Learning to manage crises'before they create trouble

It is as true in life as in politics that nothing makes one looks a leader better than winning. In today's world, the word “loser” is considered an insult.

The composure and the laser-sharp focus in the golf course has made Tiger Woods one of the biggest stars in sports as well as the best corporate advocate for values such as professionalism, control and dedication. What put Tiger Woods on endless corporate banking and consultancy advertisement pages is not his ability to drive a ball over 300 yards but the level of concentration he has shown before he did that and the victory after.

The world has long been impressed by the success of Toyota, the world's biggest carmaker and the symbol of all that is good about Corporate Japan: efficiency, dedication to quality and customer services as well as attention to details. The legendary Toyota production line, which can be made to stop if any employee finds a problem and will only be restarted when the problem is addressed, became textbook material for focus on quality in management schools all over the world.

However, the qualities that make Woods and Toyota the envy of the world in their happier days haunt them when trouble comes. Fans were dumbfounded by the lack of control the top golfer had shown in endangering his career in numerous scandals and his lack of maturity when handling the aftermath.

The current recall over 8 million cars by Toyota due to brake problems, which experts quoted by the Financial Times described as the “worst-handled auto recall in history,” threatens to severely damage, if not destroy, the company's images of quality and valuing customers over everything else.

In both cases, the crises stemmed from something that had already happened and cannot be changed. In Woods' case it is the affairs he was having for years before that fateful car crash outside his home in Nov. 27, 2009. For the car company it is the at least two-year-old yet-to-be-fully-explained problems that in some cases lead to uncontrollable accelerations.

However, what truly hurt both is not these problems but the way they handle them, or rather the way they tried to not handle them. It took days and several bizarrely unclear yet suggestive “public announcements” before Woods came forth to admit having affairs.

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