STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

244 Landmarks for action. Questions about managementreal partners in activities involving multiple agents, rather than "citadels"constantly seeking to protect themselves from the outside world. Thechairman of Electricité de France recently summed up his position quiteclearly: "We have to make glasnost work for us as well" (Europe 1 radio,September 30, 1987). This evolutionary development will be necessary inorder to muster enough force to face the challenge of major hazards and crisissituations. Johnson & Johnson's top management was fully aware that whatgave it the strength to cope with the crises the firm faced were the principlesof openness and responsibility laid out in its charter. Furthermore, thischarter wasn't something foreign to the company's culture. This explains whythe company was not defeated by cyanide slipped into a few capsules ofTylenol (8).Once this imperative of lucidity and openness becomes inherent in the verylife of an organization, it is possible to make considerable progress in thequality of major hazard prevention. Building on this truly solid base, crisismanagement measures can be developed which are themselves much moreresistant.3. When the crisis strikes, avoid yielding to immediate defeatAs the preceding arguments have shown, post-accidental situations aretremendously diverse, and they contain formidable pitfalls. It is an illusion toimagine that prescribing simple remedies can prevent every situation fromgetting out of hand. However, the prescriptions for guaranteeing failure arevery simple, and we have examined their many ingredients in the previouschapters, with breakdowns in public communications doubtless marking thehigh road to defeat. Remaining silent, persistently denying the presence ofrisk, fighting a rearguard battle against information, or simply rejectingeverything (to the point of being provocative through denial) are all keychapters in this anti-manual that could also be entitled, "May the best one lose"or "Suicide, a how-to guide." There are many roads to defeat, but they allfollow two main axes:- constructing a state of confusion in which truth and falsehood are aselusive as the officials in charge;- displaying this state of confusion to those curious observers convinced,in the light of official faux pas, that any line of interrogation will lead to anunending series of new revelations.With that, we are almost certain of digging ourselves into a hole in whichany technical margin for manœuvre, any credibility, legitimacy, or dignitywill soon be swallowed up. How can these reflexes be reoriented ? Withoutoffering a book of home remedies, we can identify a few landmarks.