Corporate Smokejumper: Crisis Management

Tools, Tales and Techniques

Gil Meyer, Sandra Taccone

• Publisher: Blue Blaze Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780991328826
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Leadership

The front lines of corporate crisis management are hot and sweaty. The lessons learned are hard won, and the experiences are not for the faint of heart. This book will give you the inside perspective of a veteran practitioner who, throughout his career, developed creative ways for addressing the gut-wrenching challenges that come with leading the response to high-stakes crises.

Gil Meyer knows how to manage crises that have no good solutions. In his roles at DuPont and elsewhere, time and again he took on the challenges of leading the response to a wide range of crises: massive natural disasters, tragic industrial accidents, pandemic and infectious disease threats, expensive product quality problems, and much more. In the pages of this book, he offers you the tools he created to help manage crises as well as tips on how to use them.

In Corporate Smokejumper, with wit and wisdom, Meyer weaves tales from inside steamy crisis rooms where the no-win decisions are made.

• If you already are facing a crisis, grab this book and run toward the fire. The book is written with you in mind.
• If your career hinges on your ability to fight crises on a regular basis, here are field-tested tools and techniques that will enable you to lead effectively during your company’s most difficult days.
• If you always wondered what it’s like to be inside the conference room where executives wrestle with complex dilemmas, here are tales from behind closed doors.
• If your instincts tell you a crisis awaits, your instincts likely are correct. For virtually any organization, it’s not whether a crisis will hit—it’s when. With this book, you will be “ready for when.”

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 | Already a Crisis?
• 2 | Crisis Management is a Journey
• 3 | How Do I Know If a Problem Is Really a Crisis?
• 4 | The Fire Alarm
• 5 | Anatomy of a Crisis
• 6 | Context of the Crisis
• 7 | Crisis Planning
• 8 | Crisis Preparedness
• 9 | Facilities and Systems
• 10 | When a Crisis Strikes
• 11 | Structuring for Efficiency and Effectiveness
• 12 | Setting the Pace for Effective Management
• 13 | Getting the Word Out
• 14 | Making Tough Decisions
• 15 | Managing a Crisis in Social Media
• 16 | Aftermath
• 17 | Learning
• 18 | Conclusions
• Glossary
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author