Methods for detecting weaknesses in an organization. Find out your psychotype

Knowing the weaknesses of others is useful for three reasons. Firstly, so as not to impose on your neighbor a burden that he is not ready to bear. Secondly, to develop a training program and take the person to the next level. Third, to understand the strengths that are the opposite of the weaknesses.

Instructions

Prepare informative, interestingly presented information from different areas of life. These could be articles, examples, comparisons, facts, etc. The form in which the data is presented does not matter, but video is a good idea. Make sure that the information is written or presented in a language that a person can understand and at an intellectual level.

Publish the found materials on sites or services where the person being studied visits. It is important that he feels comfortable there and is an active participant. The ideal option is to post the data on a forum or similar site where those present can share opinions.

Pay attention to what the person reacts to. Some information will not affect him, but he will want to talk about something.

Find and publish controversial materials on a topic of interest identified in the third step. Someone's harsh judgment, different from the generally accepted one, will do. It would be good if there was a discussion. You yourself can provoke it.

Record your emotional reaction. When people start arguing, they sometimes lose control of themselves. Weaknesses of character are exposed, principles and beliefs become visible that in normal circumstances are carefully hidden from others. By simple observation you can learn a lot about a person.

Use another way to detect weaknesses - the principle “a friend in need is a friend”. Model a situation where other people find themselves next to the person being studied in a weak, defenseless state, in need. The reaction will indicate whether the person wants to assert himself, withdraw, or help.

Come up with tests of poverty and wealth, the opportunity to take someone else’s, etc.

note

In the methods considered, there is a fine moral side or line that should not be crossed. Otherwise, you will give way to your inner weaknesses, which can lead to shame. Therefore, think like a researcher, not a manipulator.

Did they try to manipulate you? Surely yes, and you are unlikely to enjoy it. And what good is it when they try to control you, using your weaknesses, shortcomings, vulnerabilities. Of course, every person has his own weak points, and those who try to control, manipulate people, first of all, try to study them well in order to find the optimal method of influence. There are about twenty human psychotypes; we will tell you in more detail about the five main psychotypes.

Psychotypes: hysteroid, schizoid, epileptoid, asthenic, hyperthymic are most often found in people. Brief characteristics of these psychotypes will help you understand which psychotype you yourself belong to, what your vulnerable, weak points are, what inferiority complexes you have. Knowing this, you will no longer be a toy in the hands of others and will be able to resist those who are trying to manipulate you. And having an idea about those with whom we communicate on a daily basis will also help to better organize interactions. So, human psychotypes!

Psychotype hysteroid

A person belonging to this psychotype is contactable, sociable, and easily gains trust. And he knows how to perfectly manipulate others. The hysteroid is selfish, loves to work in public in order to show off his extraordinary abilities on occasion. As a rule, such people choose a profession in journalism, electronic media or show business. People belonging to this psychotype dress flashily, even extravagantly, and love bright colors and shiny accessories.

They know how to speak beautifully and have a soulful, intonationally convincing voice. And graceful gestures and rich facial expressions complement the portrait of this psychotype. The hobbies of hysterics are, as a rule, unusual, in the light of new trends. Such a person loves to be original in everything and to emphasize his own merits.

Hysteroid complexes: exaggerated sense of superiority over others, greed, excessive curiosity.

Psychotype asthenic

Asthenic is neat, efficient, but lacks initiative. A person of this psychotype is easy to communicate and easy to manage. He can be a conscientious, careful worker and, as a rule, chooses professions associated with a minimum of communication, calmness, and lack of risk.

The distinctive features of an asthenic person are modesty, perseverance, and decency. He has quiet, calm hobbies - chess, crosswords, reading smart books. An asthenic person has a quiet voice and slurred speech. He dresses discreetly and modestly.

Asthenic complexes: fear, guilt, uncertainty, pity.

Psychotype hypertim

Hyperthym is hardy, can sleep little, is energetic, enterprising, prone to risk, loves to do many things at the same time, and succeeds in many ways. Hypertim's voice is expressive, his speech is lively, his gestures are energetic. A person of this psychotype is usually the life of the party with a wonderful sense of humor. Hyperthym prefers to be the center of attention and needs an entourage.

By nature, he is a clear leader, so he cannot be an ordinary official. As a rule, hyperteam chooses professions that involve intense communication. Wherever he works, he becomes a leader. The hobbies of people of this psychotype are very diverse - sports, restaurants, casinos, bathhouses, hippodrome. Hypertims dress fashionably, but not extravagantly, demonstrating good taste.

Hyperthymic complexes: superiority demonstrated at all costs, fear of showing that in fact such a person is incompetent in some way or cannot cope with the assigned task.

Psychotype schizoid

The distinctive features of the schizoid psychotype are constancy and increased responsibility. He lives in a world of his own illusions and unrealistic hopes. As a rule, he chooses the profession of a programmer, scientist, accountant, archaeologist, archivist, or finds application in some very rare profession. A schizoid's circle of friends is limited, but reliable. In communication, such a person is dry and formal, does not like to talk about himself, and always keeps his distance.

People of this psychotype do not particularly follow fashion - they wear what they like and find comfortable. The schizoid's movements are angular, his voice is monotonous, his speech is abrupt, and his facial expressions are practically absent.

Schizoid complexes: shame, fear, guilt, hypertrophied curiosity, inappropriate pity.

Epileptoid

The epileptoid is neat, conservative, pedantic, always balanced, punctual and hardworking, reliable and prudent. The speech of people of this psychotype is calm and thorough. When it comes to clothing, they prefer a classic style. When choosing a profession, an epileptoid is guided by a clear workday schedule, understandable job descriptions that do not imply the occurrence of any emergency situations. As a rule, he becomes a good official or lawyer, and can be a good military man, unconditionally following the orders of the commander. The epileptoid's hobbies are practical, for example, collecting things of practical importance.

Epileptoid complexes: greed and an exaggerated sense of superiority over other people.

You have gained an idea of the main types of human psychotypes.
Brief characteristics of other psychotypes:

EXPANSIVE FANATIC. All his life he obsessively fights for an idea based on blind faith, with which he is able to captivate, at least temporarily, other people. Soulless and cruel.

SLEEPY FANATIC. An obsession with any idea (collecting, vegetarianism, etc.) occurs only in his personal life. He doesn’t fight for an idea, doesn’t look for supporters or followers. Prone to fantasizing, eccentric, detached from reality.

EXPANSIVE PARANOIC. His life is almost entirely filled with the fight against opponents and the assertion of his own greatness. Deceitful, vindictive, conflicted. He does not notice his own shortcomings, only those of others. Always self-confident and self-satisfied, failures do not bother him. Energetic, mobile, tireless.

SENSITIVE PARANOIAN. Combines both a sense of inferiority and a sense of self-worth. Failure is experienced in relation to self-established standards. Timid, shy, fearful, suspicious, irritable, prone to self-flagellation. I am convinced that his shame should become public, that everyone knows about his painful experiences.

HYPERTIMIC. Characterized by increased well-being, mood and desire for activity. Excessively active, talkative, distractible. Overly self-confident, strives for leadership and pleasure, which leads to numerous conflicts.

DISTIMIC. A persistent pessimist. He doesn’t even know how to rejoice at his own successes. Always gloomy, prone to remorse and self-abasement. Usually this is a quiet, sad, gentle and courteous person. He is distinguished by conscientiousness, hard work and practicality.

EPILEPTIOID. Characterized by stiffness and slowness of mental processes. Overly detailed, gets stuck on little things and especially on negative experiences. At the same time, he is prone to affective outbursts and periods of dysphoria. Gloomy, unyielding, vindictive, vindictive, cruel and self-centered.

EXCITABLE (CHOLERIC and EXPLOSIVE). Fast, impetuous, capable of devoting himself to a task with exceptional passion, but unbalanced, prone to violent emotional outbursts and sudden changes in mood. With the sharpening of psychotypical characteristics, emotional excitability intensifies and excessive mobility, capriciousness, touchiness, intolerance to any prohibitions, conflict, cruelty, adventurism, etc. are added.

PHLEGMATIC PERSON. Slow, calm. Aspirations and mood are stable. Feelings are strong and deep, but outwardly weakly expressed.

SANGUINE. Alive, agile, quickly responds to the environment, and experiences failures and troubles relatively easily.

MELANCHOLIC. A melancholic is a person who is easily vulnerable, who tends to deeply experience even minor failures, but who outwardly reacts sluggishly to his surroundings.

ASTHENIC. We are highly excitable, quick-tempered, touchy and impressionable, but we quickly become exhausted. Timid, suffers from a sense of inferiority, prone to introspection and self-flagellation. Constantly depressed, anxious, fears upcoming difficulties and complains of being unwell. Prone to fainting in unexpected situations.

EXPANSIVE PSYCHASTHENIC. He is distrustful and therefore always checks the actions of others. He is neat and smart, dry and correct in his communication. Conservative, categorical, pedantic and rigid. Practical, economical.

SENSITIVE PSYCHASTHENIC. Anxious and suspicious, impressionable, fearful, extremely embarrassed and shy. He can’t decide on anything on his own. Clumsy, unsuited to physical work and to life in general. Tends to constant self-analysis with exaggeration of his own shortcomings. Always afraid of bothering or offending someone. Thorough to the point of pedantry, hardworking, conscientious and obliging.

HYSTERICAL. Extravagant, demonstrative, self-centered, capricious, but internally empty and immature. Not organized, lazy, deceitful, prone to adventures.

HYPOCHONDRIAC. He is constantly concerned about his health and considers himself sick. All attention is focused on the activity of the body, which only contributes to the emergence and consolidation of psychogenic somatic dysfunctions. Even minor ailments unsettle him for a long time, prompting him to consult doctors, take treatment and lie in bed for days.

EXPANSIVE SCHIZOID. Decisive, strong-willed, principled. With those around him he is dry, official, arrogant, bilious and heartless to the point of cruelty. Capricious and quick-tempered. At the same time, he is easily vulnerable, unsatisfied with himself and lacking self-confidence, which he deeply hides.

SENSITIVE SCHIZOID. Mimosa-like, painfully sensitive, touchy. Wary with strangers. The tendency to introspection reaches the point of self-torture. Modest, dreamy, easily exhausted, but painfully proud. He is extremely conscientious and thorough in his work, strives for one-sided depth. In a conflict situation, he becomes lethargic and depressed, withdraws into himself.

If you sing well, then you need to constantly improve this skill. If you are not a good cook, then you need to make every effort to learn. The only thing that causes difficulty is yourself strengths and weaknesses of a person. How to identify them? How to find what is worth improving and what needs to be developed? The difficulty lies in the fact that many people prefer not to see their weaknesses. They just say they don't exist. It is not true. The article will help you understand your personality. You will learn how to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and you will be able to find a path for self-development.

What are your strengths

The question about personality strengths is often asked in interviews. This is one of the textbook psychological techniques that many HR people use. But applicants are aware of this question, so the answers are most often standard. Weaknesses are written to a minimum, and sometimes not written at all. But do not forget that you are interviewing an experienced specialist who has studied his business. Therefore, stereotypical answers can become a minus, not a plus.

Therefore, before hiring, and simply to determine the characteristics of your personality, you should find your strengths. The difficulty is that no one will decide anything for an adult. If in childhood our parents constantly dragged us around to clubs and sections, trying to develop our talents, now the life of adults is only work and sometimes rest. Almost everyone forgets about having a hobby, about a talent that can be constantly improved. This is where disappointment in overall activities comes from. A few accidentally find their niche and become successful in it. But most often a person just goes with the flow.

Human strengths based on talents. We all know what we do best. If you are a wonderful cook, then your talent is the kitchen. If your friends listen when you start singing, then your talent is singing. And so on. Talent can be not only something creative, some people are masters at negotiating with other people. This means their talent is negotiation. You just need to think about what you do best. This will be talent. The next stage of self-development will be honing your skills in your chosen business. No one can achieve perfection, but it is easy to significantly improve skills.

Naturally, in your resume for the position of office manager you do not need to write “cooking ability” as a strength. However, from this talent comes a true strength. If I can cook well, then my strengths are discipline (it is simply necessary to fry meat for the specified amount of time, etc.), responsibility, information (I am constantly looking for new recipes), imagination (inventing dishes requires creativity). Any talent can be decomposed into your character strengths. You get along well with people, which means your strengths will be the ability to win over, responsibility, individualization (focus on the personality of an individual, accepting it). You have a sharp mind, which means that in the strengths column you can write not only intelligence, but also learning ability and the desire for new knowledge. Even if you don't have any creative potential, your hobby is collecting stamps, your strengths will be competition and discipline.

Then you need to transfer your personality strengths and talents to reality. If you like to write, you can work as a journalist or copywriter. If you love children, then you can easily go to school or kindergarten. The main thing is that the work brings pleasure. Work without pleasure will be real hard labor, and there will be no benefit from it. You need to clearly understand your talents, highlight your strengths and find something you like. Here they are, three criteria for a happy life.

Working with weaknesses

Every person has both strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, a mature, accomplished and self-sufficient person should be able to admit his weaknesses. You cannot say that you are perfect. First of all, this is not true. Secondly, with this thesis you can stop your personal development. Weaknesses are not something negative or shameful, they are traits that should be developed, improved, and tried to turn into strengths. If you constantly engage in self-development, you will become a full-fledged person and find balance in life.

It is necessary to identify your strengths and weaknesses. If everything is clear with the strengths, then what might the weaknesses be? These are natural laziness and procrastination, the inability to get up early, problems with speaking in public, shyness and lack of strength of character. Every person knows where his weak point is. You can be completely undisciplined and always be late everywhere. You can be disorganized and do everything at the last moment. You may be afraid of contacts with strangers and so on. Some of the weaknesses can be easily corrected on your own or with the help of a psychologist. Others are difficult to change, but you can adjust your life, adjust them to your weaknesses so that they do not cause inconvenience. Weaknesses and strengths of a person- this is part of the character, it is impossible to completely get rid of them.

For example, you are often late. The advice “leave early” does not always work; people who are late simply do not know how to control their time. Then the way out is to schedule business meetings in the office at the height of the working day. You definitely won't be late there. If you do not know how to plan a work process, then you should think about the sequence of tasks. Leave the most difficult and important things at the beginning of the working day, and move those tasks that can be postponed or postponed to the end. Even if you don’t make it in time, it won’t get any worse. You can also designate a staff of subordinates to whom certain powers are delegated. As a team, you can easily complete everything on time.

The inability to speak in public is a problem for many people, often even managers. Working with a psychologist and constant training corrects this weakness. But you can also get around it - just entrust communication to other people who are better at this task. If you are a night owl and cannot think well in the morning, then it is better to postpone all important matters to a later time. In this way, all weaknesses can be corrected so that they do not interfere with full-fledged activities.

Analysis of strengths and weaknesses during an interview

Many applicants are interested in the question, why do they ask about weaknesses during interviews? Is it worth talking about them, what if it negatively affects the results? In fact, the absence of weaknesses in the profile is already a negative quality that will definitely alert the recruiter. The company must be prepared for your weaknesses. You should never worry about this issue; it may alert HR. All your strengths and weaknesses should be presented calmly, without unnecessary panic. Then you will definitely be assessed as a full-fledged personality and a mature person.

Self improvement

It is necessary to constantly be in development. Even if you have talent, there are certain strengths and weaknesses of your character, you cannot abandon them. A good voice requires constant training for the skill to become even better. But your talents relate to an area that you like, so most often people know what a person’s strengths are and try to develop them throughout their lives. But what to do with the weak?

There is no need to think that if weaknesses fit into your life, then you can let things take their course. You can make business meetings at the office for a long time and not be late for them, but you will definitely be late for the plane. He won't come to your office. We need to fight the inability to manage time, gradually getting rid of this weakness. If you leave early by half an hour or even an hour, it is better to wait at the airport than to miss your flight. This applies not only to airplanes, but also to friendly meetings, dates, and so on. You need to constantly try to correct your shortcomings or at least continuously work on yourself.

Every person has advantages and disadvantages. To prevent the weak from becoming the dominant part of your personality, develop. It’s not that difficult, but self-development promises success at work, in family life, and leads to harmony and happiness.

To the question How to find a person’s weak point? so as not just to offend him, but to “kill” him morally... and how to say these words correctly? given by the author Neurologist the best answer is Right now you can do anything here, just not write an answer to the point, peacekeepers!))

Answer from Low grade[master]
Dasha, why do you need to be evil, there are already evil people, well, don’t bother them. yay. Be kind. Often people who start a war also die in it. If you don't. They pierced your soul, of course it’s unpleasant, but don’t use the weapon that these tari offered you, you won’t gain anything with this weapon. Revenge is a sweet thing, but it may be that revenge will not bring the long-awaited relief. You can win a war without fighting. Take your time, take a break, find an outlet for yourself in something new. Get high somehow and write here and ask....

Answer from Ask[guru]
You don't need this, believe me.
The easiest thing to catch is pride.
But such a “feast victory” will not bring much joy.

Answer from Lyalena[guru]
why do you need it? Revenge won't make it any easier.

Answer from Termet termet[master]
There is nothing to look for here, you need to try. Art comes with experience. The answer will depend on the goal: to harm, to defend at all costs, with the least damage to oneself, with the least amount of effort...

Answer from Tatyana Timofeeva[guru]
They can also give back... the boomerang law... Your desire, mamzel, looks like complexes and weakness. Learn not to take revenge, but to improve... to be higher than your offender. Good luck in your combat...

Answer from KseniaLi[guru]
And you, so young and beautiful, why do this?
Not enough adventures in life?
Live with goodness, it will suit you better.

Answer from Alexey Minarov[guru]
Dasha, you need to get rid of revenge, pain and resentment, otherwise it will be too late.
PAIN
Author: Galina Dymkova
5/26/2002
Every person on Earth has experienced physical and emotional pain. Physical pain is a signal of cell destruction in the body. However, when the physical pain stops, the person forgets about it. Emotional pain is never forgotten and can be triggered at any time. Why are people susceptible to emotional pain? The answer lies in the human subconscious, which contains the past of all ancestors. Fear causes people to suffer pain. People seek careers to gain money and status while protecting themselves from humiliation and pain. Such people are often accused of having a big ego. Ego is an emotional pain inherited from ancestors and exists in every person.
Example. At school, a ten-year-old boy who could not stand up for himself was humiliated. He was beaten, humiliated, forced to take on himself the blame for the hooligans, etc. From the pain that the boy experienced, a desire was born to become strong and make his tormentors suffer. Time has passed. The boy grew up and joined the army. His diligence and desire to make a military career were crowned with success. He became a sergeant. He took pleasure in torturing young soldiers. Because the pain suffered in childhood required me to mock others.
How to get rid of pain?
The example above suggests an exercise for getting rid of pain. Read the instructions and do everything with your eyes closed. Take your thoughts back to childhood, when you were bullied. Using a yellow energy beam, cut out a piece of your life where you were humiliated and beaten, like cutting out a videotape. Then, in your imagination, change the events so realistically that you believe it yourself, as if you were going to another school, where it was interesting and good, where there were no offenders, but only peers, just like you.
This exercise can be used for any memory of pain.
Follow the link to find the articles: Revenge, Hatred, Jealousy and you will help yourself.

Answer from Myachikov Ball[guru]
Be always prepared for the fact that after killing him morally, he can kill you physically))

Answer from Vikusya[guru]
Treat people the way you would like them to treat you!! Success!!

Answer from Varvara[newbie]
"Thou shalt not kill!"

Answer from Zhanna[master]
Why do you need this? If you want to be treated kindly, treat others kindly. If you do evil, it will return to you as a boomerang in triple size, if you do good it will also return as a boomerang, also in triple size. The most interesting thing is that everything can come back in a year, then don’t ask everyone why such grief happened to me. I wish that you don’t have such a desire as to take revenge, it doesn’t lead to anything good :)

Many organizations pay serious attention monitoring external and internal environment of the organization. In medium and small organizations, special teams for these purposes are rarely created due to lack of resources. However, operational management tasks also require monitoring changes in the quality of products and services, sales dynamics, personnel problems, the degree of staff satisfaction with working conditions, compliance with supply contracts and much more, which, in fact, is what the heads of departments and areas do in their daily activities.

An organization's partners and other stakeholders can also tell a lot about its performance by comparing its performance with that of its competitors. Therefore, the most effective way to identify an organization’s weaknesses and ways to reduce the dangers lurking in them is to identify key internal and external stakeholders. Such groups interested in the success of the organization can be divided into the following types:

senior managers;
middle managers, directors of regional companies, divisions and departments;
staff of the organization (including secretaries and clerks);
distributors and sales agents;
most valuable customers;
Media covering the company's activities;
key suppliers.

LCU managers must understand that addressing the organization’s weaknesses at the moment will require much less time and resources than dealing with their consequences later.

The first step is to recognize that any organization has weaknesses that, if poorly managed, can lead to serious crisis situations.

The second step is to understand that delay in this case is like death, and immediate action must be taken. It is useful for a manager to take a short break from operational management and think about what processes in the organization can be optimized and what can be improved in general. In particular, try to answer the following questions: where is the organization most vulnerable? What small problem, if left unaddressed, could lead to a major crisis? What can be changed to reduce the risk of a crisis?

It is also necessary to consider the possible consequences of the organization's weaknesses. It is advisable to find out how detrimental a delay in addressing the organization’s weaknesses will be for the organization and personally for management, and what negative short-term and long-term consequences there may be. These possible consequences are best presented as a list.

When looking for answers to these questions, communication with the organization’s personnel can provide significant assistance. It is not difficult, through surveys and conversations, to find out the attitude of personnel towards the weaknesses of the organization and the ideas of employees regarding ways to overcome the negative impacts of these aspects on the achievement of organizational goals. You should also create a list of employees with whom you can later meet to collect additional information on the problem and find out their opinion on the intended solutions to it. Such feedback not only facilitates the collection of information about possible sources of the crisis, but also motivates staff to support management in their implementation of anti-crisis programs.

To capture signals of a possible crisis coming from outside, it is necessary to organize a survey of customers so that they express their attitude towards the organization, its products and services, and also offer their thoughts on possible changes. Unlike an employee survey, in this case it is not at all necessary to focus on the company’s weaknesses; it is preferable to think about ways to increase the level of customer satisfaction of the company. This approach will one way or another help identify the organization’s weaknesses. At the same time, it is not necessary to disclose all its shortcomings to clients. This goal can best be achieved through personal meetings with clients, but telephone surveys, mailing questionnaires, organizing focus groups, and creating committees and commissions are also acceptable.

A useful means of identifying an organization's weaknesses is the benchmarking methodology. Benchmarking- this is a technique for comparing the efficiency of economic activities of the company being studied and the company that is a leader in this industry.

The benchmarking procedure is as follows:

Finding a relatively small number of companies that are engaged in similar activities and have achieved the best performance indicators in the industry;
quantitative assessment of the gap in the operating efficiency of this company and the best in the industry;
developing a program of action to close this gap.

The advantages of this method include the fact that its use, firstly, allows you to set goals that correspond to the development directions of the most successful competitors; secondly, it stimulates management to achieve higher performance indicators of the company; thirdly, it makes the assessment of the contribution of individual units to achieving the intended goals more reliable; fourthly, it changes the culture of the organization, making it more oriented towards the external environment.

The methodology for comparing the effectiveness of business activities (benchmarking) includes six stages.

1. Identification of key areas of economic activity. Key areas are those areas of the company's activities, transformations in which can significantly improve the efficiency of the organization as a whole. The main goal of this stage is to identify these areas and rank them in order of importance according to the following criteria:
- areas that are the main sources of costs;
- types of activities on which success in competition depends;
- areas of activity that have the greatest potential for improved efficiency;
- resources necessary to carry out changes in this area of activity.

Large companies have many functional divisions. Typically, the performance benchmarking process begins with one or two critical departments and then expands to other, lower priority departments.

2. Selection of indicators (indicators) of economic activity efficiency. These indicators can be divided into two groups: operational and strategic. Operational indicators include variable costs (cost of raw materials, wage costs, level of compensation payments, etc.) and marketing indicators (length of product line, set of product characteristics, quality, level of service, etc.). Strategic indicators are integral indicators of the effectiveness of market activities (financial indicators, market share, sales growth, compliance of the company's strategy with the state of affairs in the industry, etc.).
3. Selection of companies characterized by the greatest efficiency in a particular area. Typically, such companies fall into one of four possible categories:
1) direct competitors;
2) competitors operating in other market segments;
3) potential competitors;
4) companies from other industries.

While direct competitors and their performance are usually well known, competitors in other market segments that are not directly competing can provide new approaches to competitive success. Potential competitors must be given special attention as they may pose a serious threat in the future. Companies from other industries can also be sources of new original solutions to improve the efficiency of any operation. After compiling a list of companies, it is necessary to clearly determine which of them and by what indicators can be used to compare them. To do this you need:

limit the number of companies to three or four;
select companies with different types of activities;
select companies with the best performance;
pay special attention to companies with unique strategies
4. Collect information about companies used in the matching process. Information can be obtained from three main sources:
1. Public sources of information: data published by the securities commission; printed publications of the companies themselves; product catalogues; job advertisements; advertising, articles in specialized magazines and newspapers, articles in local newspapers; various analytical reports; results of marketing research; publications of trade and industrial associations and associations; thematic works of industry institutes; data published by government agencies; and so on.
2. Information exchange(professional conferences and meetings, direct exchange of information with a company from another industry, informal communication, etc.).
3. Interview - survey of customers, suppliers, distributors, industry experts and other persons in any way associated with the companies being studied.

In general, there are a sufficient number of sources to obtain the necessary information. The main task is to select these sources and assess the reliability of the information received.

5. Collecting information about the company itself. The greatest difficulty is not the collection of information, but the forms of its presentation. Typically, the forms of presentation of data from external and internal sources are very different (different forms of accounting statements, different descriptions of organizational structures, etc.).
6. Development of an action program. Actions should be aimed at achieving the level of sustainability and efficiency of competitors. Essentially, in the case of ACU, we are talking about the inclusion in anti-crisis plans of actions induced by research using benchmarking methods.

The time required to conduct an analysis of an organization's weaknesses may vary and depends on specific circumstances - the number of interviews conducted, the duration of each, the methodology used to obtain information, the number of people required to conduct interviews and process the results. The duration of the analysis also depends on the size and profile of the organization. A complete analysis of an organization's weaknesses may require from several days to several months.

It is advisable to collect information and analyze the organization’s weaknesses in the following sequence.

1. Determine exactly what information needs to be obtained from stakeholders. To do this, it is advisable to make a list of questions of interest and those people with whom you need to contact. As already indicated, this list will include employees, customers, suppliers, financial and industry analysts, and individual journalists covering the company's activities.
2. Find out which way to get the help you need will be most cost-effective. You should decide how best to obtain the information needed to make a decision about help: through personal meetings, telephone surveys, focus groups, consultations with a group of advisers, or mailed questionnaires. For example, it makes more sense to meet with the CEO of one of the client companies than to ask him to fill out a questionnaire or take part in a focus group. However, to save time, where appropriate, a selected group of clients can be contacted by telephone.
3. Determine who should collect information. To do this, you need to decide who is most suitable for establishing contacts with the people from whom you need to obtain certain information. For example, the CEO of the client company should be contacted by the CEO of the company developing the AMC program. Communication with other clients should be handled by a senior manager of the company or a specialized company that has the ability to conduct many interviews in a short time. If you decide to survey employees, you can send out questionnaires with a note attached to them, signed by the general director or HR director. The degree of cooperation and benefit that can be expected depends directly on whether the person responsible for communicating with individual stakeholders is selected correctly.
4. Determine how many people need to be interviewed. Once it is clear exactly what information needs to be obtained, who needs to be contacted, and who should be directly involved in collecting it, it is important to determine how many people need to be interviewed. If, for example, the organization's clientele consists of only six key employees, you can interview everyone. But what to do if the organization has three thousand clients, moreover, dispersed throughout Russia? The answer to this question depends on how many groups they can be divided into (the division criteria may be position, profession, salary, the nature of the work performed, membership in professional associations, etc.) and how high the level of representativeness of those representatives of the group who are decided interview. In most cases, for a group of 3 thousand people, the sample should consist of 150-300 people, depending on what kind of group it is and how you plan to use the information received.
5. Determine the completion time of the analysis. The approach to conducting an analysis of a company’s weaknesses will depend on the time frame within which it is planned to be completed. If you can only spend a week on this, you will likely need to take advantage of telephone surveys, email surveys, or short meetings. If you can wait a few weeks, it may be advisable to conduct a series of focus groups, several face-to-face meetings, and a telephone survey of several dozen or hundreds of customers.
6. Calculate the amount of necessary costs. The amount of costs is determined by the list of planned activities. The amount of funds available or allocated for anti-crisis research will determine how many questionnaires and focus groups can be conducted, whether it will be possible to attract a P7 agency, etc. How much funds does the company have to conduct a high-quality and professional analysis of its weaknesses? If the answer is “zero,” then it is clear that it will not be possible to conduct a telephone survey of several hundred customers. An alternative path is to determine the best way to carry out the anti-crisis project, identify all possible costs and try to obtain the necessary funds.
7. Decide whether to conduct the research yourself or contact a consulting agency. Using the services of a specialized outside firm can save time, resources and improve the quality of the analysis performed. In addition, people within an organization often behave more openly when communicating with outside consultants.

When collecting information, it is necessary to vary the methods of obtaining it depending on the specifics of stakeholder groups. In table Table 3.2 provides a list of stakeholders and typical ways to obtain information from each of these groups.

Table 3.2. Obtaining information from stakeholders

Stakeholders	Ways to obtain information
Top management team	Conversations with everyone face to face
Managers of regions, divisions and departments	Personal interviews, telephone surveys, focus groups
Staff members	Questionnaire in writing
Distributors and sales agents	Telephone surveys
Key clients	Conversations with everyone face to face
Representatives of the media covering the company's activities	Telephone surveys
Selected suppliers	Telephone surveys or questionnaires sent by mail
Private investors	Questionnaire attached to your annual report
Institutional investors and stock market analysts	Personal conversations by phone or personal meetings

As a basis for developing a questionnaire, you can use S. Albrecht’s methodology, which asks questions to the organization’s personnel, clients, media representatives, suppliers and distributors, and other stakeholders.

Staff:

What are you directly responsible for?
Who do you report directly to?
What does your company do especially well?
What could you do better again?
Would you say that your job is tightly controlled by your boss, or that your department (position) is relatively autonomous?
When you or your colleagues in the department raise concerns, are they often addressed immediately, or does it take some time (if so, how long) to resolve them?
Has anything happened in your department that could be considered a serious problem or crisis? If so, what exactly?
If a problem or crisis were to occur in your department, what would be the first thing it would affect?
What signs might indicate a possible problem or crisis?
Have such dangerous symptoms appeared in the past? If yes, how were they resolved?
Are there problems that you mentioned that have not yet been resolved?
Will your department handle a crisis well if it happens?
What other problems and crises might occur in the company outside of your department?
Are there problems or crises that would not surprise you?
How well can a company manage a crisis if it occurs?

Clients:

How do you assess the relationship between our companies?
Do we meet your expectations?
How do you evaluate the professionalism of our employees and the quality of our products?
Are there services that you would like to receive additionally from us?
Have you experienced any problems with our company, have they been resolved to your satisfaction?
What could we do even better for you?
If you had the opportunity to say something to the CEO, what would you say?
What else would you offer our company?

Media and journalists:

How long have you been following our company?
How well do you understand the processes taking place in our company and industry?
How well do you know your company?
What strengths do you think our company has?
What is the greatest vulnerability or weakness of our business?
If our company was going through a major problem or crisis, what parts of the organization do you think would be affected?
How well would we manage a crisis if it occurred? Why?
How could our company support you in your quest to write about our company?

Suppliers and distributors (sellers):

How long have you been working with our company?
How well do you know our company?
What do you like most about our organization?
What do you like least about our organization?
Have you ever made offers to our company other than directly selling your product or service?
In your opinion, what is the likelihood of a crisis occurring in our organization? If our company were going through a crisis, which parts of the organization do you think would be affected?
If there was a crisis in our organization, how well do you think we would handle it? Why?
What other companies do you know, in our industry or outside of it, that would have handled the crisis particularly effectively? Why?
What other suggestions could you make to our company?

So, as a result of the study, management has a list of the organization’s weaknesses. Next, you can use the methodology proposed by a famous American consultant in the field of crisis management, head of a consulting company Caponigro Public Relations Inc. J. Caponigro, which involves ranking the weaknesses of an organization in accordance with their importance or urgency of elimination, i.e. planning the priority of eliminating the threats of potential crises.

He suggests making two separate lists, dividing each into three categories, which can be designated red, yellow, green. The first list includes weaknesses (and their corresponding possible crises), ranked in terms of likelihood of occurrence (from high to low). In the second list, weaknesses (and, accordingly, potential crises) are ranked in terms of the significance of the damage to the organization that they can cause (if they occur, they will cause the greatest harm to the business, i.e. they will destroy the reputation, authority, image of the company, or there will be a crisis manageable, and the damage is minimal). All weaknesses (potential crises) should then be listed in order of importance. As a result, we will receive structured lists as follows (Table 3.3).

Table 3.3. Probability of a crisis

And, accordingly, this is what the distribution lists of weaknesses (crises) may look like in order of the degree of their harm to business (Table 3.4).

Table 3.4. Degree of harm to the organization

Once the lists have been compiled, the next step is to analyze both lists to come up with the third and final list. This combined list is a guide to action on AMC. In it, weaknesses (potential crises) are considered both from the point of view of the likelihood of their occurrence, and from the point of view of the greatest harm to the business.

You can start this list with any weakness (potential crisis) that is in the red zone in both lists, and then combine the weaknesses from the red zone with those in the yellow zone. Then you should combine the records from both yellow zones, and then the yellow zone with the green zone. Finally, both green zone lists should be combined.

There is now a ranking of the importance of business weaknesses, based on serious research and surveys. Based on this list, you can anticipate, prevent, and plan for potential problems. And since, as a rule, managers do not have time to plan actions for all cases, it becomes possible to choose those on which to concentrate.

According to the logic outlined above, the following template is constructed (Table 3.5).

Table 3.5. Highest priority crises (most likely and most damaging)

Using this technique is not difficult, but working with it confidently requires numerous skills in collecting and processing information. Errors in processing create the risk of obtaining incorrect and even directly harmful results for the business. In most cases, it is most effective to engage a third party (an external consultant) to manage the process. This is due to the fact that the company’s personnel are directly involved in organizational processes, so it is difficult to hope for the objectivity of their assessments of the situation, especially related to weaknesses in the organization. During the assessment, clannishness, “patriotism” and commitment to the interests of “one’s” unit will inevitably appear, which will inevitably affect the reliability and accuracy of the results. The benefits of research by external consultants are that they can provide the objectivity that is important when providing information to top managers, and that people are more likely to be candid with outsiders who ask the right questions and appear interested in the state of the organization.

An obstacle to conducting formal crisis analysis is its relative cost. However, even if the manager does not have the desire and ability to spend significant resources on its implementation, you can use the basic ideas, i.e. take a pen, a piece of paper and create a list of weaknesses (potential crises) based on your own knowledge of organizational processes and personal management experience. The result will represent the vision of only this particular leader, i.e. will be subjective, however, this is better than nothing at all.

Another option is to gather a small group of employees, call a few clients, or send a questionnaire to several suppliers. And even such a small and not entirely reliable result is better than the absence of any data at all. Such work, which does not require any noticeable expenditure of resources, will help to compile a list of the company’s weaknesses that should be addressed first. Unfortunately, this list will not reflect the whole picture, and there is no reason to be confident that the information is 100% reliable.

How often should a company conduct a weakness study? In an ideal situation - continuously. But this is only possible if the organization is large and has the ability to maintain a special group of analysts and designers for ACM. For organizations that do not have a dedicated crisis response team, it is too risky to conduct a weakness analysis less than once a year. The analysis can be included in the annual business plan and budget process. However, if the company operates in an unstable and complex environment, it needs to be carried out more often. In any case, you need to follow the crisis management philosophy, which advocates constant monitoring of dangerous symptoms and developing solutions to potential problems.

To be successful, every company needs a formal process to ensure its weaknesses can be continually identified and analyzed. These aspects, as already said, are dangerous symptoms that can turn into a crisis if they go unnoticed. The first step in preventing a crisis is identifying them and making decisions to prevent a crisis.