We've all been through it, although none of us wants it. It's a word that makes business owners shudder: Crisis. Despite all the optimistic quotes like "Always welcome a crisis, because you'll come out stronger", no one really want to go through the nightmare. So when Carlos Ghosn, the legendary CEO who pulled Nissan out of the dumps, came to Bangkok to give a speech about how to manage a crisis, one just listened.
Ghosn was at the Sasin Graduate School of Management to give some pointers on what to look out for when you're smack in the middle of a crisis.
His points were simple, but once again reinforced that it's not some magical idea that gets you through a crisis, but just a clear head. Here are some of the points that Ghosn mentioned that would definitely be useful for us all.
-The job of the manager in a crisis is to motivate people to do the things they don't want to do. A crisis is when a manager is needed. When times are good, no one thinks about the person who's running the show. People don't need to be motivated to do things, because things are going well and they're more than willing to do things.
Ghosn says the best way to motivate in times of crisis is to give people options to solve a problem that the company is facing, and then motivate them to stick to the choices made.
-Focus on having limited priorities and objectives when going through a crisis. Ghosn cited the example of making a hole on a surface: the secret is to drill on a small surface area and then apply pressure to break through. He talked about how during the crisis at Nissan, the objective in the first year was to simply cut operating losses. It was so basic that any employee way down the line could understand it.
Often times management tends to have too many objectives, that they could even be interpreted as conflicting. So keep priorities simple and to the point.
-Never talk about Plan B. The moment your team thinks that there is a Plan B they tend to choose it when they realise that Plan A is difficult. As an example, Ghosn said he told the Nissan management that if the company could not cut its losses in the first year, he would quit. Having a Plan B can stay in your mind, but never let your team know of it.
-Every crisis has an end. People tend to forget this simple fact even if they've been through a crisis before. Ghosn gave the example of the recent financial crisis, when people started selling all the stocks they had, as if there would be no end to the crisis. Always keep in mind, that the crisis will be over at some point. "If it does not kill you, it will only make you stronger," Ghosn said.
nRemember that there will always be conflict during a crisis. What's important to remember is that it's not conflict that is the biggest problem, it's indifference.
Conflict comes out of differing opinions, which means people are interested. But when you've got indifference, and people simply don't care about what you're saying, it's a manager's job to get them onboard.