30 minutes after the Prime Minister had shut Denmark down on the 11th of March, our customers started their crisis management setup. Within days we had more than 150+ companies acting in quite an abnormal situation as they tried to get back to a normal situation. As we now know, the abnormal situation became a 'new normal' for a long time to come and we have not yet seen the end of it.
Our support team were from the beginning contacted by our customers and have been working 24/7 since the shutdown assisting with continuous customizations and setups of new functionalities and tools that became necessary for our customers. At the time of writing, the situation is that companies are working in the "new normal" during the gradual opening of the world. The new normal has become a form of new daily operation.
The primary areas where our customers got to work hard in the first days and weeks – and from which good learning can be drawn, can be summarized as:
"Plan for continued operation": Many companies had not performed the necessary training of the organization and management's readiness to assess and decide in a crisis. Suddenly the management had to make decisions in areas they had never dreamed of, perhaps only had 50% knowledge in the field, and in addition they discovered that the normal management tools did not really work in the situation.
Assessment of risks – and assessment of the impact of the situation on daily operations. Failure to use Risk Assessment tools to continuously assess probability and consistency to ensure that management's focus on the essentials and delegation of other decisions down the organization. In addition, many lacked an acceptance that the world and conditions were changing rapidly, so what was correct a little while ago was now wrong.
Communication suddenly became very important. To be able to communicate out a clear message and verify that the message was received and understood. Maybe even the option to send out a questionnaire or relationship order that had to be returned in completed condition. It required that one should know who should receive and who had received and who had replied. For example, we saw that some of our companies sent between 15-20,000 texts a day in the first few weeks.
Consensus on reality perceptions- for some, there were discrepancies between operating levels - some had stopped completely, while others tried to maintain normal operation. When you get into an abnormal situation, the operation stops working and it is important that so much is closed/stopped that no areas are in operation and others have stopped if the two areas are mutually dependent on each other. It wastes effort and resources and will contribute to a delay in starting up again. Agree that we now are at a level of operations that we can manage in the situation we have ended up in.
Continuous change of the organizational setup became a necessity as the situation developed. We have seen that developments have taken place rapidly, but also that there has been a transition from chaos to a kind of new normal, where daily operations in the new form will be the focus.
When we go the other way from decommissioning to a new level of operation, one should be aware that changes in the organizational setup may be necessary again. The transition may seem like a "new chaos" until it finds a new level for day-to-day operations. A state that will require a lot of managerial focus and resources.
One of our customers, the University of Southern Denmark, which is a comprehensive "business" with approx. 22,000 students and employees spread across six Danish locations, was very hard hit by the situation, as their production largely includes people, with all that entails.
University Director Thomas Buchvald Vind from the University of Southern Denmark says:
"We at the University of Southern Denmark continue to run crisis management on the 10th week even though we have scaled down the meeting frequency and are slowly moving into a more normalized form of management.
We have a very large operational crisis unit, but it has been shown to make perfect sense to link faculties and the common area closely. On the other hand, the strategic crisis group is more narrow than we have experienced in the past, which also makes perfect sense. Conversely, this means that I and the Rector's Secretariat have a somewhat greater role in leading the two staffs and ensuring that the information is disseminated effectively".
Hopefully, we will not see as much upheaval as during the Corona crisis for the whole of society for many years, but the fact is that small and large crises will continue to be part of reality for everyone. It is important to be as well prepared as possible before the next thing happens, so that management and organization can navigate as well as possible through the rough waters.
Best regards, Klaus Fristrup, RM-Group A/S.
