This will more than likely be our last post for 2021. And what a year it has been. For those of you that follow along in this space, you know that in July, I had a pretty severe accident and spent a week in the ICU. Last week I had the final of 4 surgeries on my right foot rebuilding and repairing...

Confucius tells us that "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." What is fear, and why do so many corporate leaders fear crises?  Fear is a concern, rational or not, about your well-being. In this context, it is a concern about the reputation of your organization. You may...

There's an interesting article I read recently about the notion of how to master a craft, and I was thinking about it in the context of the way we manage crises. In the article, Julian Shapiro notes that becoming a craftsperson requires more focus on the process than the output: the process is...

I love checklists.  I also love Thanksgiving.  What could be better than combining the two?     As you get ready for the holidays coming up, I want to remind you that checklists are critically important for the holiday season. They're...

A big mistake we see everywhere is thinking that experience in a role or time-served automatically makes you a leader in that space. This thinking mistakes the fundamental difference between management and leadership: one is focused on what needs to be done, whereas the other is more concerned...

Critical Takeaways: Conducting training or an exercise without learning from the experience is a waste of resources, time, and attention. You need a process to capture these learnings and to put these into an action plan. Start with an immediate 'hot' debrief with participants. We find asking them...

Critical Takeaways A great simulation depends on thorough preparation, and that includes preparing the participants and yourself. Start by taking care of the basic administration. Otherwise, you'll get off to a bad start before the exercise even begins. Use your SMART Objectives to determine the...

Getting to yes: persuading your executives to buy-into a simulation Critical takeaways Simulations and training are excellent ways to prepare your organization for a crisis but their benefit might not be evident to your leadership. We've found that a needs-driven approach, based on a gap analysis,...

Get SMART about your crisis training Critical takeaways Training without a clear objective often wastes time, resources and money. Instead, have a clear sense of the gaps that you face in your crisis readiness program and where you need to see change. Then use SMART objectives to help clearly...

One of the real benefits we see with crisis simulations is that these work very well as gap analyses. After a simulation, it's easy to see the gap between your current state and your desired state. How well can you develop a plan and put that into action? How well do our processes hold up? What...

Critical Takeaways The Crucible of Crisis doesn't develop your skillset, it reveals it. Your strengths and weaknesses are exposed and magnified: great leaders excel while weak ones stumble.  This is counter to the idea that the unique circumstances of a crisis will somehow unlock previously unseen...