University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
The Instant Survivor
Book

The Instant Survivor

Right Ways to Respond When Things Go Wrong

Jim Moorhead
Greenleaf Book Group, 2012
Buy book or audiobook

Read or listen offline

Amazon Kindle
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Every day at work, millions of people face personal or professional crises. Companies must deal with employees who are sick, broke or in distress, and the employees themselves must get through hard times. Part self-help book, part business book, this useful manual shows you a four-step system for surviving a major problem by “staying frosty, securing support, standing tall” and “saving your future.” Corporate crisis management expert Jim Moorhead draws on his personal experience and includes many heartbreaking examples from survivors of a range of calamities. He covers people who’ve made it through divorce, cancer and drug addiction. As a second theme, though it might be a small stretch, he cites useful experiences from companies faced with corporate emergencies like product recalls and public relations disasters. getAbstract recommends this practical guidebook to a wide audience: employees facing personal trials, HR managers and line managers supervising workers in crises, and executives facing corporate problems.

Summary

Handling Your Crisis

Employees face personal and professional crises every day: failing marriages, sick children, unaffordable mortgages, frozen salaries, and more. The nonprofit Grief Recovery Institute estimates that hidden grief drains a $75 billion payment from American companies each year “in reduced productivity, increased errors and accidents.” To manage a personal or professional crisis with less loss, follow these four steps:

1. “Stay Frosty”

Staying frosty means taking action but remaining calm. To get a grip, write a plan for managing your crisis. Pretend you are a detective who must gather facts for a case. Observe and evaluate your situation using an outsider’s perspective. Writing about your problems will force you to face them. Answer questions like these to diagnose your situation: What is your crisis? What are your goals for handling it? What brought the problem to your attention? How do you feel about this situation? What do you know right now? What do you need to find out? Who can help you? What could happen that might worsen the situation? How can you cure this crisis?

Define what aspects of the problem you can “own” and “control.” ...

About the Author

Jim Moorhead lost a statewide election, and his employer – a fiber optics company – collapsed in the dot-com bust. He now coaches businesspeople and political candidates on managing personal and professional crises, and he comments on crisis management for major TV networks.

Comment on this summary