Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward - Trying to live a life out of the comfort zone

To answer Alexis Garbarz’s question (in Spanish, he asked what measures did we take after that natual disaster) on the post Shit Happens, I think it is good to discuss more upon the learning Officenet got out of the crisis management during the great flood in San Pablo. And who better for that than Leo Piccioli, who personally directed the operations in Brazil to overcome this terrible situation? So, I asked him to write a guest post about it. Here it goes!

Santi asked me to talk a little about how I handled the crisis that we lived through during our Brazilian operation in 2005.

In short, as soon as we moved our warehouse to San Pablo, the worst storm in 60 years happened. The city was paralyzed and our new warehouse was under water. We lost millions, as you can see in the pictures that Santi uploaded. It was the May 25, a holiday here in Argentina, and we took a plane to go to lend a hand.

What I learned?

Planning is crucial. We lost more than a day because everyone wanted to help and no one knew how. We all put in a lot effort. I remember one very clearly. Marco Menghini, who manages operations at Officenet in Argentina and also came over to open “hallways” into the warehouse so that we could pass through. But things didn’t get better that first day: everyone did what they thought was best, without coordination. Sometimes, undoing what the other people did.

At critical moments planning seems a waste of time. The impulse is to do, do, do. Nothing is more wrong. The first thing to do is sit down!

If only we had chatted a little, half an hour, on how to address the issue, the result would have been much more efficient. This chat was very difficult to have with the merchandise floating. So whenever possible, we must do it before the crisis. It’s only half an hour, once in a lifetime, to plan how to handle contingencies!

I do not like war. But, what would a general (not a manager) have done in this case? Before, for me, what a general would have done was a waste of time: establish a command station. A large table with a map, some radio communication, water (yes, everything was flooded and we lost a lot of time supplying ourselves with water), and a blackboard to record tasks. The second day we did this.

With the command station ready, the next task is to get the most capable people together: people who know the place, the problem, who can walk through it, and are practical.

With this group of people (I recommend between 5 and 10), you have to brainstorm: list all the tasks to be done, absolutely everything that comes up.

This is part of the brainstorm during that event:

• Build layout reception Saturday-Sunday-Monday-Tuesday
• Develop contingency plan in case it happens again for warehouse and CC
• Advise clients that are expecting orders, how do we minimize the negative impact? Gifts?
• Call Center: assess the state and recover
• Cancel suppliers that are not strategic
• Cancel Reunion Pricing
• Cancel all shipments by Friday the sixth
• How to communicate to ECS?
• How are the printers in the warehouse?
• Buy pallets
• Account for all losses
• Contain the cycle
• Get the warehouse ready to sanitize: by Friday night the sixth
• Have to start counting on Sunday
• Where to throw the garbage?
• Deliver only paper and cartridges for now?
• Hardware for general air conditioning?
• Evaluate the state of Gimba and Kalunga
• FR priority on supplies and paper

Once you have the list, you have to prioritize each task and appoint leaders for each, ideally one of those who are in the room. Never more than one leader per task (if there is a very large task, clean the entire warehouse, the problem is divided in two and two different leaders are appointed).

How to prioritize?

First of all, define a leader, someone responsible for the “Project Recovery”.
Then, protect the people. Anything that can harm somebody has to be addressed with priority.
Next, protect company assets. Because when someone injures their elbow later it comes back to hurt the business once again, it is very common that after a crisis something happens and makes the situation worse. We must prevent that at all costs.

And with that, you begin to recover.

Imponderables

On the way to recovering the operation, we encountered problems that we had not anticipated. From lacking drinking water for the 100 people who were there, to having nowhere to throw our trash. I think the main problem was that we suffered from congestion: We bumped into each other and we could not reach the machines. The second day, we decided to split the team into two in order to relax and be more productive. Surprisingly, things began to evolve much faster with fewer people in one place.

I asked Marco Menghini who also remembers those days … he reminded me of two things:

Alert people, “you slept at the airport, demanded dinner for the crew… to sleep, eat, gather strength for the hard journey to come … almost like the soldiers who were going to war …. The moral …. The troops need alert people that are ideal to carry out the plan so that its execution elapses in the shortest possible time and at the least cost … ”

And valued: “People have to know that at this moment they are the only and best alternatives to change the situation. Work the self-esteem of the group and they will be more powerful than any technology. If the people think they can can reverse the problem, then no longer be an issue ”

In short, anticipating these situations is a very small investment with high return. In my opinion, it’s worth it.