Facing the economic storm: navigating RIM programs through hard times: business unit managers can help steer their programs through the current economic storm by providing leadership, capitalizing on new opportunities, and planning for the future.

• Author: Dearstyne, Bruce W.
• Position: Records and information management

The United States and many other nations are experiencing the most severe recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Financial institutions are collapsing, companies are downsizing, and the retail industry is reeling.

The current economic crisis may take years to play out. Economic distress and "fear of losing things" were major themes during the Depression, Studs Terkel observed in Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. One person he interviewed, however, recalled that "many of us learned during the Depression how to turn a disadvantage into an advantage."

In the same vein, records and information management (RIM) program managers need to fight program reductions and seek new opportunities in these hard times. Steadfast leadership, skillful advocacy, effective crisis management, maintaining quality while improvising new approaches, and motivating program staff can help managers pilot their programs toward a better future.

RIM programs have some natural advantages in hard times. Many are modestly resourced even in good times, so they may escape the budget-cutters. Legal records retention/disposition requirements continue unabated. Closing down corporate programs introduces a need to preserve and manage their records. A quest for more economical operations may translate into automation initiatives that result in more electronic records in need of management.

Litigation and electronic information discovery are likely to increase. For instance, investor class-action lawsuits are rising quickly, according to Stanford Law School. John Montana, a principal of RIM consulting firm The PelliGroup Inc., has pointed out that the backlash from the financial crisis will lead to new legislation, regulation, and litigation that will present a host of new compliance and discovery challenges. These developments should help direct attention--and, hopefully, resources--to RIM.

But RIM programs also have some countervailing vulnerabilities, including:

* A difficulty or lack of experience in documenting impact, cost avoidance/savings, and return-on-investment

* Budget offices often underestimate resource needs because they don't fully understand the complexity of the RIM function.

* Executives fixate on staff salaries and records center costs and misunderstand RIM as only a "cost center" to be reduced.

* Executives believe that, in a financial pinch, the RIM function can be delegated to other offices such as IT or counsel.

* There is a general belief that employees can "manage" e-records and information at their desktops without guidance from RIM professionals.

In these hard times, here are five strategies RIM professionals can use to navigate through the economic storm:

1. Provide steadfast leadership.

   The RIM program director must provide constant, highly visible, decisive leadership. The management role--getting the work done well--is upstaged by the leadership role--advocating, communicating, inspiring trust, and keeping morale up. A crisis can be an opportunity for the leader to forge or strengthen an emotional bond with the people he or she is leading. To do that, the leader needs to be involved, visible, engaged, and in charge.

   In times of crisis, people look to the leader to set the tone, instill confidence, chase away fears, and inspire action. "In this volatile and uncertain environment, reality is a moving target ...," notes Ram Charan in his book Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The Right Rules for Getting Things Done in Difficult Times. He urges decisive action: "[You need] realism tempered with optimism ... your hands-on participation is essential ... be bold ... make offensive moves, not just defensive ones."

   In their book Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis point out that leaders step forward and take personal responsibility for confronting and handling crises. They size up the situation, understand the underlying "political" issues, instinctively assess the apprehension that their staff may be feeling, and quickly weigh alternatives. Their ability to "frame" the issue--as a setback to be endured, a threat to be sidestepped, or as something that can be turned around to create a new opportunity--is critical.

   Leaders organize for action, even if that action is...