The working definition of crisis is when external factors — over which your organization has no control — create chaos resulting in a downshift into survival mode. Entering this zone means you’re muscling through change to growth.
“It’s variations on the theme of that reoccurring stress dream where the music stops and the chairs are gone,” says Terry Davis, President and CEO of Our Lady of the Wayside. “Catastrophe strikes and you’re suddenly in survival mode. The particulars can read differently by industry and organization, but there’s an overarching playbook for resiliency during crisis.”
Smart Business spoke with Davis about how to manage through a crisis.
What are the more important strategies when managing through a crisis?
Resiliency is the part of the Venn diagram where your company’s established proactive operational objectives overlap with your reactive leadership response. This is where the noise quiets and you solve for X. This is where your playbook is created. Here’s what that resiliency sweet spot of that Venn diagram looks like:
- Embed mechanisms and strategic planning that assume ongoing change creates a culture that keeps staff mentally and organizationally agile when unexpected paradigm shifts (for better or worse) occur. Define goals and objectives, master efficiencies, and build in flexibility.
- Become a subject matter expert on the external forces that tipped you into survival mode while also accepting that those particular external factors were never in your control to begin with. Accept your role in the process and evaluate the size and scope of what needs to be achieved.
- In survival mode, it’s all tools in the toolbox. Utilize historical institutional knowledge to recognize patterns of change indicators. Leverage the time between when those indicators sound the alarm and when the storm hits. Re-imagine destructive external factors as additional resources. You’re creative. Use how the particular table is set to work in your favor.
- Once there’s an understanding of the situation, lock-in on organizational priorities to make an action plan focusing on variables within your control that maximize every single resource. Anything else is a waste. Retrain staff, update policy and procedure, and continue to strategize.
- Efficient execution means providing employees what they need to get the organization from A to B. Call the plays and let them get to work. The full range of you and your staff’s experience, vision, flexibility and creativity is there to realize the value of smart, and occasionally unconventional, solutions.
- Yes, industry rules must be respected and followed. But giving your organization the benefit of the best possible interpretation of those rules is essential to its success. The trick is not getting in your own way.
- Tough decisions must be made, and certain losses are factored in as a cost of doing business. Short-term discomfort for long-term gain isn’t just part of change, it’s evidence of evolving the organization.
- No one is going to out-work you and your team. Also remember that you’ve been building professional contacts and partnerships all along — look around and locate those friends. Throw in a little swagger and you’re good to go.
What should business leaders keep in mind as they manage through a crisis?
Survival mode amplifies goals and objectives you’ve had in place via long-range and short-term planning, while simultaneously creating and updating strategies forged under duress. The resulting resiliency sweet spot puts you in a position that stays 30,000 feet above the fray to maintain laser-focus on your organization’s vision. It also leads to supporting customers with the least amount of crisis turbulence possible while developing the muscle required for organizational growth and endurance. Catastrophizing was never on the menu. ●
INSIGHTS Thought Leadership is brought to you by Our Lady of the Wayside.
