Why Tech Companies Don't See Their Biggest Problems Coming

Since Mark Zuckerberg's recent congressional testimony about Facebook's unauthorized release of the private data of millions of users, many flaws in the company's business model have come to light. Crises related to member privacy, misuse of data, and loss of public trust in the company have been emerging in an almost uninterrupted stream. That's what can happen when organizations do not make crisis management a central feature of their everyday operations. Tech companies are especially prone to this shortcoming. Five blind spots, in particular, make tech companies likely to face crises they never even remotely anticipated are presented. These are: 1. Too much early success. 2. Overconfidence after weathering small crises. 3. The assumption that management is easier than technical work. 4. Inadequate responses to major crises. 5. Obliviousness to potential abuse. By embedding crisis management into their ongoing development of products and services -- and their organizational processes and systems -- tech companies can anticipate problems more easily.