APA (edition "APA 6") Business and Management

Crisis Management Memo

The assignment

1. Each person is to write an internal memo ( as a business writing assignment) from the perspective of a corporate official whose corporation is facing a crisis. An internal memo is not meant for public consumption but rather as a means for employees to discuss issues affecting the company.

2. When a company is facing a crisis, the usual response is to form a crisis management team, usually but not necessarily consisting of senior officials at the C-suite level (e.g., CEO, COO, CFO, CRO, CMO, GC) to resolve. Essentially, whether in groups or individually, the task is to 1. identify a company in crisis, 2. select a role, 3. identify the recipient of the your memo, and 4.write a memo from the perspective of the role each of you have chosen. Such memos usually include the context of the memo (why it is being written), a problem or issue that needs to be addressed, 3. recommended action, 4. predicted outcome if the action is either taken or not taken.

3. For convenience, most you are organized into groups (of varying sizes) Due to rescheduling and reshuffling of three teams in Section 01 due to technology failures during the group discussion, some are even working independently. That is fine as the task is the same (see 1). The members of a group do not have to agree on a particular course of action. Often corporate officials are often bitterly divided as to what action to take. Your memos may reflect such disagreement. If you do, you can argue why your course of action is preferable to other solutions.

Links to internal memos (that were leaked to outsiders)
The following are links to actual memos so that you can see the style, tone and organization of memos

https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/09/Business-Europe-strategy-memo.pdf 

https://www.axios.com/exclusive-navarro-deaths-coronavirus-memos-january-da3f08fb-dce1-4f69-89b5-ea048f8382a9.html (see images of actual memos)