Crisis Action Planning Book Review Replies

Respond to two classmates who read a different book than you did. Make sure everyone has at least one response. What did you learn from their assessment? What perspective can you offer to what they learned? This is where it gets interesting. As you begin to compare the different authors’ concepts of the future, you will find that they deeply conflict. Some will build on each other exponentially: lack of fresh drinking water + lack of ocean fish = mega-disaster, or 1 + 1 = 10. Sometimes, they appear to cancel: lack of energy + innovations in physics = ?? or 1 + 1 = either 0 or 100. You will likely not find resolution so much as you find possibilities. In those possibilities, you may find hope for our future and maybe even an occupation or life’s work for yourself. Whatever you find, be sure to have fun doing it.

1. Byrd

The book that I have chosen was (Johnson, V., & Peppas, S. C. (2003). Crisis Management in Belgium: The case of Coca-Cola). Although this is not from the book list, I had to get permission to present it.
The authors talk about a crisis that struck the Belgium Coca-Cola Plant. The problem was a Dioxins Chemical, which is a chemical-related compound that is persistent environmental pollutants (POPs). However, these chemical Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones, and cause cancer. 
During this same period, Belgium was still reeling from fears over mad cow disease and from the news that the carcinogen, dioxin, had been introduced inadvertently into animal feed, when yet another health crisis rocked it. This new crisis was precipitated by consumer complaints about an irregular taste and smell in bottled soft drinks and by reports that more than 100 consumers had become ill after noticing an odors on the outside of canned soft drinks. As a result, The CocaCola Company, under instructions from the Belgian Health Ministry, withdrew its trademarked products from the Belgian market. The effects of this crisis were felt not only within Europe, but also in countries as far away as Japan and India. Subsequently, the company identified specific production and distribution problems which could have contributed to the health crisis. Pursuant to the Ministrys order, the company took immediate steps to remedy those problems, and the Ministrys ban was lifted. In addition, an aggressive marketing campaign was launched in an effort to regain consumer trust, confidence, and market share. Nevertheless, this incident resulted in substantial financial costs to The CocaCola Company and in considerable damage to its global image and reputation (Johnson and Peppas, 2003). 
I learned that crisis events could threaten organizations through each stage of their life cycle. Further, research suggests that crises happen more regularly and across a broader range of issues. Thus, it is vital to understand the steps that organizations can take to mitigate loss due to crisis events and speed recovery efforts. So, businesses, agencies, and organizations need to be ready to handle a full-scale crisis if one should happen at any given time. I have learned how to prepare a crisis action plan from scratch because I had never designed one before and put a crisis plan into action. 
There have to be critical players who are trained and knowledgeable in this field. I’ve learned that a crisis action plan consists of many different steps one has to take to make it work.
However, I cannot find where it has affected homeland security in any way, but the emergency management team has conducted an investigation. Since this panic in Belgium, a past stun of almost dioxins contaminating animal bolster had helped remove the government in June’s national decisions. There are proposals that public wellbeing authorities might have suspected mass mania within the Coca-Cola case within 48 hours of their examination but were not certain sufficient to go open with their doubts.
       As it may be, something of this magnitude would affect my profession because something like this soda contamination can spread rapidly across different countries, and it will affect tens of millions of people. Because Coca-Cola is a popular drink and consumed by billions of people worldwide, the company has to have their crisis action plan ready to go because an outbreak can happen at any given time due to the material that carries the beverage can become contaminated from people touching the cans or bottles, from unsanitized equipment used to produce the product. So, anyone’s profession can be affected by a crisis, whether it’s a natural disaster or a disease crisis.  
Reference
Johnson, V. and Peppas, S.C. (2003), “Crisis management in Belgium: the case of CocaCola”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 18-22. https://doi.org/10.1108/13563280310458885

2. Kendrick

I chose the book Leading People Through Disasters by Kathryn McKee.
 
What crisis did the author depict that requires action?
 
This book did not depict a crisis that requires actions in terms of some physical event like a terrorist attack or natural disaster. The purpose of the book was to point out that during crisis events there needs to be a consideration of the human element in a crisis. That is to say, people are involved in crisis events and their emotional well-being, coping mechanisms, and recovery from the crisis are key factors.
 
What solutions did the author propose?
 
The authors main solution was to present facts about pre-crisis psychological training. This pre-crisis training equips people to be better able to assess and manage the anxieties that accompany all types of crises. In the pre-crisis training people go through a thought process where they are thinking and planning for an unknown event, and then they go through the process of how to recover from the event. This familiarization with the crisis helps people think like a controlled paranoid and helps to identify a broader range of threats.
 
The main goals of the book were to give emergency management human resource professionals a jump-start to become more involved in disaster planning and in doing so consider the people issues. The author also wrote to inspire people to have a more take-charge role and be active in planning disaster response with related human issues so recovery and stabilization happen more quickly. Lastly, the author really focused on anticipating people issues and preparing them psychologically and emotionally.  
 
Lastly, the author proposed that the book was really an action guide for crisis preparedness. The book was broken into sections covering planning for a disaster, dealing with disasters, and principles to live by in emergency or crisis management.
 
What did I learn?
 
There were a few items that really struck a chord with me in the book. The main point was understanding that humans are humans with both physical needs and emotional needs. I used to think of recovery from a disaster only in terms of the physical recovery and getting things back to business as usual. You can rebuild the house after a fire or buy a new car after a flood but the emotional toll that is incurred by the person is not a physical thing. We need to understand that people have gone through different experiences and crises in their lives, so the impact of an event is different for each person. Leaders during a disaster need to consider this additional aspect of recovery to effectively help each person have a personal return to normal.
I also took away from the book that as part of recovery from a crisis the leaders need to balance the needs of the affected employees with the recovery of the company. If employees are not emotionally recovering from the crisis event, then the company will not be recovered until this happens either. This means that to restabilize the company a focus needs to be made on the psychological and emotional recovery of each person along with the physical recovery of the company.
 
What impact will it have on emergency management and homeland security? On your profession? On society? 
 
            The impacts that the information in this book presents is focused on pre-crisis training in the areas of emotions and psychology of employees to build resiliency. When we look at the broader part of emergency management, we have national documents that cover in detail the areas of preparation, mitigation, response, and recovery. These documents focus on how to deal with the crisis itself, i.e. hurricane, flood, earthquake, terrorist event. If emergency managers also focus on the people element of a crisis we can strengthen resiliency of the affected people, responders, and leaders who are handling the event.
 
            For the profession of emergency management this means we need to focus on taking care of the people while rebuilding. It is after all, the people who are doing the rebuilding. We can also think of recovery as more than having the buildings back, or damaged property replaced. Recovery of those things happens simultaneously with the emotional recovery of the people as well.
           
            In terms of the impact on society, this is where we have better prepared people who are more capable of handling a crisis as well as being part of the rebuilding process. Everyone will recover at different speeds, but being better prepared emotionally for the crisis will allow people to have less fear and trauma following a crisis.
 
Reference
McKee, K., & Guthridge, L. (2006). Leading people through disasters: An action guide. Kindle Edition: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Original Post:

Read the book you have chosen, Learning from catastrophes: Strategies for reaction and response. Provide a minimum 750-word assessment of the content. DO NOT POST A DOCUMENT. Post a narrative in the discussion text window. What crisis did the author depict that requires action? What solutions did the author propose – if any? What did you learn? What impact will it have on emergency management and homeland security? On your profession (Firefighter)? On society?