Chapter Twelve. Best Practices in Leading under Crisis: Bottom-Up Leadership, or How to Be a Crisis Champion[*]
Ian I. Mitroff
Not a day goes by without the occurrence of a new crisis or the painful unfolding and continuation of one that has already occurred. It is literally Crisis du Jour! The September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the Enron/Andersen debacle, the Catholic Church scandals, Martha Stewart’s indictment, NASA’s Challenger travails, the London transit bombings are not only prominent examples of major crises, but they demonstrate clearly that crises have become an integral part of the landscape. Their names are so well known that they have become synonymous with crises themselves. Clearly something fundamental has changed about the world. Crises are now the norm, not the rare exception. The sooner and the quicker that we learn the leadership lessons that crises have to teach us, then the sooner and the better we will be able to cope.
Crises test a person’s and an organization’s character like nothing else. Crises bring out the best and the worst in all of us. They raise us up. They bring us down. They inspire us to perform great acts of bravery and heroism—far beyond anything we would have thought possible. And then, in the very next moment, they bring us to our knees. Nothing focuses the mind so much as a crisis. Nothing more wounds the soul. They are an ultimate test of leadership capability.
Everyone who has ever lived through a major crisis has wished that he or she had had more, not less, training and preparation. If one has mastered the lessons that leading successfully in a crisis has to teach, then one can not only survive a major crisis but emerge even stronger and more effective than before. The lessons are for everyone who wishes to live a fuller and more meaningful life.
The following (actual) case illustrates painfully what happens when an individual in a leadership role has not had the proper preparation and training for crises, and as a result, has not learned the critical lessons for crisis leadership.
Long before she got to the door of her office, Mary Douglas, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Rural Books, could hear that her phone was ringing off the hook. It had a nasty sound. As soon as Mary opened the door to her office, she saw that her answering machine was blinking furiously. She had already missed sixteen calls, and it wasn’t even 6:30 AM. It was not a good omen. It was, in fact, the beginning of a long nightmare.
Headquartered in Montana, Mary had established Rural Books about 10 years earlier. RB, as its loyal fans called it, produced a highly successful line of field books for identifying, preparing, and cooking wild fruit, nuts, berries, and so on. The books were extremely popular with rural and city folks alike.
On any weekend, hundreds, if not thousands, of people could be seen walking in the woods with their trusted RBs at their sides. The books were not only lightweight, but extremely easy to carry. In fact, they were organized around simple pullout guides. The guides were extremely popular because they not only showed which things were edible and tasty, but where they could be found as well. One of Mary’s earliest and most clever ideas was a simple cord that readers could hang around their necks and from which they could suspend the guides.
RBs were especially known for their clear and simple pictures of the wild foods that were safe to eat versus those that were unsafe. The safe foods were clearly labeled and located on one page while those that were unsafe were located on a completely separate page. The pages even had different colors, green for safe and red for dangerous or unsafe. In this way, RBs helped to ensure that there would not be confusion as to what was dangerous and not. In the 10 years of the books’ existence, no one had ever suffered any illness whatsoever from following its recommendations.
Mary picked up the phone. Robert Turnbull, senior executive vice president and the head of RB’s east coast division, was on the line. He was half shouting and mumbling at the same time. There were unmistakable signs of both stress and panic in his voice. Typically calm and easygoing, it was a significant departure from his usual behavior. Mary had, in fact, never heard him sound more distressed in the 5 years that they had worked together.
“Mary, have you seen CNN this morning? They are running a story linking us to the deaths of a family of four. The parents were in their early thirties; the kids were just two and three.
“CNN is also reporting that we are responsible for the serious illness of scores of others. At this time, no one knows the full extent of the injuries. It could be in the hundreds.
“All I can tell you is that CNN is saying that people became seriously ill after eating poisonous berries. CNN is claiming that we mislabeled some of the pages in our books.
“They are also saying something that makes no sense at all. They are claiming that it’s a case of product tampering. Hell, we don’t make food or pharmaceutical products. What is there to tamper with?
“That is all I can tell you at this time. I don’t know anything more myself. I have our production and security people checking into it, but what do we say and do in the meantime? I’m getting calls from CNN, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, our investment brokers, everyone. It’s complete pandemonium here. They are asking tough questions that I don’t have the answers to like, ‘Was it a terrorist group, a group of disgruntled employees? Can you in fact rule out any of these possibilities at this time? Was it an intentional act of sabotage? Are the reports of labor troubles at RB true?’ What do we say and do? I need help fast!”
Mary’s mind was reeling. All she could do was mumble, “I’ll get back to you ASAP.”
RB was prepared for fires and explosions that could burn down its offices and its production facilities, but not for anything like this. The possibility of product tampering, let alone terrorism and disgruntled employees, had never crossed Mary’s mind. And yet, she recalled that radical environmental groups had recently been making claims that RB was endangering the environment because of all the people that were trampling—or as they put it, “loving to death”—pristine areas. A few had even sent threatening letters to RB, but she had quickly dismissed them as cranks. She also recollected that local militia groups were making threats as well because too many people were wandering too close to their compounds.
“Oh my God,” Mary exclaimed, “what am I going to do? I don’t have the foggiest clue where to begin.”
Mary’s case is unfortunately not only typical but representative of the vast majority of organizations. At best, many organizations are prepared for a few isolated crises such as fires and natural disasters. A few are even prepared for direct threats to their core businesses, for instance, food contamination and product tampering. However, the companies that are prepared for these are mainly in the food and pharmaceutical industries. In these industries, the links between their products and product tampering are direct and obvious.
Because Mary and her top team had never received the proper training in crisis leadership, they were unable to think outside the box of their expectations. As a result, they were unable to imagine and to anticipate the particular type of product tampering that was directly applicable to their business. For instance, were the labels of the foods that were safe to eat versus those that were unsafe intentionally or accidentally reversed when the pages were typeset? Either case, either intentionally or accidentally reversing the labels of the pages, is a form of product tampering that applies directly to the book business. Altering key information in a product when this information is crucial to the safety and the well-being of people is a major form of product tampering. Product tampering is not confined to the alteration of food or pharmaceuticals.
In addition, if Mary and her top team had also received proper training, then they would have prepared for the strong and often overwhelming emotions that are a fundamental part of every major crisis. September 11, Enron/Andersen, the Catholic Church, Martha Stewart, NASA, and a seemingly endless series of crises in recent years demonstrate clearly that crises exact a severe emotional toll on those who experience or are part of them. Without a strong leadership response, the damage to the organization can be irreparable.
The costs of crises are not only severe in terms of dollars, but also in terms of emotional distress. Those who have been through major crises often use the same words to describe their experiences that soldiers who have been in battle and have suffered severe trauma use to describe what they have gone through.
If Mary and her team had learned the lessons that successful crisis leaders have to teach, then they would have been able to respond faster and more effectively and thereby have lowered substantially both the economic and the emotional costs of the crisis they were facing. Notice carefully that this does not mean that RB would never experience a major crisis at all. In today’s world, there are no such guarantees. On the contrary, every organization is virtually guaranteed to experience at least one major crisis in its history. It merely means that Mary and her top team would have recovered sooner and with far fewer costs.
Every crisis, no matter how different it is on its immediate surface, violates a common set of assumptions that we have been making about the world, others, and ourselves. When these assumptions are shown to be false, our basic social contract with the world is torn apart and ripped out from under us. The end result is a deep existential crisis that is experienced as a fundamental loss of meaning and purpose. We feel betrayed to our very core.
If there is a major theme that underlies this chapter, it is the central role that assumptions play in the construction and the management of reality. Assumptions are the bedrock upon which we both construct and manage our world. If our fundamental assumptions are wrong, then everything that is built on them is also wrong. This is why it is so important to surface, to analyze, and to debate our assumptions, especially the more critical that they are. This is one of the most important tasks of crisis leadership.
Deep feelings of betrayal are a significant part of every major crisis that I have studied or with which I have consulted. The reason is that the collapse or the invalidation of assumptions is experienced as betrayal. Since one of the worst consequences of betrayal is the felt loss of meaning in our lives, a renewed sense of purpose—in its broadest terms, spirituality—becomes essential in restoring our belief, confidence, and faith in the goodness of the world. For this reason, spirituality is an integral component of crisis leadership as well.
One thing is clear. Crises big and small increasingly define who and what we are. Major acts of betrayal and major crises are the common threads that tie us together. It is the Age of Crises and Betrayal.
April 19, 1995, began like any other typical morning. As usual, Sarah Conway (not her real name) left her house at 7:15 AM. At 7:30 AM, she deposited her two children, ages three and five, at the day care center on the second floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal office building in Oklahoma City, where Sarah worked on the fifth floor.
It was a perfect arrangement. Sarah could pop in and check on her children whenever she wanted. And the children were constantly comforted and reassured by the fact that their mother was always nearby and available.
At precisely 9:03 AM, Sarah and her two children were killed almost instantly as the result of a horrendous explosion. One hundred and sixty-eight innocent men, women, and children (19 of the 168 were children) were murdered when a car bomb planted by Timothy McVeigh, an American terrorist, literally tore the Alfred P. Murrah Federal office building apart. The lives of the surviving families, relatives, and friends were forever shattered as well.
By now, these facts are of course well known. However, in the long run, one of the least emphasized aspects of the bombing I believe will prove in time to be just as important as the physical havoc and destruction. This is the fact—one that I cannot emphasize too much—that the bombing demolished some of our most basic assumptions about the safety and the security of our nation. As a result, the general mood of the citizens of Oklahoma and the American public as a whole was altered dramatically. Our lives were changed forever.
What I illustrate in the following are the assumptions nested within assumptions—like the Russian dolls with dolls within—that crisis fundamentally tests and overturns. These assumptions are rarely challenged before the crisis. In hindsight, leaders and their organizations should have challenged these beforehand.
Prior to the bombing, three major assumptions were taken for granted. They were regarded as “basic truths.” Just to raise them to the surface for discussion and debate would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. And yet, in a few short seconds, they were completely obliterated.
The first major assumption made by those traumatized by the Oklahoma City bombing was that by virtue of the city’s location, deep inside the heartland of America, terrorism would not happen there. Many people believed that terrorism could only occur in certain dangerous locations such as Europe and the Middle East. Oklahoma City is protected from the “outside world.” The rest of the world may be dangerous, but Oklahoma is not.
Many people also made the assumption that an American would not kill other Americans. An American would not commit an act of terrorism against other Americans. Terrorists may be “home grown” in other cultures, but not in ours.
Finally, the third major assumption that was shattered by the events in Oklahoma City was that taking the lives of innocent men and women, and especially that of young children, is unthinkable. What “crime” could these innocents have possibly committed to justify such a heinous act?
Every major crisis exposes and invalidates similar assumptions. The end result is invariably the same: the overwhelming feeling that we have been fundamentally misled, in effect, betrayed by our own convictions. Suddenly and without warning, the world and our lives no longer make sense. Little wonder then why, in the case of Oklahoma City, President Clinton and the Reverend Billy Graham had no choice but to come to the site of the bombing to preside over a day of “spiritual healing” for the entire nation. When something so senseless and unprecedented happens on so large a scale, unusual steps must be taken to restore our sense of well-being. This is one of the primary roles of leaders in the aftermath of a crisis.
Behind these three assumptions that were shattered by the Oklahoma City bombing are more generic ones that were also shattered:
The world is basically safe and secure; certainly America is safe and protected from attack.
Americans are just and ethical; they can be trusted not to kill other Americans.
Americans share a common set of values such that the killing of innocent people is literally unthinkable; in other words, when it comes to basic values, all Americans are essentially alike.
Most people are of course neither fully aware nor conscious of these underlying assumptions. They certainly do not voice them directly or in the same words that I have used. Nonetheless, from the interviews that I have conducted over the years, it is clear that people “feel them deeply in their bones.” They feel a deep sense of betrayal when the assumptions, the basic premises that they have depended upon to function and to make sense of the world, no longer work.
When the tragedy of 9/11 occurred in New York, new as well as similar sets of assumptions were invalidated. As a result, the existential crisis penetrated even deeper into the American psyche. In turn, 9/11 was exacerbated further by the scandals that rocked American corporations and the Catholic Church. Indeed, all of these crises exposed the full and deeper set of basic assumptions that we were making about the world.
We assume that the world (one’s person, organizations, basic institutions, society) is safe, secure, stable, and predictable. The way things are today is what they will be tomorrow. Continuity prevails. We want to believe that what is true today will necessarily be true tomorrow. Crises are rare aberrations, and they are the not the normal state of affairs. After a crisis event, we assume that the world will return to what it was before. Things can be fixed, mended, and repaired. We rely on the basic human cognition of hope through our beliefs in the continuity, safety, and stability of the world.
We also assume that the world is good and just. The unjust will receive appropriate and swift punishment, and the guilty will not go free and unpunished. This belief that the world is a just one buffers us from the anxiety we would experience from a lack of control when terrible events such as terrorism occur. We don’t want to believe that life is not fair, because then it does not matter what we do or how good of a person we are, something bad could happen to us. So, instead, we rely on the assumption of a just world.
Even if a crisis does occur, we believe that it (the damage in general) is limited in scope and magnitude. Crises are confined to certain persons, organizations, and so on. In other words, crises will not cut across all levels of society. We believe that not only are there clear boundaries, but also that these boundaries will be respected and maintained. In contrast, 9/11 clearly violated this assumption through its impact on the entire airline industry and the tourist industry, in particular.
We are also hampered by the assumption that people are inherently good. We believe people can be trusted to keep their word, promises, and so on. Most people do not have a defective character. This assumption allows us to view evil as limited. A particularly important variant of this principle is the notion that the world can be divided into us and them, the “good guys” and the “bad guys.” We assume that there is a clear differentiation between us and the Axes of Evil.
Americans assume that because “I am good, competent, and loyal, I am blameless and undeserving of what happened to me.” We think that we can trust our instincts not to betray us. We make the assumption that the crisis was unintentional and not deliberate. It was accidental and unplanned. We force ourselves to assume that the perpetrators feel guilt and remorse for their acts, and therefore, the perpetrators deserve to be forgiven. We believe they are worthy of forgiveness.
Finally, one assumes that there were no serious advance warnings that I, my organization, my society was about to experience a major crisis. In other words, there was no way that I could have known about the crisis in advance.
No wonder major crises are so traumatic. One’s entire belief system—one’s entire set of assumptions—is completely destroyed.
Sadly, virtually all crises follow the same pattern. For instance, the crisis in the Catholic Church invalidated a set of assumptions uncomfortably close to those that were involved in Oklahoma City. This is the special sense in which all crises—however much they differ on their surface—are essentially the same. And this is the point for going back and reexamining Oklahoma City, plus many of the other crises that have happened subsequently. Unless we learn from past crises—history in general—then we are doomed to experience them over and over again. If every crisis invalidates the same kinds of assumptions over and over again, then if we can speed up the recognition of these assumptions, it will be possible to recover better, sooner, and faster from the growing number of crises that beset and overwhelm us on a daily basis. This is one of the most essential roles that leaders can play for their organizations.
Seven major lessons emerge from those leaders and their companies that have successfully managed, and survived, major crises. Mastering these lessons allows everyone to become a “crisis leader” in his or her organization, and more important, in his or her life. They are precisely the lessons that crisis leaders have mastered.
Emotional preparation for crises is the most difficult and the most important preparation of all. As the leaders of organizations, you must get beyond your own denial. You must confront it straight on by accepting the fact that the worst not only can, but will, happen to you and to your family, organization, society. Do not waste your time and energy asking why it happened to me and to us. Crises are unfortunately equal opportunity events. They happen to everyone. You can and will survive—even prosper—but if and only if you are prepared emotionally, physically, intellectually, and spiritually.
To prepare for crises, hire grief counselors before they occur to work through the powerful emotions associated with all crises. Get the grieving over so that you can get back to living sooner and more fully. Accept the painful fact that the abnormal (that is, intentionally evil acts such as 9/11) has become the new normal state of affairs. You must also accept the fact that in today’s unrelenting 24/7/365 media-saturated world, there are no secrets any more. The media can find out anything they want to about anyone, any corporation, and so on. Secret documents and private conversations are exposed regularly on the 6:00 PM news and the front pages of major newspapers. Therefore, you must abide by the principle, “If you deny and lie, then you will be tried in the court of public opinion; you will be hung out to dry.”
Crises do not give a damn for the ways in which we have organized the world. Respect no organizational chart by asking impertinent questions regardless of your position in the organization. It’s up to you to raise thorny and troublesome issues.
Every type of crisis can happen to every organization. For instance, you don’t have to be in the food or drug business to experience product tampering. Every business is subject to a form of tampering that is particular to it—only the form varies, not the fundamental threat itself.
Crises cut across all corporate departments, functions, and silos at will. They do not respect human and natural boundaries. Therefore, “out of the box” and “beyond the silos” thinking is an absolute necessity. Rely on big picture thinking by challenging yourself to think the unthinkable and expect the unexpected.
Get beyond harmful “black and white” and “us versus them” dichotomies. Give up the notion of “good” versus “bad” guys. Abandon the myths and the fantasies of perfect and complete control and knowledge. We never had them anyway. Teach yourself to accept and embrace uncertainty. Everything is connected and interconnected in weird and wonderful ways. Expect to be constantly shocked and surprised. Embrace wonder and surprise.
You can effectively prepare for and deal with crises through a combination of advancing and retreating. Go slow steadily. Gently confront by not confronting. Accept and respect people’s fears and anxieties, but do not become enmeshed in them. The fact that you are beyond denial does not mean that everyone else in the organization is. Do not become paralyzed by your fears and those of others. Instead, give people time and space to vent and to work through their fears and anxieties. Never dismiss them. This only makes them worse.
Effective crisis preparation requires you to imagine the worst that can happen by thinking like a controlled paranoid. You must scrutinize your organization from the vantage point of a terrorist, but don’t become one. One strategy to help you understand the criminal mind is to hire ex-cons and reformed terrorists. Probe constantly for “ticking time bombs” throughout your entire organization. Bring people together to share ticking time bombs and conduct exercises in which people are rewarded to think like “internal assassins.” You know more about your organization than any outsider ever could, so you should use your insider’s knowledge responsibly to protect your organization against those who want to bring it down. Finally, heed Nietzsche’s famous warning: “Take care that when you do battle with monsters that you do not become a monster.”
Today’s current organizations are the problem. They are not the solution. Crises create the demand for new organizations and new corporate functions. One approach is to appoint a chief crisis officer. No organization can afford not to spend at least 2 percent of its after-tax profits on crisis leadership. Design and implement a world-class crisis command center (CCC). One of the key functions of the CCC is to integrate information from around the globe with regard to potential crises. Another key function is to pick up the early warning signals that accompany and precede all crises. Crisis leadership is one of the new key competitive advantages of all organizations. Crisis leadership cannot be done on a part-time or piecemeal basis. Being constantly aware, vigilant, and prepared are full-time jobs.
Crises exact an enormous toll on the psyche, soul, and spirit of individuals and organizations. Therefore, cultivate and practice spirituality in your organization and in your personal life. The best organizations develop an ethical and spiritual culture. Above all others, this is the one thing that gets them through crises. They emerge even stronger and better than before. On every dimension—financial and otherwise—ethically based and spiritually attuned organizations substantially outperform those organizations that do not value ethics and do not practice spirituality at work. In spite of this, ethically based and spiritually attuned organizations do good and are good for their own sake, not for profits. If you do good for its own sake, then profits will follow. A spiritual approach to leadership is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Crises are commonplace in today’s turbulent environment. Examples abound from the terrorist attacks on September 11 to the many corporate scandals such as Enron/Andersen and natural disasters such as the tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. I have no doubt that by the time this chapter is printed another organization will be suffering a public and damaging crisis. Senior leaders of organizations must expect to experience at least one major crisis during their tenure at the top.
Due to a lack of foresight and rigorous preparation, many leaders and their organizations fall victims to crises. Rural Books was clearly not prepared for the product-tampering crisis that occurred, and as a result they faltered in their response. Even when you know a crisis is looming and the potential devastation has been demonstrated through computer modeling or other analyses, such as in the scenario planning that occurred before Hurricane Katrina, organizational leaders without a solid response plan will fail. The end result will be both financial and emotional suffering and possibly the demise of the organization. A lack of preparation for crises is essentially a recipe for disaster. Leaders must proactively and rigorously prepare their organizations for a broad range of potential crises.
Some of the greatest barriers to effective preparation are the basic assumptions we hold about our lives and our organizations. While they allow us to manage our reality and give us a sense of control, they also create an illusion of invulnerability. We assume that crises are rare occurrences and that our normal, everyday world is safe, secure, and just. We also mistakenly assume that only bad things happen to bad people and that most people are good and well intended. We make a clear distinction between good and evil—in reality, the lines may be more blurred. We also believe that on the rare chance that a crisis did happen, it would be very limited in scope and not affect many people or many facets of our lives. We assume that crises are random, uncontrollable events and there is no way for us to predict or avoid them. These assumptions make us vulnerable and unprepared for crisis. These are the assumptions that leaders must continually challenge.
When crises do occur, they violate one of these basic assumptions and leave us with feelings of betrayal, lack of control, and confusion. A prime example was the shattered assumptions of safety and security after the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. As a result, many realized how vulnerable life really is. If such a crisis can occur in America’s heartland, it can happen anywhere. In addition to the pain over the loss of loved ones, many people felt betrayed and confused by the upsetting of these basic assumptions that made up their reality and gave them a sense of control. Leaders must quickly and effectively address these feelings of betrayal. They must offer hope and pragmatic optimism as well as empower their organizations to find constructive solutions.
If leaders do not work hard to challenge these misguided assumptions, tragic consequences will occur at some point. Successful crisis leaders must speed up the recognition and awareness of these assumptions across their organization. It is critical therefore to build an organizational culture in which analyzing and questioning assumptions is practiced throughout all levels of the organization. Lower-level or front-line leaders are often the ones who are most attuned to the areas where the organization is vulnerable. So it is critical to engage all levels of leadership to challenge basic assumptions and anticipate a range of possible crises.
Successful crisis leaders expect the worst and prepare for it—physically, intellectually, and spiritually. One approach is to hire grief counselors prior to the crisis to work with employees to overcome their denial so they are emotionally prepared for disaster. You as a leader must embrace the uncertainty and ambiguity that exists in the environment. In working with employees, you must balance their fear with your expression of understanding. Be sensitive to the fact that they will experience fear, confusion, and betrayal as you delicately displace their old assumptions. By recognizing and overcoming these assumptions before a crisis, the successful crisis leader is able to soften the emotional blow when a crisis does occur. This type of careful emotional preparation will lead to a resilient organization.
Finally, to prepare for crises, you should implement the organizational strategies of anticipation and innovation. Crisis leaders anticipate crises by thinking like a terrorist without becoming one. Hire ex-convicts or ex-terrorists to help you understand the criminal mind. For example, casinos will often hire ex-card sharks or ex-cheaters to help them discover where they are most vulnerable. You must be prepared to implement new and innovative organizational systems and structures to prepare for crisis. Create a position for a chief crisis officer who is responsible for crisis preparation. Another option is to establish a crisis command center. With emotional preparation, anticipation, innovation, and a spiritual climate, you can develop a resilient and crisis-prepared organization.
[*] The names of the people and the organizations in this chapter have been intentionally changed in order to conceal and to protect their identities. Nonetheless, all of the cases are based on real situations. However, in order to protect even further the identities of the parties involved, some of the cases are composites.
This chapter is abstracted from Ian I. Mitroff, Why Some Companies Emerge Stronger and Better from a Crisis: Seven Essential Lessons for Avoiding Disaster, New York: AMACOM, 2005.