November 1, 2006
I was having a conversation with Liz Guthridge the other day. She and Kathryn McKee have co-authored a new book Leading People Through Disasters; An Action Guide: Preparing for and Dealing with the Human Side of Crises, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006. (Read my brief review and order the book at the NWP Success! Store. Liz was discussing the impetus for writing the book. Both she and Kathryn have experienced multiple business disasters and have seen the devastating effect such events can have on the business.
Our discussion reminded me some of my own experiences. One of the worst was an incident that happened to one of my clients, the law firm Pettit & Martin, so shocking it hit the national news. With offices in San Jose (my firm had designed the offices) and San Francisco, in 1993, a disgruntled client walked into the SF offices and started shooting. Nine died and six were injured. The firm never recovered from the incident. A firm of approximately 140 people at the time of the shooting, employees and customers where so traumatized by the incident in San Francisco that the entire firm closed its doors two years later.
Note: Below is a link to a good Business Week article about this incident and other workplace violence. The article notes that "Workplace murder is the second-leading cause of death on the job". http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/BusinessWeek/2001/
Another recollection disaster consequences is a high-tech client that went through the Northern California Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. Located about 10 miles from the epicenter of the quake, one of the company's multiple sites was in a leased, three-story building with an unusual architectural design element. Shaped liked a triangle, one point was devoid of structure on the first floor, creating a recessed building entry and thus cantilevering the 2nd and 3rd floors over the walkway. Additionally, the visual support structure at the tip of that overhanging triangle was a slim column.
The building survived the earthquake. Though by most accounts there was a lot of movement, rolling and swaying (which of course is desirable). As I recall there was also some ceiling buckling and tiles and lights that fell, all which was remedied with code upgrades. The building was inspected, cleaned up and declared ready for occupancy again. But the employees refused to go back. The actual physical experience combined with the perceived sense of the visual design created the feeling, whether real or unreal, that the building was unsafe. The company never occupied the building, had to find new space for all those employees and were on the hook for the remainder of the lease expenses, temporary office space, move expenses and of course, employee productivity loss.