“Everyone has a plan until they get hit,” is an old boxing adage attributed to Mike Tyson, Joe Louis, and countless others throughout the decades. While many will argue over who said it first, if you’re the one currently getting hit with a crisis…do you really care? Every business and organization has ebbs and flows, tough times and easy times, but are things so bad that you and your team need dedicated crisis management? If any of the following sounds familiar, it's time to take action, because you won’t like what happens otherwise.
Inadequate Leadership / Operational Crisis
It is said that your employer or boss has more impact on your mental health than your spouse. Having the right people in leadership roles is important, and identifying those potential leaders takes practice and skill.
When you promote someone to a leadership role, you are gambling that they will be the best fit for the responsibilities as well as the personalities of their team. The fact is that many leaders, even those with several years of experience, turn out to be inadequate at best and toxic at worst. Identifying and eliminating toxic leaders is key to high morale, productivity, and sustained growth, ensuring one bully on a power trip doesn’t drive away your best people.
Loss of Safety & Workplace Violence
Acts of violence are reported every day in the news. There was a time when your workplace was considered a safe place from outside threats. What about threats from the inside? Stress can cause the most unassuming person to perform acts of violence with little to no warning.
In just a matter of seconds, this can drive away previously happy team members, throw off the group dynamic due to trauma, kickoff endless legal proceedings, and worst of all, lead to a loss of life. Putting the pieces back together requires empathy and definitive action from leaders, and extra care needs to be taken so emotions are processed in a healthy way and not overlooked.
Systemic Financial Crisis
With a financial crisis, not only is an organization insolvent, but everybody knows it, including the public in many cases. Both Rite Aid and 23andMe recently made headlines for all the wrong reasons due to their widely broadcasted bankruptcy filings, revealing to the entire world that their balance sheets were…less than balanced.
However, both of these organizations are still operating, and there’s a pretty good chance their employees read the news. What state of mind do you think they’re in? How many of them are thinking about abandoning a “sinking ship” or have completely lost motivation because the company is going to disappear or lay them off anyway?
But as history has shown time and time again, being deep in the red doesn’t automatically mean you’re done, but it requires taking the right actions to reassure both employees and customers so everyone can be optimistic about the future.
Reputation Crisis
When an organization has lost the trust of their partners and/or customers due to a sudden negative shift in public perception, they’ve found themselves in the middle of a reputation crisis. For leadership, mitigating the immediate problem without making it worse, identifying what caused it, and delivering clear communication both internally and to the public are essential to rebuilding an organization’s standing. Otherwise, one negative episode can adversely shape perception for years to come.
Labor Crisis
Most leaders will tell you that no matter the business or organization, the hardest part is finding, hiring, and retaining the right people. High turnover disrupts continuity, reduces productivity, and increases costs, while hiring challenges slow growth and strain existing teams.
Leaders must adapt by identifying and addressing skill gaps through training and advancement initiatives, ensuring employees feel equipped and valued. Shifting employee expectations, such as demands for flexibility, purpose, and development, must also be met with tangible measures that everyone can clearly see. But of course, when you’re dealing with any group of people, applying changes is easier said than done, even if they’re desperately needed.
You Don't Have to Fix It Yourself
Did one of these hit close to home?
Addressing an organizational crisis can seem daunting, even impossible, but you don’t have to handle it all by yourself. There are dedicated experts who have years of experience helping leaders and organizations weather these situations and thrive despite them, offering tailored guidance based on action instead of axioms that can serve every level, from the C-suite to the boots on the ground. When you’re in the middle of a heart attack, you call someone, and that’s exactly what these five crises call for.
Meet Heath
Heath Crossland draws on 25+ years of crisis training experience, his past struggles with PTSD, and decades in leadership roles to deliver real-world crisis management for organizations of all sizes. Whether you face breakdowns in planning, unexpected upheavals, mental health challenges, or struggles turning strategy into action, he can offer the tailored support and transformation you and your people need when it matters most. Take the first step by clicking here and reaching out to Heath so he can start helping today.