Here’s something that any future master-of-the-universe or finance minister needs to know: how to survive in a crisis.
Dr Pat Tissington of Aston Business School says business leaders can learn from principles used to train security forces. In a crisis such as a terrorist attack, fire or natural disaster, how you think is imperative to your survival says Tissington, a Chartered Psychologist specialising in the field of emergency decision making and crisis management.
A combination of leadership and maintaining a level-head is key to survival.
“[During a crisis, what is key is for] someone to be in charge. If someone is to be a leader they have to have someone to follow them and be followed. If not, it’s not going to work. The major concept is being calm under pressure [...] speak slowly and calmly [as] this is a way of communicating [you] are not fazed,” says the security advisor.
Motivation is another principle that determines life or death, or if a company survives or folds, when under fire.
“The way in which the shift pattern works [...] is a key way in which [a team] can be motivated. People like working in relatively small teams and it works best if the team is given the responsibility of achieving their objects. They sit down and say what [they] need to achieve at end of month,”says Tissington.
More at home with advising emergency services, Tissington has researchedthe “human element” of security in an international finance institution. His team created and supervised a "doomsday scenario" exercise, which put a spotlight on the response of senior executives to a major security breach.
Acknowledging limitations in his field- “it is a danger that you’re training for the last incident so that might not ever happen again”- Tissington’s work has taken him to the UAE where he trained police officers to cope with the transformation from an oil based region to a tourist destination.
“The general point is that the Gulf countries [...] are always moving things and are no longer the same so we use building materials to insulate homes, but actually makes it harder to escape,”he says.