Tag Archive for: hostile environments

4 Ps in a BAM Crisis: Preparation, Prevention, Planning and Partnering

by Larry Sharp


This article is for BAM practitioners and those who support them in their work. It’s about what to do when something really bad happens and how to mitigate it happening in the first place

I have been visiting, observing, asking questions, providing help, and writing stories about BAM companies for 20 years. It has been stretching, humbling, enlightening and a total privilege.

The hardest part of it all has been to watch businesses struggle and eventually fail.

The best part has been to see businesses struggle with challenges and for any number of reasons overcome and continue to push on.

Harold Kushner grappled with the subject of When Bad Things Happen to Good People in his 1981 bestselling book with the same title. That is not my purpose here except to affirm that they do.

But how many times have you heard comments like: “They should have known better” or, “Didn’t they get training on that before coming overseas?” or, “Who was the business leader when things were getting rough?” or, “They should have capitalized it with double the amount” etc..

As the supervisor of crisis preparedness and crisis management in a mission agency I experienced numerous crises develop, many with pleasant endings, but also many with really bad endings. I often asked myself and God, “Why?”

While we think of businesses for the glory of God in impoverished and unreached areas, the following categories are critical in processing this subject before, during and after a crisis.

Preparation with Quality Training

If you studied business in the last quarter century you likely heard of the Rumsfeld Matrix which helps us process four quadrants ranging from the known knowns to the unknown unknowns. Business includes the life-long process of trying to understand what we know and learn what we do not know. In the case of being prepared for the unknown crises ahead we need to start with facts or variables that we’re aware of and understand. They form the basis of our knowledge and provide a solid foundation for decision making.

Most startups are owned and managed by intelligent, gifted, skilled and entrepreneurial enthusiasts who may have given minimal thought to crisis issues. The good news is that there are professionals who help prepare us for the uncertainties ahead. For this step I suggest hiring a consulting firm such Crisis Consulting International, Concilium Global, or see courses at the Crisis Training Center.

The net result will be a good understanding of the cultural, economic, political and demographic facts, assumptions and variables that you “know”. This will be assembled into a policy manual or at least a statement which forms the foundation of future actions.

It will include a clear understanding and consequent statement of why you are doing business in that context. It will help you answer questions such as:

  • How do you create value for the community?
  • If God owns the business, what does that mean?
  • Who do you really serve and why?
  • If the secret police show up one night with a search warrant, do you have to hide anything?
  • Can you prove you are a real business?
  • Do you follow your stated values?

A good consultant on this subject will likely role play various scenarios while helping the business wrestle with the “known unknowns” which are things you know exist but don’t fully understand.  These things will need to be investigated further—things like tax laws, visa requirements for expats, property ownership regulations, export-import laws, international money transfers and such.  This will take time but will be proven worth the effort.

Mark Russell discovered four characteristics of BAM companies in Southeast Asia that were producing positive ministry and business result.[1] High performers had:

  • A focus on being a blessing in their community and in all business areas
  • An openness regarding their purpose and identity (they were “real”)
  • Partnership with existing local churches and ministries
  • High cultural adaptation

A business with these or similar characteristics has good foundations to tackle potential dangers ahead.

Example

The COVID-19 crisis of 2020 brought ruination to many BAM companies. Tims Bakery in Asia was not totally blindsided because they had taken many of the steps listed above. Stan, the owner, called over 40 managers from three countries (many were not believers) and reminded them that this company belonged to God, who was the chairman.  They prayed and listened to God in three languages. God spoke saying “pivot” and the did just that, opening wholly new product outlets. Tims Bakery thrived because of God’s grace and quick thoughtful pivoting during COVID.[2]

Prevention by Mitigating Risk

Situational awareness is an important component of safety. Training helps business leadership to grow in their awareness of danger around them. There are risk assessment tools which help to identify risks and analyze them in terms of probability and impact. One tool that I used is called the Strategic Risk Forecast.

Once an understanding of risks exists (awareness), steps can be taken to avoid it (i.e. mitigate the risk). This may involve a policy on the subject or simply a general warning. Risk mitigation may range from the broad general things to micro actions of individuals.

Typical risks in the types of countries where BAM practitioners work include possibilities like natural disasters, government overreach, anti-foreigner oppression, economic downturn, kidnapping, loss of product markets. Risk types will likely vary depending on whether the practitioners involved are expats, nationals or a mixture.

Once the highest risks are identified, it is important next to develop contingency plans which will include the likes of a:

  • Contingency file of all items of importance in the event of a crisis
  • Strategy for communication (who needs to know what when?)
  • Basic disaster supplies listed and maintained
  • Strategy steps for identifying trigger points and subsequent action steps
  • Evacuation plans including rendezvous points and travel routes
  • Sources of emergency funds
Example

My youngest daughter worked for a large multinational as a country-wide HR director. She received exhaustive training including simulations, videos, exercises and feedback loops. They had a contingency file which listed trigger points and action steps. One day, in the interior of Sudan when they were arrested and told they were being deported, the training proved vital to their ability to overcome and survive the unfair and illegal treatment.

Planning for Crisis Management

Every crisis needs to be managed and if decisions and plans have been made ahead of time, the management of a crisis will be more efficient and effective. A Crisis Management Team (CMT) should be formed in the prevention stage and once the crisis occurs the CMT should be activated.

The role of the CMT is to assess and understand the crisis, clearly defining the problem and making a plan to respond. The team should identify a communication hub which will follow the procedures established beforehand. This team will coordinate all internal and external communication and implement the communication strategy outlined in the crisis management plan. This will include timely and transparent communication with employees, customers, suppliers, and the media.

There are good internet materials to document management procedures including communication strategies.[3]  I cannot overstress the importance of well-developed and comprehensive communication. Key trust issues reside with communication with all stakeholders which should be determined by the CMT immediately. I have found that upwards of 80% of the information shared is just what common courtesy demanded, and it kept the rumors and gossip to a minimum. Silence is the worst possible thing in emergency times.

Your crisis response team should include members with diverse skills from across the organization, such as senior crisis management teams, public relations, legal advisors, and operations personnel, to provide comprehensive coverage of all aspects of a crisis. Within this group, a crisis manager will be nominated to lead the execution of the crisis management plan, including the organization’s public response to the event.[3]

Depending on the extent and length of time, there may be a need for CMT positions to be further defined such as: leader, finance authority, communications director, compliance officer, HT manager, IT manager, legal counsel, etc..

Example

When the disastrous Haiti earthquake struck in January 2010, my organization had 18 people in the country. I was very thankful that we had a plan and that I had been in country two times for training. Things didn’t work perfectly but certainly much better than if we had never given it a thought ahead of time.  After the initial actions, I called Crisis Consulting International which had personnel with earthquake experience. I subsequently signed a contract for one of their people to fly to Haiti, do an assessment and return within a week with an action plan for us. One is never prepared for a crisis like that, but I felt we were a little ahead of the game because of prior action.

Partners in Crisis Resolution

Just as there are resources on the internet and elsewhere, so too are there likely to be personnel resources which will be handy and willing in a crisis. There is no need to shoulder the burden alone.

Whether managing a crisis from the location or an office in another country, or both, consider the need for language and culture experts, those in political positions, legal and financial experts, pastors, media leaders, those with experience in the issue faced, and other crisis managers.[4]

Examples

A couple of stories help reinforce the importance of partners in crisis resolution:

Two-year-old Evan fell from a 6th story window to the pavement below and was in a Kiev, Ukraine hospital when I got the call. He was unconscious and doctors knew they did not have the necessary medical resources locally. What should we do? I soon knew I had to medivac him to a better hospital in Europe and we settled on Vienna, but how? I turned to my CFO, Phil who had a robust business career and contacts. This resulted in hiring a medically equipped leer jet in Moscow to fly to Kiev, pick him up and get him to Vienna. I could never have come up with or executed the plan by myself.

Ben was the financial manager for the construction of a water dam in Asia but was arrested in the Asian country where he worked and was held without due process in a pathetic rustic jail cell.  I had never faced this before, so I had to seek help from others and continuously keep myself updated on what was going on and get various viewpoints. I received advice ranging from sending in a Rambo-like mercenary group to get him out, to having all-night prayer meetings and waiting on God. Ben did not see the light of day for five months and information and viewpoints for me came from news reports, state department officials, a Virginia senator, the pastor of his home church, a crisis manager in the country in Asia, a politician on site, and the USA Ambassador to the country.  I was glad to have perspectives and help from so many sources, even though it was frustrating at times. After much work from those with expertise in areas far beyond mine, he was released five months later.

 

There are many other components to being prepared for crisis, managing it effectively and eventually recovering. It is important that the business, any related organization, and everyone be debriefed with the goal of caring for them and maximizing next steps. Critical incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) is a post-trauma debriefing for individuals. The business leadership needs debriefing to not only care for them but also restabilize the business. There are organizations and individual operatives with experience to help each person and the business to recover.[5]

 

Larry Sharp is the Founder and current BAM Support Specialist of a Business for Transformation (BAM, B4t) consulting firm, International Business and Education Consultants (www.ibecventures.com). Larry served 21 years in Brazil and then 20 years as Crossworld VP of Operations and as Vice President of Business Partnerships. He is currently a VP Emeritus and consultant with Crossworld. Since 2007 he has devoted energies toward Business as Mission (BAM) and currently is a consultant on BAM and education themes. Larry travels within North America speaking and teaching in conferences, colleges and churches on themes related to Business As Mission (BAM, B4t) and missions.  His travels abroad relate to BAM, crisis preparation and management, and team building. 

 

 

Get Larry’s Book: Missions Disrupted

Available at all good book stores online!

 

 

Footnotes

[1] Russell, Mark L. The Missional Entrepreneur (Birmingham, AL: New Hope Publishers, 2010).

[2] See a more complete story in Sharp, Larry. Missions Disrupted: From Professional Missionaries to Missional Professionals (Peabody MA:  Hendrickson Publishers, 2022).

[3] See for example, https://mention.com/en/blog/business-crisis-management/

[4] See, https://businessasmission.com/five-essential-reminders-if-you-are-managing-a-crisis/

[5] See, https://missionexus.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2017-Crisis-Management-       White-Paper-Formatted.pdf

 


Photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash

 

Day to Day Life in Hostile Places: Doing Business in Central Asia

The challenges to doing business here are many. The market is small and corruption is massive. There is a deficit of qualified professionals in the employee pool. This means that you need to fully train whoever you hire, knowing that when they have marketable skills, they will be seeking to emigrate to a country for a “better life”.

Inflation is another significant risk factor for business, as well as sudden bouts of devaluation which can be disastrous when supplies are purchased in dollars but customers are paying in local currency. Corruption and lawlessness are rampant in government institutions and there is an underdeveloped legal framework for doing business. We openly declare our position against corruption and this is a plus and a minus. We have no sense of protection from the government here, and there is constant pressure. One of the most threatening developments has been the more recent rise here in Islamic radicalism.

When we published the book of Proverbs and began to openly distribute it we raised the wrath of certain legislators in the parliament here. They vowed to shut us down and began sending an endless barrage of inspectors from every possible government department, all instructed to find something that could put us out of business. We faced corruption that brought us to the brink of being shut down. Our refusal to pay bribes resulted in lawsuits, investigations and audits. In the end, however, most inspectors went away with a true respect for how we run our business. The auditor sent to “shut us down” ended up so impressed at our dealings that she came to the faith. Read more

Day to Day Life in Hostile Places: Doing Business in North Africa

How do you do business in a country that your home country says it is illegal to do business in? Forget about export markets. Forget about connections to the international banking system for personal or business funds. Forget about visiting the ATM. You need to carry as much cash in with you every time you come and then stick in a safe in the corner of your bedroom because you cannot have a bank account in the country.

The bureaucracy and corruption were just the tip of the iceberg of doing business where we lived in North Africa. War and instability, currency fluctuations, international sanctions and constant anti-Western sentiment from the country’s government were just some of the things we contended with day to day. Even the weather could be hostile, with highs of 45°c (113°f), along with sandstorms and power cuts!

Although war was almost constant in different areas of the country, it rarely impacted daily life in the capital. We often told our family that even though the country had been through decades of civil war, the rebels had only attacked the capital once and that was 30 years ago. That was until they attacked it while we were there! The situation returned to normal after a week, but it was hectic. The city shut down for that week while battles went street to street.

On another occasion, we had an outreach team ambushed with grenades and AK-47’s while doing ministry in a remote district that we thought was safe. A number of team were killed and wounded. We still don’t know who was behind the attack. Read more

After the Tsunami: Business on the Edge

Little did James know just how strategically God had placed him fourteen years prior to the adversity that rocked multiple countries and millions of people when the 2004 tsunami hit Asia. As the ocean bulldozed its way through the coastline, sparing nothing in its path, so came a flood of both urgent and long-term needs. The physical destruction was almost incomprehensible, with hundreds of thousands of homes leveled and those that weren’t completely destroyed sustaining major water damage.

The area James lived in had long experienced government versus rebel conflict. Trust levels were at a low between people groups. Most things had ground to a complete halt as a result of years of unrest. The infrastructure was almost nonexistent, and what little infrastructure was there was almost completely dysfunctional. The civil unrest had already led to massive financial devastation. The additional destruction of the tsunami made for a completely corrupt situation where everyone grabbed for whatever money they could get their hands on.

For Such a Time as This

After the tsunami’s destruction of homes, multitudes lived in refugee camps which were a hotbed for the advancement of political unrest or conflict. The circumstances were ripe for anything but a successful BAM venture! Except that James and his wife and team knew they were called ‘for such a time as this’ and the Holy Spirit was leading them. James also had some ‘street smarts’ when it came to working in his location, which helped him move farther, faster. They hadn’t seen it coming, but along with the devastation of the tsunami came opportunities to start businesses that could help rebuild. Read more

7 Internet and Email Security Tips for BAM Practitioners

1. Basics

Do the absolute basics of making sure you have a reputable: firewall, antivirus, anti spyware and anti malware programmes. Sometimes these come as all-in programmes, do a lot of research to find out what is best at the moment as the market changes rapidly.

For a more in depth look at what security steps you can take click here and for Windows users a list here called “Probably the best security list in the world”.

2. Email Security

Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail are not secure enough email options for people working in the non-secure world. At the very least they are vulnerable to passport hijackings. At worst it is quite possible for security agencies within the government to be regularly reading your emails.

Good secure email options, unfortunately, usually cost money. Many organisations give a secure email options. Otherwise you could use something like Swissmail.

If you use Mailchimp to email newsletters, be aware that the newsletter is effectively a web page. Yes it is secure on their server but all servers are vulnerable to hacking. For more advice, and a warning, for missionaries serving in non-secure parts of the world regarding email communication see here. Read more

14 Best Practices for Managing the Risk of BAM in Hard Places

Taking a multidisciplinary approach and drawing upon a variety of resources will enable a BAM practitioner make better decisions as they learn to identify and manage acceptable risks. Here are 14 recommended fruitful practices for managing the risk of doing business in a hostile environment – that is hostile to business, mission or life:

1. Think about risk in categories: strategic, tactical and operational

In order to bring greater clarity to thinking about the variety of risks you face, categorise your risks into arenas consistent with your strategic, tactical, and operational goals or plans for your business.

Strategic plans serve the entire organisation and begin with your mission. The design and execution of your strategic plans reveal your desired future and longer-term goals over three to five years and beyond. Strategic risks might include, for example, overall country risks.

Tactical goals support strategic goals and they are concerned with mechanisms that will fulfil various parts of the strategic plan. Tactical risk can affect part of your strategic plan, but not all of it. An example of tactical risk might be the failure of one business versus a cluster approach (having several businesses) in which the overall strategic goals will still remain intact.

Operational plans and associated risks have to do with specific procedures and processes that are carried out by the workers in your organisation. A one-time petty theft of company property is an example of operational risk.

2. Contextualise your business strategy to the kinds of risk you face

One BAM practitioner works in a classically hostile environment. There are often personal safety concerns, a high level of corruption and an inefficient if not broken infrastructure. The challenge to run a successful business is obvious. This person is succeeding, but is having to step away from some business norms to do so. Jim Collins (2001) in his book Good to Great extols the virtue of the hedgehog principle of doing one thing excellently. In the context that this practitioner lives and works, that approach would lead to certain failure. Instead this person has adopted a ‘cluster approach’, with multiple small businesses that are able to stand on their own. Read more

Four Personal Experiences of BAM in Hard Places

The BAM Global Think Tank Report on BAM in Hostile Environments shares numerous personal stories and cases from BAM companies in hard places. Here are four brief experiences:

Boat Building in East Asia

In 2009 Josh was living in East Asia and had an opportunity to buy a boat building company there. He saw the opportunity to own a company in an unreached area and use it for ‘triple bottom line’ impact: to be profitable and sustainable, to create jobs, to live out ‘Jesus’ and to make disciples of Jesus among the Muslim and Hindu population. Josh was a fully qualified architect; he had 25 years of boating experience together with experience of teaching design and construction technology; he had lived in country for five years and spoke the language fluently; he had made several disciples of Jesus on other islands. While Josh brought considerable assets to the table, he did not have a business background, he had no money and he had not rubbed shoulders with the cutthroat business world of the country. While the company for sale had proven profitable, there were several hostile factors: the previous owner had not paid taxes and had a system for smuggling profits out of the country; the owner had some debts and potentially serious liabilities against the company; the country’s tax and other typical business laws were not obvious or easily known and Josh knew of no place in country where he could go for honest help; the location was isolated for a family with three children. Read more

BAM in Hard Places: The Challenge of Business in Hostile Environments

BAM ventures are one of the innovative ways that we are called to do mission in the two-thirds of the world’s countries that are highly corrupt and require risk management skills, sound judgement, discernment, strong leadership and spiritual maturity.

Launching and/or managing a business as mission company within a hostile environment encompasses a set of risks that are unique and varied, in contrast to the more familiar kinds of risk that most businesses encounter. By anticipating, recognising and managing these risks, a BAM team is more likely to achieve business sustainability and spiritual fruitfulness. 

The Risks That Face Us  

We are conceiving risk as falling broadly into three areas:

1. Business

2. Mission

3. Personal (including family)

Risks in these three areas can overlap and vary in intensity from situation to situation.

Understanding and managing risk in any environment is usually challenging for most business owners, but navigating unfamiliar risks within a hostile environment is part of the learning process that successful BAM entrepreneurs must navigate. Successful management of these risks requires the entrepreneur to exercise a high degree of discernment and good judgment.  Read more