HOW TO HAVE A CRISIS
Reap the benefits of adrenaline without the agita.
Lay out the stakes.
The crisis must be real, or at least mostly so. If it’s positioned as an exercise or something that doesn’t feel true (“An asteroid is coming!”), people won’t commit. Use an actual event—a big meeting, signals from a competitor—and tweak the timetable to boost the team’s adrenaline.
Give people control.
Fend off fear and unconstructive behavior by clearly defining the goals, the tools that the team has at its disposal, and the endpoint. Give people something to do, even if it’s small, so that they feel they’re part of the collective effort. “People are scared of starving,” says McBride, “but not of fasting.” That’s because fasting is in their control.
Limit the scope.
Your crisis should not be armageddon; if people fear for their jobs, they’ll be distracted, they’ll gossip. “You want to put a small amount of tension in the right area of the business at the right time while holding everything else calm,” McBride says.
Limit the time.
Don’t underestimate how exhausting creativity and panic can be. One of the key ingredients built in to high-intensity interval training is rest.
Communicate early and often.
In a real crisis, people get twitchy when there’s a lack of information. In a controlled crisis, you can anchor people’s minds by having your comms plan ready ahead of time. Telling people what you know and what you don’t know will keep them focused.
Encourage the new.
Create space for new voices and processes. You want to bring different people into the room and give them the confidence to speak up; likewise, let folks experiment with hacking the system.
But don’t overvalue creativity.
An ongoing idea-jam will take you only so far. “Somebody in the room needs to be good at coalescing a decision and figuring out how to operationalize the thing quickly,” says McBride.
Debrief the team.
It’s important for everyone to understand what they went through and to talk about it together. Focus on the behaviors you want to stop and those you should encourage, which can help frame your conversation and crystallize the lessons.