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Outlook for Crisis Project Management 2010 (Part 3)
Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.
The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol case in the early 1980--in which seven people died from ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules--has become a textbook lesson in the rapid execution of a crisis management strategy. Not only did the giant pharmaceutical company act quickly and responsibly, but it also managed to save the Tylenol brand--and not lose face in the bargain. In fact, the brand flourished because of the company’s prompt and astute management of the crisis.
Waffles Natusch--president of Warwick, R.I., career-management firm the Barrett Group (See Part 2 of this series)--said that J&J’s management of the Tylenol incident helped define crisis management as a discipline. In fact, the company can be credited with creating the demand for crisis managers.
But it wasn’t the first major incident where a crisis management strategy was called for. High on the list is Exxon’s mishandling of the oil spill in Alaska in 1989, which triggered an environmental disaster of monumental proportions. On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground, dumping 250,000 barrels of oil--an amount reportedly exceeding 10 million gallons--into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The cleanup effort cost the company $2.5 billion, and Exxon was forced to pay out $1.1 billion in settlements. That’s not all: About 250,000 animals died immediately (…
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