I haven’t referred to a Rosabeth Moss Kanter blog for a couple of months so it’s time for a Kanter fix. She’s a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of several popular business books, which is an accomplishment in itself. This week she reflects on the volcano in Iceland in “Surprise! Four Strategies for Coping with Disruptions” (HBR, April 19, 2010).

Her four strategies are:

• Backup. Even in a recession, it’s a good idea to build some overlap and redundancy into your organization to make it easier to respond to disruptions. “Great companies stress efficiency but build in slack and cross-train their people,” she writes.

• Communication. If you’ve developed systems to spread information virally, such as through social networks, you can keep the communication lines open and fast when disruption occurs.

• Collaboration. “Human relationships, commitment, and resiliency help companies recover quickly,” writes Kanter. She points to the efforts of Continental Airlines employees during the power outage that closed airports in the Northeast in 2003 and the creative solutions they came up with to keep their planes flying while other airlines were grounded.

• Values and Principles. I’ve talked about this a lot on Baldrige.com because it’s a common characteristic of Baldrige organizations. Guided by a shared vision and clear values and standards, “people know the right thing to do without being told and without waiting for permission.” An empowered workforce can act much quicker during a disruption than employees who have to wait for instructions and permission from above.

While there are some disruptions you cannot anticipate—and I would think air travel stopped by a volcanic plume qualifies—Kanter’s four strategies apply to whatever obstacles may appear. You need a plan. You need open and diverse systems of communication. You need to promote innovation and creativity throughout the workforce. And you need give them the guidance and the responsibility to meet customer needs no matter the circumstances.

To read more about being prepared, click on these articles:

• Identifying Potential Blind Spots
• Developing Agility on 3 Fronts
• Making Your Organization Adaptable
• Anticipating Disruptive Change

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