make summary

CD3TRACK 19 (CS = CRAIG SMITH) CS Right now, ah, the Toyota Motor Company is facing a, a huge crisis, a crisis as a result of a - a product defect. So it has this problem of what's called 'unintended acceleration', and it's a problem that, ah, the company frankly has been very slow to, ah, acknowledge and very slow to respond to. There are - it's reported - incidences - reported instances, ah, of this unintended acceleration going back se- six or seven years. Ah, there have been some two thousand reported incidents, so pretty substantial evidence of a problem, and it was only September 2009 that the company really truly acknowledged there was a problem and said, 'we're gonna have a recall'. The, the problem is, ah, put down to a couple of causes, ah, one is that the floor mat in the car can get jammed against the accelerator, ah, the other is that for some models there is a sticky accelerator, a design materials problem with the accelerator pedal itself. Ah, and part of the problem Toyota is experiencing is that its communication around the causes of the problem has been unclear, and consumers have been left confused, and perhaps le- left with the feeling that Toyota itself doesn't really know, ah, what, what the problem is. The, the classic advice here is tell it all and tell it quickly. And the, ah, the, the ... the thing to do is to get out there and, and, and let people know that you acknowledge that there is a problem, and know that you're doing something about it. And you can see in the, in the Toyota story, ah, evidence of the company seemingly knowing there was a problem but not really getting out there and acknowledging the problem and saying, ah, we're going to get it fixed and, and, and here's how. CD3TRACK 20 (I = INTERVIEWER, CS = CRAIG SMITH) I How can companies prepare themselves to manage crises? CS The model, ah, I think that, ah, is useful in laying out the approach is, is a three-, three-part model, ah, that says you need to attend to, ah, the possibility of a crisis beforehand, so there's the before piece, ah, there is then the during piece - what's happening during the crisis - and then the after piece, what you do after the crisis has passed. And if we, if we look at the before piece, ah, three particularly critical activities here: firstly an audit which is essentially asking the question 'What could go wrong?'. Ah, secondly, having identified what could possibly go wrong, say 'Well, can we reduce the likelihood of that happening? Can we avoid the avoidable?', so taking steps to avoid the avoidable, or in some cases, it may be a possible problem that you could, you could, ah, insure against. So there it could be business interruption insurance that you might want to take, take out if the company will need to close at some point. And then I think, um, ah, fairly obviously in terms of preparing, you need to have some contingency plan in place and a dedicated team that will be ready to, to step in, ah, should a crisis arise. CD3TRACK 21 (CS = CRAIG SMITH) CS Secondly, then, coming on to what happens during the crisis, the first, ah, thing that needs to happen is to recognise that there is indeed a crisis, so crisis identification is a ... is an important, ah, first part of what takes place during the crisis. The second, um, of, of, of the three considerations during the crisis is containment. Clearly you want to try and contain the crisis as, as best as possible. And, ah, this means thinking about the actual problem itself, ah, but also the, the indirect challenges that come about through a crisis and here's, this is where communication is very important. And then thirdly within, ah, the during phase, it's, it's resolving the crisis, and obviously very important here is figuring out what the cause is, and causes can come from within the organisation. It may be some