Work in pairs or small groups discussing the following problems.
1. Tension among team members makes a team more effective.
2. The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.
C. Role play
Prepare for a role play. Read the situation and the roles, and follow the procedure.
Situation №1
A sales rep went on a three-day business trip: He/She: stayed in a 5-star hotel; phoned home from their room; ordered breakfast in their room; drank most of the mini-bar; had clothes dry-cleaned by the hotel. After the trip, the Finance director thinks the rep’s expenses are excessive and refuses to pay them. The sales rep defends their actions.
The roles: the Finance director, the sales representative.
Situation№2
A team of multinational staff is managing a number of resort centres in Minsk, Belarus. The managing director is rather young and he is keen on providing team building games, buzz sessions with external experts to improve employee motivation and communication. In spite of this fact one employee is unhappy and uncooperative. He refuses to participate in some of the team’s activities.
The roles:the team leader, the unhappy employee.
Task for the team leader:
find out about the problem; offer some solutions so that the employee performs better as a member of your team.
Task for the unhappy employee:
feels he/she is working harder than other members of the team; is always the last to leave work; his/her hard work is not recognized or appreciated; is married and misses his/her family.
VII. Writing
Write an essay on the following topic. "None of us is as smart as all of us”
Unit I9 Risk and Crisis Management
I. Anticipating the Issue
Discuss your answers to the following questions.
1. What is a risk? What is a crisis? Are they interconnected?
2. What business-related activities can be risky?
II. Background Reading
Read the following text. Focus on the meaning of the boldfaced words. Determine whether what you anticipated coincides with the text.
Risk and Crisis Management
1. Corporations are operating in a turbulent world where businesses are seeking growth through globalisation, outsourcing, consolidation, just-in-time delivery and cross-border supply, thus increasing their exposure to risk. Add regulatory, legal and labour considerations, and you begin to understand the complex nature of business risk in the 21st century.
2. All business is built on risk. By putting money into a new venture, investors are taking serious financial risks. Some businesses fail and this can happen increasingly quickly after they are founded.
3. The majority of all loss can be prevented or minimized and this should be the first part of any disaster recovery plan. Prevention is better than cure and there is a lot companies can do to stop such events from becoming a disaster in the first place. However, all risks can never be fully avoided or mitigated simply because of financial and practical limitations. Therefore all organizations have to accept some level of residual risks.
4. Research shows that more than one-third of the world’s leading companies are not sufficiently prepared to protect their main revenue sources and have room for improvement. To best protect cashflow, competitive position and profit, companies need to assess the potential hazards that can impact top revenue sources and make sure there is business continuity planning. The most successful, least crisis-prone businesses will be those whose boards have shown firm resolve and taken decisive actions. Effective, integrated strategies for dealing with tomorrow’s risks require a change in culture at board level now.
5. A new research found that half of European companies did not know how to manage the most significant risks to their businesses. Most of senior executives admitted that they did not have procedures in place to manage properly operational and strategic risks, which were responsible for most company failures in the 21st century. The three most significant risks, and those that businesses felt least able to manage, were: (a) increased competition, (b) adverse changes in customer demand, (c) reduced productivity because of staff absenteeism and turnover.
6. Management processes could easily help companies identify and address these risks. Instead, too many companies take a low-level approach to risk management preferring to focus on easy-to-solve risks, such as asset protection and health and safety.
7. Risk is dynamic, it changes with the environment. Unless businesses accept this and review risk regularly, they could eventually find themselves in a state of crisis, struggling to survive rather than focused on growth. Business leaders have an obligation to their employees, shareholders and other stakeholders to properly protect themselves against risk. Businesses that do attempt to manage these risks will boost their bottom lines. Risk management is a practice of systematically selecting cost effective approaches for minimising the effect of threat realization to the organization. The strategies of effective risk management include transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk.
8. A crisis is a major, unpredictable event that threatens to harm an organization and its stakeholders. It can be described as "an abnormal situation, or even perception, which is beyond the scope of everyday business and which threatens the operation, safety and reputation of an organization". Crises are an inevitable part of management and the larger the business grows, the bigger the crises seem to become. However robust a business seems, it is still fallible.
9. Although crisis events are unpredictable, they are not unexpected. Crises can affect all segments of society – businesses, churches, educational institutions, families, non-profits and the government and are caused by a wide range of reasons. Although the definitions can vary greatly, three elements are common to most definitions of crisis: (a) a threat to the organization, (b) the element of surprise, and (c) a short decision time.
10. A crisis may well be an opportunity to test a company’s capabilities, but it is an opportunity that most companies would prefer to do without. However, there are entire industries that live under a permanent cloud of crisis.
11. Crisis management consists of skills and techniques required to assess, understand, and cope with any serious situation, especially from the moment it first occurs to the point that recovery procedures start. An understanding of risk is essential in crisis management. Crisis management consists of methods used to respond to both the reality and perception of crises such as a Crisis Management Plan. Crisis is a facet of risk management, although it is probably untrue to say that Crisis Management represents a failure of Risk Management since it will never be possible to totally mitigate the chances of catastrophes occurring. However, the constant monitoring of what is going on in the larger world is an essential activity. Once a range of possible future crises has been established, contingency plans can be put in place. Contingency planning is designed to prepare for the worst, with specific plans of action for disaster recovery, including handling of the media and protecting as far as possible the company’s reputation.
12. Nowadays businesses are judged on how well they treat their internal audience: their staff in crisis situations. Companies may offer employee assistance programmes to help them through difficult situations or traumatic incidents. A reputation for caring in this area can reduce staff turnover and enhance a company’s overall image in society as a whole. This makes commercial sense too: high staff turnover is costly, and an image as a caring employer may have a positive effect on sales.
13. Good crisis management requires the ability to react to events swiftly and positively, whether or not they have been foreseen. Forward thinking and planning are essential; understanding the nature of the crisis that might occur can help managers be better prepared.
14. In the face of crisis, leaders must deal with the strategic challenges they face, the political risks and opportunities they encounter, the errors they make, the pitfalls they need to avoid, and the paths away from crisis they may pursue.