Do all crises have to become disasters? Risk and risk mitigation

Abstract

Risk and uncertainty are part of the everyday operating environment for all organisations. Occasionally the risks may be sufficient to generate a crisis which, if left unattended, can become a disaster. The key person in an organisation who is often charged with the responsibility of recovering the supporting services that will enable the business to start functioning again is the facility manager, in charge of all property management functions. What should facility managers be aware of in terms of the characteristics of risk and crises and organisational culture that will affect their ability to plan for disaster recovery? Describes some features and characteristics of crises that could become disasters and discusses the features of organisations (such as tight‐coupling and interdependency) that can affect their exposure to risk ‐ crisis‐prone or crisis‐prepared ‐ and suggests some crisis‐mitigating strategies that could be adopted by property managers. Concludes that organisations can become crisis‐prepared, if they adopt a range of strategies, such as providing good feedback on previous incidents, setting up a formal safety organisation, inculcating safety culture norms and beliefs about the importance of safety, devolving decision making but retaining monitoring by experienced staff, training and educating to create an environment of constant awareness and hence reliability. The end product should be that those unpredictable everyday minor crises do not escalate to become disasters.

Citation

Davies, H. and Walters, M. (1998), "Do all crises have to become disasters? Risk and risk mitigation", Property Management, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 5-9. https://doi.org/10.1108/02637479810202883