Many clients have expressed this thought over the years: ‘Leandro, we are so good at crisis!’ And indeed they were! This is the anatomy of a crisis. A crisis provides a micro-cosmos of all possible dynamics of power and energy inside the organization. People jump in and help (the true meaning of ‘taking accountability’). Groups that may not talk to each other that well, rapidly join forces. Communications that may have been weak, now become fluid. Individualistic people are suddenly ‘all hands on deck’. Priorities are clear, objectives well defined, time constrains evaporate, you name it. I could continue with another list of things that seem to emerge from nowhere and make cross-collaboration, accountability and alignment the essence of the organizational life.
I use ‘the crisis’ as an experimental condition for the organization to learn about leadership, about its own real SWOTs, and to uncover, both, possibilities and people dynamics that may have been hidden. It needs to be done soon after the crisis, before the organization’s ‘regression to normal’!
The trick is to move from ‘proficiency in crisis’ to excellence (or whatever you want to call it) outside the crisis.
I have been tempted to fabricate one for clients more than once, for obvious reasons…
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