The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown of the Government’s Climate Strategy
An in-depth look at the Canadian government’s climate strategy: the good, the bad, and the unknown
Authored by:
Rob Currie
Owner and Founder
and
Kleomenis Filiadris
Principal Consultant
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce brings together a vast network of over 450 chambers of commerce and boards of trade and more than 200,000 businesses, from all regions and sectors of the economy. This network represents diverse viewpoints; the opinions expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
My career in security and public safety has spanned over 35 years. I am proud to have served in federal law enforcement, the military as well as leading security operations in private sector banking and luxury hospitality. I am always amazed at the strong correlation between high functioning organisations and the health of their crisis management programs.
Over the last 12 months, security professionals in both the private and public sectors have been consumed by the far-reaching impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Plainly put, it has dominated and impacted nearly every facet of our personal and professional lives.
If there is a silver lining to this pandemic which we are all navigating, it is that it has forced organisations of all shapes and sizes to leverage their existing crisis management plans or to develop new plans if none existed. I speak almost daily with security professionals and there is a common theme which consistently comes up: companies that possess a strong crisis management plan are thriving in their given industries as compared to their peers and competitors. With that in mind, I wanted to take this opportunity to identify the key attributes that the most successful crisis management programs share. The best crisis management programs are simple, reliable and repeatable. Let us dig deeper together on these basic descriptors:
Simple – Managing a crisis engenders its own unique complexities. Therefore, keeping your crisis management plan simple has obvious advantages. Many organisations are often easily bogged down with overly complex monolithic plans that attempt to address every conceivable crisis type. Here are a few of tips to ensure simplicity:
*N.B. – this should be no more than 8-10 pages for a large multi-national.
Reliable – Organisations can have the best crisis management plan in the world yet if it is out of date or not available during a crisis, it can be rendered useless.
Repeatable – Crisis management is a skill that requires practice like anything else we wish to master. Here are some best practices to raise your personal and your team’s crisis management effectiveness:
These concepts are far from an exhaustive list of how to establish a resilient crisis management program. With that said, these strategies reside with some of the best crisis management programs that support major organisations. The obvious main purpose of a crisis management program is to guide an organisation through the destabilisation caused by the crisis. If executed correctly, business disruption should be minimal while allowing the company to return to its core activities. Organisations can also reap other dividends from a high-performance crisis management plan such as reducing the impact on share value, higher team cohesiveness and increased public perception.
The team here at RCAS and I hope you find this article useful towards developing or augmenting your crisis management program. We would be pleased to attend your next crisis management planning activity where we can answer additional questions and provide support to your organisation.
Take care and be safe!
Email info@rcas.ca or visit www.rcas.ca for more information.