“I am both impatient and disgusted.” So declares a letter on race sent on June 1st by Mary Barra, chief executive of General Motors (gm), to all of its suppliers. She is outraged by the killing of George Floyd, the latest in a long string of deaths of unarmed black Americans at the hands of the police. The response of business to the problem should be to “stop asking why and start asking what”, she wrote. Ms Barra put gm’s thousands of suppliers on notice that the firm will not tolerate racism and will stand up against injustice.

Covers the general topic of crisis management as it applies across industries and sectors in all types of organizations.