Organizational Learning!

Most people look at a crisis as a very negative event. Although many crises do end with a few or possibly a lot of bad outcomes, some if not all crises can teach an organization many things. Once a crisis is completely over there is actually still more work to be done. This may be the most important part of a crisis; this is known as the learning phase. Here the organization, such as Tiffany & Co., must evaluate the crisis and anything that could have been changed during the events of the crisis as well as what needs to be changed in the organization overall. In order to make sure future crisis will be handled to the best of the organizations ability the crisis management plans need to be altered in some ways by what is learned from the previous crisis.

When it comes to Tiffany & Co. I have mentioned several times they have not dealt with any major crisis, at least not recently or publicly. This could mean one of two things for Tiffany’s they may have learned from smaller crisis in the past or possibly they have just been fully prepared and paid close attention to warning signs. For an organization like Tiffany & Co. if a crisis were to occur they have such a large worldwide corporation they would definitely have a lot of research to do at the closure of the crisis to see how it was handled in the many different branches of their organization.

In order for an organization to be completely ready and aware of a crisis they must constantly be developing new ideas on how to adapt to the current lifestyle of not only their customers but the entire world. An organization must be constantly learning what is going on around them, with their customers, their employees, and the organization as a whole. If an organization does not keep up with their surroundings they will never be able to survive a future crisis. Organizational learning should be a constant for all of those involved in the organization anyone from the CEO to an everyday employee. A company like Tiffany & Co. is very popular and so well known for their premier jewelry that they need to be informed about what is going on around them to make sure they can keep their positive reputation.

Crisis Communication!

What’s Next?! The crisis has hit Tiffany & Co. now what do we do? It is good that we have already put together not only a crisis management team but also a number of different crisis management plans. We have made a number of plans for many different families of crisis and thankfully we now can handle our crisis in a somewhat organized manner.
The first step for us to do is to communicate with our internal stakeholders this would be anyone from the owners to the managers and employees of those stores involved. We must keep them all on track with what is going on within the company and with the crisis itself. It is very important that we have a command center set up so that when any questions arise it is very easy to contact those in charge, with letting all the internal stakeholders know where the command center is is very important. Having the general employees informed about the crisis is also essential because they are always in the spotlight. They will be some of the first people that will have questions asked to them and they need know how to answer or if to answer these questions at all.
When dealing with our external environment we must first designate the spokesperson that will be the main contact for this particular crisis. Three main externals we need to deal with would be our customers, the news media, and the internet. We want our customers to be well informed about what is going on so that they do not have to make up stories in their head about what is actually happening. It is best to always communicate with the media is quick as possible so that they do not mix the story up and make the crisis worse than it actually is. When the media asks a question we always need to be ready to respond. The internet is very important as well because the internet is a main source of information for a large amount of customers. Negative information on the internet will spread quicker anything. That being said the internet needs to be monitored extremely closely.
After the crisis is over and all the stakeholders are well informed it is necessary to conduct the post crisis analysis. Here we can finally see how the crisis was dealt with and if it was dealt with in a positive way. We must decide if the outcome of the crisis could have been less damaging then it resulted in or if the results are of good standing. After evaluating this we can decide what needs to be changed for next time.

The Crisis is Here!

This week in class we have finally encountered a crisis! Although this is not something an organization is excited about, for me as a student it is! We have done all the planning for many different families of crises and we would now be close to prepared if something did actually happen this week.

Now that the crisis has hit the first step for Tiffany & Co. is to decide who the leader should be for this specific problem. In my recent research on Tiffany & Co. I have come to notice that they are always sponsoring different events. As far as I know there has not been a major crisis with any of the events they have sponsored but for purpose of learning we will pretend there was one. If a crisis were to occur during an event they were sponsoring the first thing to do is find the person in charge of the event and have them make the first move as to how to handle the situation. After the leader is chosen they must assess the situational analysis which is one of the first parts of the CMT plan and they will decide what should be done now. They then must mitigate the strategies and assess the situation as the crisis continues to make sure each strategy they are implementing is running smoothly. After the strategies are implemented and assessed they then must choose the spokesperson that will do the majority of the communicating with both the media and the stakeholders about the crisis.

In the Mid-Crisis Stage this will inform Tiffany & Co. one of three things the first one being that the crisis is under control, the second one being that control has not been attained, or lastly that the outcome is completely hopeless. After damage is contained they must communicate with both the internal and external stakeholders and make amends wherever necessary. Towards the end of the crisis Tiffany & Co. needs to evaluate what is going right and what is going wrong for the means of how they can change things in the case that another crisis may occur in the future.