Lessons from pandemics
In societies and organizations, it is evident that crisis is costly from the perspectives of economic and socio-organization. Lesson from the crisis is the measures that managers should take before a specific crisis erupts and get the organization or society unaware. The crisis has brought the internet increase in the argument of organization learning in any emergency such as epidemic and pandemics, which can either be war or even natural disasters such as drought and flooding (Malatesta, 2014). The question now is if the managers of the organization have been able to focus on the optimistic vs. pessimistic perspective and if they can learn from the crisis. The importance of this study to the manager and society is that it sheds light on the nature of learning from the perspective of crisis management. The managers must learn about past pandemics to tackle any epidemics in the future.
Asian Flu was a pandemic that occurred between the year 1956 to 1958, which was caused by influenza and originated from China. The Flu spread to the United States, Singapore, and Hong Kong, killing approximately two million people and affecting most organizations. The lesson from that pandemic was that the managers in the past built a necessary infrastructure in that every department in the organization was taught and trained on how to handle crises from the legal to the marketing department. Further, all the working staff was given a role to play. So that when an emergency occurs during the service delivery, the institution should be ready to follow a procedure to fulfill the service to the customer. HR needs to pass information to everyone very fast. The trained individual who receives the data should be quick to jump into action when requested to do so (Drennan, 2014). The current managers can apply the lesson from the past managers on stakeholders who are their employees by making them quick to respond during pandemics, and that will make them win the trust of customers who are their primary stakeholders.
Another pandemic is the sixth cholera pandemic (1910 -1911), which originated from India and killed more than 800,000 people and had already spread to eastern Europe, North Africa, Russia, and the middle east. What the health departments did they isolated the affected by communicating to the public, and that help lower the spread. The lesson from that pandemic is that communicating quickly to the public is essential to minimize the effect. What the past managers did to save their organization is that they talked to the customers and employees and hence, reducing the spread of the pandemic. How current managers can apply the lesson to the stakeholders is by communicating quickly and clearly during the crisis and give them an alternative means to help serve them well. For example, during pandemics, the manager can talk to the customers and promise them to order their products online. They will deliver it without them going to the store to pick them hence, earning the loyalty of the customer.
Conclusion
The managers must learn about the past crisis to tackle any crisis in the future. The main concern is how the manager in an organization can work under pressure. Managers, therefore, should take a lesson from past managers and know that preparation is vital, and communication is critical. When contemplating pandemics, it is evident that a precise contour and shapes pandemic will be striking, unlike the ones in the past. But that makes it advantageous to these changes over the decades since we will be able to prepare well. With preparedness set in place, the globe organizations with their managers will be able to fight any pandemics and still have a positive impact on their stakeholders.
Reference
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Elliott, D., & Macpherson, A. (2010). Policy and practice: Recursive learning from the crisis. Group & Organization Management, 35(5), 572-605.
Drennan, L. T., McConnell, A., & Stark, A. (2014). Risk and crisis management in the public sector. Routledge.
Malatesta, D., & Smith, C. R. (2014). Lessons from resource dependence theory for contemporary public and nonprofit management. Public Administration Review, 74(1), 14-25.
Acar, A., & Muraki, Y. (2011). Twitter for crisis communication: lessons learned from Japan’s tsunami disaster. International Journal of Web-Based Communities, 7(3), 392-402.