Week 12 – Crisis!

Week 12 – Crisis!

Defining a crisis is important. The difference between problems and crises are more than just spelling of a word. According to the text, problems are common place occurrences and are fairly predictable and can usually be addressed within a limited time frame. Crises, on the other hand tend to be less predictable. They require a considerable investment of time and resources to resolve and often bring unwanted public attention. Crises are also usually able to be seen because of the advance signs of trouble. The four stages of crisis dynamics that should be considered when identifying such an even are the warning stage, point of no return, cleanup phase, and when things return to normal. The section of this chapter on the tale of two shuttle disasters is a good example because both Challenger and Columbia exhibited all four stages of a crisis and fit with the cyclical crisis dynamics model.