Crisis Management: Sharing Thoughts

Ever since I was employed here in UP Manila, I have thought of the College's capability to respond to a crisis. The crises I thought of were not all that disastrous, of course. Some were actually just pseudo-crisis, for example, a bomb threat.

Of course, I also thought of realistic crises, such as earthquakes and inclement weather. I never had the financial capability to do a formal risk assessment, but I thought it is obvious that the College can use whatever free services are available to have the capability to alleviate stress in crisis times.

I have been interested with crisis management since the time I was in ROTC. In ROTC, when we conducted program or project planning, we always considered uncertainty. In Oplan jargon, they were called "Assumptions," as compared to "Friendly Forces" or "Enemy Forces," which were sentient individuals or organizations. Assumptions are the clearly identified situational indicators that you will need to have, considering that they are out of your control or influence, in order to carry out your operation.

In my thesis for my undergraduate degree, I studied crisis management in an educational institution. It was then when I understood--among others--that crisis is relative, and that there are different types of crisis.

Crisis is relative means that a situation maybe a crisis to one person or organization and it may be normal for another. An example given to me by my key informants (in my undergraduate thesis) is tuberculosis. TB has been an ongoing health crisis for health practitioners, but it seems that a lot of other people do not care about it.

The typology of crisis is also important because the spectrum of your types of crisis will allow you to prepare with your limited resources for crisis--from one end to the next--while not interfering with your day-to-day operations.

As the College's information officer, my main responsibility is to communicate to the public information of importance to them. The way I look at it, my principal publics were:

1. College Students
2. College faculty
3. College Administrative Staff
4. College Alumni
5. Partners
   

Besides these five is a heterogenous group of groups and individuals who will have a unique stake in the actions, decisions or status of the College.

Synthesizing crisis management and communication, you have crisis communication--a critical component in crisis management.

The minimalist goal of crisis communication is to minimize stress, fear, uncertainty and to bring order in a highly dynamic environment. This has been the basis of my initiative to lay out--without being asked by the Dean--a crisis communication system, using all free services that I know.

(Of course, the Dean actually initiated the idea of using online resources to increase interactive communication between the Office of the Dean and the various stakeholders of the College. My take on it was only in increasing the ability of the College to use it for crisis situations.)

Social networks proved to be useful, so I created a CAS Facebook Group, a Multiply Group, a YM ID for the CAS, and Twitter. I also made my mobile number easier to remember for CAS members (4636 spells INFO in mobile keypad). I designed the faculty database so that I can communicate with a lot of people faster.

Then, it was September 26, 2009. And I was at CAS.

To be continued....