Member-only story
Crisis Management Is The Skill Of The Future
The seven attributes of master crisis killers
For much of 2020 and all of 2021, crises have upended our everyday life: covid, climate change, Afghanistan, forest fires, water shortages, and ransomware attacks, to name a few.
If these events prove anything, it’s that ordinarily competent folks can look like incompetent buffoons when thrown into a crisis. The pressure to get results, the speed at which you have to produce them, and the forces conspiring against you (critics, lack of resources) can overpower anyone unprepared to deal with the tumult.
You can manage an organization, business, or government institution with competence, even excellence, for years, but if you fail to address a single crisis, they’ll remember you for crumbling when it counted most.
I never took a crisis management class in college. No such course existed. I’m not sure it does today, thirty years later.
It’s time we think of crisis management as a recognized discipline, not just for government officials managing health emergencies and water shortages, but for everyday employees in businesses large and small.
You may kick ass in your role, but that doesn’t mean you can perform well when a crisis hits. You need an additional set of skills…
