Mitroff (2005)

Management > Crisis Management > Lectures > Independent Research > Mitroff's book >The effects of abnormal crises > Defence mechanisms > Victim and villain > Complexity > 4 styles of thinking > Assumptions > Structured problems > 4 views of crises > Crisis tool kit > Controlled paranoia

Controlled Paranoia

If controlled then a CEO can behave like a paranoid person in order to make the firm safer. There are different types of paranoia, which can be applied to organisations and CM:

1. Paranoia to a person's body - physical threats to employees
2. Paranoia to a person's family - threat the organisations external to one's own immediate body (penetrating security fences etc.)
3. Paranoia to a person's culture - the pollution of a corporate culture
4. Paranoia to a person's mind - threats of terrorist minds

"I cannot overemphasise that thinking like a controlled paranoid is merely one, but one of the most powerful, ways of managing fear".

Executives need to get used to "thinking the absurd", rather than thinking the obvious.

General Motors - outdated responses to crises

Needed action

A well-designed organisation

Spirituality

Benetton-Turkey

Corporate emotional intelligence

CM and betrayal

Myths

Additional myths