In May of this year, Klaus Bockslaff and Martin Schnauber took part in the annual conference of Plattform e. V. – Menschen in komplexen Arbeitswelten with a presentation entitled “Leadership in crisis management according to DIN ISO 22361”. Plattform e. V. has now published a conference volume with a documentation of all contributions. This can be ordered on Amazon as an e-book or paperback. You can find the article by Klaus Bockslaff and Martin Schnauber below and here for download. Objectives and content of ISO 22361 The new standard is essentially aimed at management with strategic responsibility. The emphasis of the new DIN ISO 22361 lies in its methodology and in the fundamental question “How do I proceed in a crisis? If I have nothing left, do I at least have a procedure, a basic structure?” The aim of developing ISO 22361 in the period from September 2019 to November 2022 was to provide guidance for organizations of all kinds on an exemplary approach to crisis management. Strategic decision-makers are to be supported in developing and maintaining “crisis management skills”. This applies to all phases of crisis management: from planning and operation to continuous improvement. The standard is intended both to help develop an organization’s crisis management capability and to explain the context. The challenges of crisis management, including recognizing the complexity that a crisis team faces during a mission, are highlighted, as are successful communication during a crisis and learning from the crisis. Building crisis management skills In order to develop and maintain a crisis management capability in any organization (company, public authority, public corporation, foundation, association, institution, etc.), some elements of crisis management and the crisis management process must be defined and described. Leadership is not only required in crisis team work, but is also an essential task of top management in setting up, operating and improving crisis management. Therefore, the involvement of top management is crucial in order to reconcile the objectives of crisis management and their tailoring with the strategic direction and core values of the organization. Top management defines the strategy and objectives and communicates the importance and benefits of crisis management top-down. Furthermore, top management is responsible for the organizational structure, appoints the necessary functionaries, defines their resources and powers and provides guidelines for information and communication as well as quality assurance and the transfer of know-how in the aftermath of crisis management. The organization should promote a culture among employees that is designed to identify organizational risks by reporting minor incidents that may escalate (increasing risk awareness and resilience) in order to increase commitment to crisis management. This requires open communication of visions, goals and targets, as well as associated training and exercises. The development of awareness, knowledge and skills leads to a positive attitude towards crisis management. To this end, both the actual handling of crises and training courses and exercises are to be systematically reviewed and evaluated. This operational learning leads to continuous improvement in crisis management skills. The crisis management process sets out guidelines for anticipating, assessing, preventing and minimizing damage in the event of a crisis. For the process, the readiness of the crisis organization (alerting and availability), the response with the process organization, the recovery (return to “normality” taking into account strategic opportunities with regeneration of the organization and plans for further development) as well as continuous improvement by means of debriefing, learning from the crisis and implementation of the findings must be described. Leadership in the crisis Chapter 7.3 examines the various facets of “Leadership in crisis”. A diagram shows which key leadership skills and characteristics are required for the work of the crisis team, in particular for the management of the crisis team. From this compilation, a requirements profile specific to the respective organization can be extracted for each crisis unit function, which can be used when selecting personnel to fill the function. Matching the requirements profile of the respective function with the performance profile of the candidate leads to the best possible appointment to the function. If necessary, further education and training requirements can be derived. Fig. 7.1: Skills and abilities for leadership in a crisis For example, the requirement described by G. Hofinger and C. Becker “For managers whose tasks include staff work, corresponding competencies should be part of the selection criteria or be developed in a targeted manner” can be fulfilled if the requirements from ISO 22361 are used consistently. The standard writes: “The ability to lead effectively in a crisis should not be assumed or taken for granted as a consequence of an individual’s appointment or status. Managers who review their training and development needs may find crisis management skills useful. It is important to recognize that some people are not equipped to handle crisis situations and enforce crisis management, which can be identified as part of their training and exercises.” The standard addresses a very sensitive point with these statements. The success of a team’s work depends largely on the management’s ability to promote the “solution-finding skills” of the entire crisis team. What kind of personality does someone need in a crisis situation, a situation in which they don’t know a solution in order to lead their team to success? This is probably the fine art of crisis management, not just working through a checklist, but working with the crisis team to find a sensible and good solution. Meeting requirements such as “emotional intelligence” is a major challenge. Strategic decision-making during the crisis In Chapter 7.4, the standard describes strategic decision-making in the event of a crisis. The particular value of this chapter lies in the clear emphasis on the difficulties of decision-making. It not only lists the factors “why decision-making can be challenging” but also the “dilemmas, delays and avoidance of decisions” and “problems in decision-making”. For the actual work of the crisis unit, i.e. the “Effective Decision[1] Making”, the operational procedure of staff work, as described in Chap. 5.3.5 “Reaction” is of central importance. The core requirement for Read more