How to use a simple golf ball when assessing the impact of a perceived crisis
When working with a sequence involving stressful, extraordinary and critical events and situations, one of the challenging issues is making the management understand what they are facing and the impact it may have on the company. To do so in a very simple manner, you can use the three-layer golf-ball as a metaphor.
Any stakeholder you ask will say that companies can be summarized into three simple statements: (1) What the company is - The brand; (2) What the company can - The organization; and (3) What the company does - The output.
You don’t need to be a golf player to understand that the golf ball’s shell can be compared with the output, output as in products, services and everything else that is visible for all stakeholders. The next layer, which is a little softer in a golf ball, often functions as an enhancer as well as a “glue” between the shell and the core. Very much just like the organization functions, as a reinforcer making it possible to execute the brand into an output. Finally you have the ball’s core, which symbolizes the company brand. The golf ball’s core is the one that creates the long drives - just like the brand is the core that creates the long-term company.
So, how can this metaphor help management in assessing the impact of a crisis? Well, you just need to find out where the ball got damaged. Did you get a dent in the shell? Did you have an eroding mid-layer resulting in for example a non-performing organization? Or did you in fact build the company on non-existent values making the core an empty one?
Wherever the damage is, you need to correct it in order to have a ball going straight - to continue doing your business. But remember that the closer the issue comes to the core, the more wiggling and unstable the ball will be when set in motion making the long drives impossible. And finally, it is a complete waste of time and efforts to use your communications skills or communications channels to explain the reasons for the ball wiggling as long as you don’t rectify the problem causing the wiggling.
But what about the users of the golf ball - the customers and the other stakeholders - don’t they matter? They do, but that’s another blog story.
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This blogpost is the extreme summary of a three hour talk from the
multi-disciplinary business consultancy nielsenandcompany.com
on how you prepare against and deal with risks, issues and crisis.
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