One simple fact of leadership is, at some point, you will experience a critical moment- be it a crisis, change, or growth- within your workplace or organization. The important question is this: how will you handle it?
As the corporate landscape becomes increasingly difficult to navigate in a post-pandemic landscape, organizations are seeing higher turnover rates, lower employee satisfaction, and a push for mental health resources within the company. Many organizations are struggling to keep up. As a result, leaders are starting to see that the Traditional Crisis Response (TCR) is no longer effective for handling change, critical moments, or crises within the workplace.
If any of this resonates with you, it’s time for you to rethink your Traditional Crisis Response. Let’s discuss why the TCR is ineffective and different ways you can transform your TCR into something that yields actual change within your organization.
Crisis Reveals An Organization’s True Values
To understand what a successful crisis response looks like, let’s talk about the significance of crisis within the workplace.
There’s a principle I like to use to describe organizations in crisis called the hot-water-tea-bag principle.
What happens when you place a tea bag in hot water? The tea steeps– whatever kind of tea is in the bag permeates the water. Similarly, when an organization finds itself in “hot water”– whether it’s a threat to its reputation, the death of someone within the organization, growth or the need to grow, or anything in between– the organization’s values come out.
Oftentimes, the values that “leak out” of an organization in crisis surprise those involved. You can’t make green tea out of a bag of Earl Grey simply by calling it green tea. Similarly, if there’s a disparity between what a company says its values are and how that company’s organizational leaders act, a company’s actions will always reveal its true values.
Crises have a unique way of revealing the true values of an organization, exposing the core culture beneath the mission statement plastered on the front page of the website. As a leader, you have a choice: will you be complacent and allow a toxic environment to keep existing, or will you be a guiding force that helps steer the organization toward a healthier, more productive culture?
Leadership should not just manage crises but use them as opportunities to evaluate and redefine the core tenets of their organization’s culture. This shift from a reaction to a response can prevent the erosion of trust and morale that organizations often experience in the midst of change, crisis, or during critical moments.
Four Assets of Transforming Your TCR
One of the biggest issues facing organizational leadership is the way they have been taught to handle crises in their workplace.
The Traditional Crisis Response is a reactive process. This means that it relies on a system of policies and programs that an organization enacts in the midst of crisis. Sometimes these are supported by a call to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which is also reactive and most often treats the surface issues or symptoms. However, a strong response to crisis looks beyond “solving” crisis to creating a healthier workplace.
Transforming the traditional crisis response involves four key aspects:
1. A Strong Core
First and foremost, if you want your organization’s response to a crisis to be strong, your leadership team has to be strong. This can look a lot of different ways!
As an organizational leader, you have a responsibility to your team to look after your own physical, mental, and emotional health. “But John,” I hear you say. “Doesn’t that seem a little bit self-obsessed? Counterintuitive?” Taking care of yourself and getting adequate rest does not mean becoming obsessed with yourself. Rather, taking care of your health allows you to be present and capable of handling whatever comes your way in the form of crisis or change. Remember: Self-care is not selfish is a requirement to be a leader.
Additionally, trust is essential to build a strong team around. If you haven’t established trust between yourself and the rest of your team, how can you expect them to follow you through a crisis? One of the most sure-fire ways to build trust among a team is by leading with authenticity. A true leader does not use their power or position for self-serving purposes; rather, they seek the betterment of the team as a whole, and they are willing to admit when they don’t have the answers.
If the leadership of your organization is strong, then you have a greater chance of being united towards a common goal in the midst of crises.
2. Aligned Motivation
For a crisis response to be effective, everyone needs to be on the same page. What are your values, your company’s values, and your team’s values? Do all of these things align?
Think of a home. No matter what the home is built of, it’s the foundation that determines how well the home will hold up against time and weather. Similarly, your organization will only hold up to the extent that everyone within it knows why they do what they do– and that they’re doing it for more than just a paycheck.
When everyone’s motivations are aligned before a crisis, then everyone will do their part to make sure the entire team makes it through the crisis.
3. Targeted Strategy
The unavoidable fact of crisis, change, or critical moments is this: There WILL be a new norm afterwards, and your strategy determines what that will be.
Part of your strategy should include specific, tangible ways you can support your staff. Don’t put the burden on your staff to come to you with their needs, because there is a chance that they might feel intimidated to do so. Instead, take initiative in checking in on your employees before they have to ask for help.
Additionally, you should have a strategy for normalization after the event of the crisis. This should involve candid, honest communication between you and your employees about what caused the crisis, what damage has been done, and how the residual effect is impacting people’s thoughts and feelings.
Through everything, your strategy must account for the fact that your staff’s reactions to crises don’t reflect their normal performance or behavior. It’s likely that you’ll see a dip in productivity and morale when your employees experience turmoil or unrest, whether in their personal lives or within the organization– and badgering them about it will not make the situation better! Instead, do your best to be understanding and empathetic because people who feel cared for care for the organization.
4. Defining a Refinable New Norm
As we’ve discussed, things cannot simply “go back to normal” in the aftermath of a crisis; there will be a new norm, whether everyone is ready for it or not. People’s confidence might be questioned. They might question their beliefs, their own position in the company, and their trust in leadership. They might start to lose faith in their values and in themselves.
Your job, then, is to decide what to do about all of this. Do you need to move people into different roles? Change the organizational structure? Completely reevaluate the organization’s values? There are a few key things to consider when defining a new norm for your organization:
First, organizational leadership must agree on what this new norm will be. What did you learn from this crisis, and how will you implement what you’ve learned into your organizational values and processes?
Next, leadership has to generate buy-in from the rest of the employees. Your new norm can’t just be a set of value statements made by the leadership that feels out-of-touch, irrelevant, or unproductive to the rest of your employees; they need to understand how this new norm benefits them as well as the overall organization, and how their role in the organization is important.
Something absolutely crucial for developing a new norm is for it to be refinable. As organizational leaders and employees alike adjust to the new norm, understand that things might change over time. This is a good thing! Allowing room for change within your organization means allowing room for growth, and if your organization cannot grow through a crisis… What is the point?
Additionally, a refinable new norm allows people to take agency over changes happening within the organization.
From Programs to Progress: A Values-Based Approach
Recall earlier when I mentioned that a crisis brings out an organization’s true values? Not only do your values show through your reaction to a crisis as a leader, but they also influence the effectiveness of your response.
A typical organization’s “plan” for a crisis requires employees to follow a sequence of steps in order for the organization to recover and get “back to normal.” As we’ve discussed, though, there is no “return to normal” after a crisis. Why exactly is that?
There’s one key element of crisis that these plans, programs, and policies forget, however: people.
Your organization is made up of living, breathing human beings who each will have a different and nuanced response to crisis! Therefore, while typical crisis intervention plans seem effective on paper, they hardly ever accomplish the goal of making a real difference within your team.
While transforming your TCR will help you in the midst of a crisis, the best way to prepare your organization for a crisis is to e-VALUE-ate your values. Do the leaders within your organization embody and represent the organization’s values well on a daily basis? In other words, are you talking the talk AND walking the walk?
Conclusion
Transforming your company’s TCR is not just about managing immediate challenges but about creating a thriving workplace culture that is resilient, engaged, and aligned with the organization’s core values. These four key assets of transforming your TCR can help leadership guide their teams through crises and changes with confidence, ensuring that the organization emerges stronger and more aligned than ever before.
I hope this resonates with leaders who are looking to navigate through crises more effectively while fostering a positive and sustainable workplace culture. By focusing on these key strategies, organizations can transform challenges into opportunities for growth and alignment.
If you are an organizational leader who needs help reestablishing your values or navigating the aftermath of a crisis, let’s have a conversation.
Enjoyed this article? Here are three more to help you.
Values-Driven Leadership in a Status-Driven Culture
Reframing Wellness Through Crisis
Why is Krisis, like stress, always seen as a negative?
