All Crises Are Global: Managing to Escape Chaos

All Crises Are Global: Managing to Escape Chaos. Marion K. Pinsdorf. New York: Fordham University Press, 2004. 262 pp. $30 hbk. Marion Pinsdorf uses her years of business school teaching and consulting to weave an extended cautionary tale for managers. Her theme is the value of history to crisis managers and the need to identify warning signs. The two go hand in hand. Historical cases provide insight into identifying warning signs and the folly of neglecting them. After building a case for history and warning signs, she leads the reader through a series of seven chapters that develop a variety of historical lessons ranging from the Tay Bridge collapse of 1879 in Scotland to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, in 1993. The book concludes with a set of recommendations from a variety of seasoned crisis "gurus." As a former journalist, Pinsdorf is able to craft her cases into compelling narratives. The chapter about the Tay Bridge collapse is extremely engrossing. Her final chapter is an excellent compilation of accepted wisdom in crisis management. Pinsdorf provides summaries of the advice offered by a number of veteran crisis managers. This final chapter is illustrative of Pinsdorf's faith in experience. Throughout the book she notes that crisis management is for the experienced and not for neophytes. Although she uses some standard crisis cases, such as the Challenger disaster, Pinsdorf works in newer and lesser known cases, such as Arthur Andersen and Aloha Airlines. The variety of cases is important. The reader is given some fresh examples that can be used to illustrate standard crisis management practices. Pinsdorf also draws upon a variety of sources that are not typically read or used by those in crisis management. An example is her use of Kai Erikson's A New Species of Trouble to discuss how people react to crises. Unfortunately, the strength of the book also is the source of its primary weakness. The style and tone of the book result in some critical omissions that erode its value. The reliance on unusual sources creates the book's greatest weakness. Pinsdorf does not contextualize her ideas within the larger body of the crisis management and crisis communication literatures. A chapter devoted to the airline industry does not mention Sally Ray's Strategic Communication in Crisis Management: Lessons from the Airline Industry, a book devoted to the study of how airlines respond to crises and learn from them. …