The Malaysian Airlines MH370 Mystery is now into the 5th day and still no sign or news if the plane and the passengers are alive or dead. This is definitely an uncertain time, but the way the Malaysian authorities have been dealing with this issue is making everyone losing confidence in their leadership. Instead of giving people guidance and clarifications of what had happened, they give conflicting statements. No wonder people wondered if they are holding back information in order to hide something.
In our leadership and management courses, we teach people the 5 Certain Ways to Deal with Uncertainties:
- Have a Clear and Powerful Authority, i.e. who can speak and who cannot speak. The one that can speak should be seen and really competent, not someone who happened to be in that position. Of course this person must have good presentation and speaking skills
- Give People Frequent Updates, as a lack of update or updates done in ad-hoc manner gives people the impression that something is brewing
- Clarify Rumours or False Information Immediately and Prove that they are wrong using concrete and authoritative information. If you leave rumours unchecked, people will believe them to be true
- Do not Add on to Uncertainties by having frequent changes in your personnel or policies. Most importantly, people in charge should not resign or asked to leave. This is like what Sun Tzu said in the Art of War where the General should not change unless proven incompetent
- Finally and most importantly, Prepare People for the Worst Scenario. This will equip them with the right mindset to receive further information and do not have any 'fat hope' or delusions.
By Andy Ng, Chief Trainer at Asia Trainers, details are at here.
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