Introduction
The programme “Guiding Teams during Crises: Rapid and Effective Response” develops professional practice in Leadership. It connects the subject with workplace challenges by examining existing evidence and practices and choosing methods appropriate to the organization and its available resources.
The learning progresses from crisis management, communication, and response to professional communication, negotiation, and conflict management, with practical work on leadership and team direction, strategy formulation and prioritization, leading change and building engagement. Participants prepare outputs to support workplace application and review the quality and results of implementation.
Learning objectives
- Prepare a crisis response and communication plan covering roles, messages, and escalation in an application related to “Guiding Teams during Crises: Rapid and Effective Response”.
- Identify leadership practices suited to the situation and allocate responsibilities clearly.
- Translate strategic direction into actionable objectives and initiatives.
- Prepare a change plan that addresses the effects of transformation on people, procedures, and skills.
- Select a communication and negotiation approach that addresses interests and preserves professional relationships.
Learning areas
1. Crisis Management, Communication, and Response
- Identify crisis scenarios, warning indicators, and effects on people, services, and reputation, and define response activation thresholds.
- Allocate crisis team roles, decision-making authority, and escalation paths, and establish a mechanism for collecting and updating verified information.
- Draft an initial message explaining confirmed facts, actions, and update channels, avoiding speculation or disclosure of sensitive information.
- Run a simulation involving changing information, time pressure, and multiple parties, recording decisions, their rationale, and their timing.
- Conduct a post-crisis review comparing the plan with execution, and define improvement actions, owners, and dates for retesting readiness. The application examines a case related to “Guiding Teams during Crises: Rapid and Effective Response”.
2. Leadership and Team Direction
- Analyze the leadership situation in terms of the task, the team's experience, and the constraints affecting the decision, and select an appropriate approach to direction.
- Distinguish the leader's responsibility for results from team members' responsibility for delivery, and define performance expectations that can be monitored.
- Apply delegation by specifying the task, authority, resources, and review checkpoints, and address overlapping team responsibilities.
- Conduct a leadership conversation that includes listening, questioning, and specific feedback linked to behavior and results.
- Address a practical situation requiring a choice between leadership approaches, and document the reasons for the choice and how its effects will be monitored.
3. Strategy Formulation and Prioritization
- Analyze the internal and external environment using available data, and distinguish opportunities from assumptions that require verification.
- Define a specific strategic problem and connect it to the organization's mission and the value sought by beneficiaries and stakeholders.
- Set measurable objectives with a baseline, target, and time horizon, and assign a clear owner to each objective.
- Prioritize initiatives according to impact, feasibility, resources, risks, and interdependencies, explaining the reasons for the trade-offs.
- Build an implementation roadmap covering phases, owners, resources, review gates, and a mechanism for adjusting priorities when circumstances change.
4. Leading Change and Building Engagement
- Identify the gap between the current and target states, and analyze the effects of change on tasks, relationships, and required skills.
- Map stakeholders by influence and interest, and define the roles of sponsors, managers, and team representatives.
- Design communication messages explaining the reasons for change, its benefits, and the required steps, with channels for listening and responding to feedback.
- Diagnose the causes of resistance and match them to appropriate responses, such as clarifying roles, providing training, or redistributing workload.
- Select indicators of adoption of new behaviors and actual use, and review pilot results before expanding implementation.
5. Professional Communication, Negotiation, and Conflict Management
- Analyze the communication objective, audience, context, and sensitivity, and select the channel, message, and timing to support the intended result.
- Practice listening, checking understanding, and questioning, and distinguish facts from interpretations and personal assumptions.
- Identify the parties' interests, limits, alternatives, and comparison criteria, and prepare a list of negotiable points.
- Handle objections and disagreements by reframing the problem, generating alternatives, and documenting agreements.
- Simulate a communication or negotiation situation, assess message clarity and response quality, and plan improvements for subsequent practice.
Practical outputs
- A crisis plan, decision register, initial statement template, and simulation exercise.
- A map of leadership roles and a mechanism for team delegation and follow-up.
- A strategy map and a priority matrix for proposed initiatives.
- A change plan covering stakeholders, communication, and capacity building.
- A communication plan, interests matrix, and actionable negotiation scenario.
Who should attend
- Practitioners, specialists and supervisors whose work relates to the programme subject.
- Managers and teams working in leadership, according to their practical responsibilities.
- Professionals responsible for applying the outputs of “Guiding Teams during Crises: Rapid and Effective Response” within their organizations.
Prerequisites
- Working familiarity with the programme field and the ability to discuss a professional case or challenge.
- Confirm the suitability of your experience and any specialist prerequisites with the Union before participation.
Conclusion
The programme “Guiding Teams during Crises: Rapid and Effective Response” brings together concepts, case review and a practical application. Participants prepare steps that can be adapted to their responsibilities and organizational resources, with an indicator to follow application and review results after returning to work.
Participation arrangements and any special requests are specified in the confirmation issued by the Union.