What to do when the shit hits the fan or things get really messed up? Learn from it. Keep calm and carry on. This is what I tried to put into practice when a colleague accidentally tipped a bowl of raita all over me at an event.
One of the first thoughts that came into my head was to take this in my stride. After the initial shock had worn off, I looked down at my pants and thought to myself, I must capture this moment. I asked a friend a take a picture and as you can see, I did my best to frame the moment with a smile. 
“What are you doing?… Why are you taking pictures? Are you going to use this for your column?” one of my colleagues enquired. Frankly the thought had not occurred to me, but the seed was planted in the midst of me trying to figure out how to get out of this curdled mess.
My first learning from this was a new phrase that got added to my vocabulary – “Raita Phail Gaya” is the caption that my wife sent back when I shared the picture with her on WhatsApp.
But as I look back on the incident with the benefit of distance and dry pants to the rescue, 5 best practices in crisis handling do come to mind.
- Own the problem (the blame game does not help). In a crisis, one of the early mistakes that organisations make is to get into the blame game. It’s important to remember at that time, the focus must be on getting things back to normal, not finding someone to pin the blame on. In this case, I knew who was to blame and it was an absolute accident, so getting upset or angry would have been pointless.
- Need for speed. (fill the information void) the initial phase of a crisis used to be called the golden hour, but now it’s down to the golden minutes. Being ready and able to communicate with speed often helps set the tone of reportage on a crisis. If you don’t frame the message and get your side of the story out, then others with far less information will fill the information vacuum. In this case, I smiled, did not get angry, and very quickly disappeared from the room.
- Preparedness is the key. Crisis management gurus will tell you that the key to good crisis handling is in the level of preparedness. Does a company have a clear response plan? Do they have a playbook? Well-defined protocols, Clearly called out crisis management team? A company is judged by how it responds when things go wrong. I always carry change with me when I travel and I was lucky that I had my suitcase handy. It took just a few minutes to change out of my raita-infused pants. It did take a little longer to wash the evidence away though and find a way to pack it without getting my other clothes wet. I was back in action in under 10 minutes, ready to participate in the next session. The show must go on.
4. Acceptance is the beginning of recovery. When confronted with a crisis, human beings go through different phases. A few of them are Disbelief, Denial, Anger, Blame, Acceptance, Action, and then Recovery. The initial set of things up until the Acceptance phase is normal, but not helpful in the process of dealing with a crisis. The minute one gets to acceptance; the wheels are turning towards action that can lead to recovery. The quicker one gets to the stage when you can say “This is really happening” and “I need to find a way through it” the better.
5. Document the experience to learn from it. One of the best practices in crisis management is to have a designated log keeper. Somebody who is tasked with the role of keeping track of all information coming in (in the form of questions – from who, what time, etc) and going out (press statements issued, employee updates, letters to authorities – what was said, by whom, and when). This kind of information is valuable as it builds an institutional memory and helps in managing subsequent incidents better. My photo capture of the before and after moments proved to be a good reminder about how I have the choice to respond when things get messy.
So that is the lesson I chose to remind myself about from the week gone by. With the right attitude, I can turn a moment of misery into a moment of magic.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
A trusted coaching and communications professional, Nikhil Dey is a certified life and leadership coach (International Coach Federation - ICF). Nurturing talent and helping clients achieve their goals is what makes him happy. He loves learning from students of communication, teaching courses and guest lecturing at various educational institutions. When he is not working you will find him on the tennis court or out for long walks with his family and four legged friends.
Previously he has held senior leadership positions at Weber Shandwick and Genesis BCW.
He can be reached on twitter @deydreaming
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