Panicking is bad. But panicking early is good because that means you won’t panic later. And therein lies the counterintuitive advantage of panicking early – those who panic early never actually panic.
Panic is a “sudden and intense feeling of fear or anxiety that can overwhelm a person’s ability to think and act rationally.” Choosing to panic early makes panicking your choice and therefore, not sudden. And it gives you time to think and act rationally before everyone else goes into full-blown panic.
One homeowner’s association in Florida has a rule that hurricane shutters cannot stay up for more than three days at a time. For winter residents, that means that instead of leaving hurricane shutters up for the months they are living elsewhere, they have to get someone to put their shutters up a day or two ahead of each potential tropical storm. When everyone in the association is forced to do the same, it’s a systematized recipe for panic.
Instead, follow this three-pronged prescription:
- Anticipate issues.
- Think rationally about them in advance.
- At the appropriate time, act rationally in line with your earlier thinking.
Anticipate Issues
If something seems out of whack, anticipate that it might be out of whack. As Andy Grove famously taught us, “Only the paranoid survive.” Notice and appreciate changes in your customers, collaborators, capabilities, culture, competitors, or conditions (6Cs) and apply a healthy dose of paranoia to your assessment of those changes.
Think Rationally
The key question is “What if?” What if that little change in one of the 6Cs is a harbinger of bigger changes to come? What contingency plans should we put in place? Think these through in advance.
Act Rationally
Having thought things through in advance and crafted contingency plans sets you up to implement those contingency plans when needed.
This works perfectly if things happen exactly as you predicted. Which they generally won’t. But that’s OK because having thorough contingency plans sets you up to adapt to changing circumstances and rationally work through surprises as they happen.
It’s helpful to think about this in line with the basics of crisis management laid out in my earlier article on Learnings from Boeing, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble on Crisis Management.
Crisis management is about bridging the gaps between the current state and your desired state with a combination of discipline (structure, doctrine, process) and agility (creativity, improvisation, adaptability) to deal with physical, reputational, and financial threats or issues in that priority order. That article focuses on answering key situational questions, reclarifying objectives and intent, setting priorities, implementing iteratively, and over-communicating at every step.
Even in non-crisis situations, these steps work:
Situational Questions (Keeping in mind the physical, political, and emotional context)
- What do we know, and not know, about what happened and its impact (facts)?
- What are the implications of what we know and don’t know (conclusions)?
- What do we predict may happen (scenarios)?
- What resources and capabilities do we have at our disposal (assets)? Gaps?
- What aspects of the situation can we turn to our advantage?
Objectives and Intent
Then think through and choose the situational objectives and intent – accomplish X in order to Y.
Priorities and Implementation
Clarify the priorities and focus on implementation:
- Recap what has been accomplished and the new situation assessment (What)
- Agree on any changes to objectives, intent, priorities, and phasing of priorities (So what)
- Agree on action plans, milestones, role sort, communication points, plans, and protocols (Now what)
Communication and Decision Rights
Over-communicate at every step of the way to all the main constituencies. Your message and main communication points will evolve as the situation and your information about the situation evolve. This makes the need that much greater for frequent communication updates within the organization, with partner organizations, and with the public. Funneling as much as possible through one spokesperson will reduce misinformation. Do not underestimate the importance of this.
A critical part of implementation is clarifying and re-clarifying who is doing what, and who is making what decisions at what point – especially as changing conditions dictate changes in roles and decision-making authority within and across organizations. Make sure the hand-offs are clean.
After-Action Review
Finally, conduct an after-action review looking at what happened (vs. expectations), your impact (vs. objectives), what worked, and how to do even better the next time in terms of risk mitigation and response so you never, ever panic.
