Many complicate this topic by blaming it on the generations, as a matter of fact that is where I was at when I started to think about composing this post. It is true in some ways that over the years our culture in America has changed. You can experience this by visiting different parts of the United States, for instance go to the deep South and you will get a different level of customer service then you may on either of our coasts. Yet that is really a scapegoat to avoid the root pr...
Post a Comment
Read more