What do we really know about it?

In the previous post I mentioned how different crises have different types of impact on the company and it is now the fun starts! After being a pessimist and looking into all the things that can go pear-shaped we now have to find out what we can do about it.  If we start to rank the risks and making a prioritising list, the things that are most important soon starts to stand out from the crowd. Are there any parts in the manufacturing that are essential, are there any weak links in the logistics department, and is the safety measures for the employees up to scratch to mention a few.

But here we must also realise that there are things that does not show up as a threat even though they are just that. In the book ‘Building a Resilient Enterprise’ by Yossi Sheffi, the author presents that the near misses often are warnings of disasters that can happen in the future. A good example of this is my father’s quest for increasing the safety for the road workers and how they did not think about the near misses, when things could have gone horribly wrong but did not. As often is the case, they did not reflect on the near misses since nothing really happened but by talking about it on a meeting the reports of the near misses grew and the company got more information, and could therefore prevent injuries in the future. This is a good example of how there exist information about risks among the employees but that it not always finds its way up the chain of command to those that can prevent them.

So to conclude this post: If you see something that can go wrong, tell people about it and make sure that your superiors and co-workers are aware of it even though they might not like what you are saying, in the words of Margaret Heffernan: “Dare to disagree!”

Sara Jonsson, TASTE13 (Master programme in textile management with specialisation textile value chain management)