Blindsided is the authoritative guide to crisis management.

This "how to" handbook gives essential advice that every manager needs to know when a crisis hits. Written by CMI Founder/CEO Bruce Blythe, it's a fascinating, easy-to-read guide that draws on Blythe's 20+ years of experience as a pioneer in crisis management.

  Pondering the Worst Case
by Kenneth Aaron



John Botti's company may never return to its New York City offices, right by where the World Trade Center stood less than a weed ago. And when he talks to his workers, he is defiant.

"It's a unique situation, because I'm just trying to point out that what our goals are as a country and a culture are in line with what our goals need to be as a company," said Botti, chief executive officer of AuthentiDate Holding Corp. in Schenectady. Its AuthentiDate Inc. subsidiary operated at 2 World Financial Center, and those offices, home to 27 workers, may not be usable again.

With all that in mind, AuthentiDate, which develops software verifying the authenticity of electronic files, never shut down after hijackers smashed two planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on Tuesday. And if the towers are rebuilt, Botti said, "We'll be the first to rent it. I hope they build it bigger, I hope they build it taller."

When terror struck, countless companies were forced to move into action. Even those in Capital Region that were mostly unscathed had to break out their thick binders stuffed with crisis plans.

But as important as a corporate disaster plan is, so too are the ways companies deal with workers during calamitous times. And the softer side is easy to overlook.

"They don't think that it can hurt them financially," said Grace Burley, director of marketing for Crisis Management International Inc. "If they don't handle their people, they can have moral problems."

The Atlanta-based company helps businesses work with employees at times like this. Since Tuesday, CMI has dispatched consultants to talk with 200 companies affected by the disasterÑmany that are new clients.

The most important management prescription in times of crisis: Communications.

"At least they know that the company is doing something," Burley said. "If you don't communicate with your employees during a really traumatic situation, it's going to turn into outrage later."

For companies facing situations such as Tuesday's, it means management has to let employees know how many people are accounted for.

Whether the news is good, bad or hazy, workers want to know what is going on.

Glenn Epstein, president and CEO of superconductivity-gear and refrigeration maker Intermagnetics General Corp. in Latham, was visiting one of his company's California locations when the nightmare began unfurling. He was stuck out there when air travel was grounded, and Friday was still waiting for a plan that could take him home.

The layover, though, meant that Epstein was accessible there to workers. And they took the chance to ask questionsÑwhat does it mean to the company? Its customers? The markets?

"None of us know that," Epstein said. "You might not have all the answers, but you talk openly and honestly and I think that's the most important thing."

Even though far from Tuesday's destruction, many Capital Region companies found themselves rolling out portions of their disaster plans.

At Price Chopper Supermarkets, for examples, Joanne Gage said demands on the grocer were coming from several different directions.

Workers wanted to go to blood drives. Some emergency-relief group wanted food. And there was the question of inventory Ð with the world disrupted, could the groceries be shipped to the company's stores?

"It was important that we acted quickly," said Gage, Spokeswoman for parent Golub Corp. of Rotterdam. "So our... to do things."

The financial world was particularly hard hit by the attacks, and local companies found they had done deals with people killed in the attack.

"We did a fantastic amount of business with Cantor Fitzgerald," said George McNamee, chair and co-chief executive of investment banking firm First Albany Cos. Inc.

Cantor Fitzgerald is the bond-trading firm that lost an estimated 700 workers under the World Trade Center rubble.

Gage and McNamme each said the action timeline at their companies was the same: Tuesday, a daze; Wednesday, action.

"A whole bunch of us came in Wednesday morning, thinking ÔWhat can we do to help?' " McNamee said.

His firm's solution was to offer office space to companies affected by the terror. Seven have taken First Albany up on the offer, and will relocate, temporarily, to the company's New York City offices.

"No matter how many degrees of freedom they are away from this thing, come Monday morning, the most heroic thing is to figure hoe to defiantly make life as normal as possible," McNamme said.

So, tomorrow, he will board a train in Albany and head to Manhattan and First Albany's trading room at 34th Street building. "The whole southern wall of the trading room is all glass, and there is no other tall building until you get to downtown," he said. The window once offered an unobstructed view of the World Trade Center.

For companies more affected by events, one crisis expert said a well-rehearsed emergency structure needs to be in place that doesn't call on a handful of executives to micromanage.

John Miles, risk-management claims manager for a subsidiary of Dallas-based Occidental Petroleum Corp., said companies need to make resources available for crisis handling and to develop a system to distribute those resources effectively.

"They (executives) have to provide leadership, they have to provide confidence, they have to provide compassion, they have to communicate that out," Miles said.

You can be caring, concerned and ineffective, he said and the plans fall apart pretty quickly.

Preparation for one of last year's biggest busts, the Y2K changeover, may have paid big dividends last week. Legions of doomsayers had predicted that as the calendar rolled over from 1999 to 2000, computers would confuse the new year with1900 - and cause everything from elevators to automatic teller machines to fail.

They didn't of course.

"We are probably in better shape today than we would have been if we didn't have the millennium event," Miles dais.

That's true, AuthentiDate's Botti said. "Everyone was planning for a disaster that didn't happen," he said.

Ironically enough, Botti suggested that as the nation coalesces, Tuesday events might have the same galvanizing effect.

"I think this country is a lot different than it was (before the attacks), and maybe in some ways a lot better," Botti said.

FACTS: WHAT TO DO Bruce Blythe, CEO of Crisis Management International Inc., an Atlanta company that coaches companies in handling workers during calamity, offers seven suggestions for crises: Track down employees, notify families and then gather staff. Tell staff all known information and be open to questions. Identify people who may not have a direct tie to the event but have recently suffered other trauma in their personal lives. Provide professional psychological help to all in need. Keep information up to date, through daily bulletins, recorded telephone messages or other announcements. Figure out what could happen next. Get ready to get back to work - but make sure workers' needs have been addressed first.

Tuesday's destruction of a citadel of commerce had Capital Region companies examining their own ability to withstand a calamity. Experts advise communication is key.