During a crisis, your people are your superpower.

Crises happen to every organization, testing the limits of employee commitment, patience and discipline. But they are also an invaluable opportunity to test your employees’ creativity, perseverance and resourcefulness.

If your team has never experienced a crisis, rest assured. You will. Regardless of your field, your scale or location, with the ever-vigilant media and public awareness climate of today, tolerances for error are razor thin. Organizations that move too slowly, act with too little transparency or who otherwise fumble their response can do lasting damage to their reputations and esteem.

Stories about the environmental, economic and legal challenges in which various organizations have found themselves are everywhere. But to whom do these stories refer? These often describe an organization as a uniform, monolithic entity. Relatively few discuss the actual people in the proverbial trenches; the team and board members working to help navigate the pressing challenges. 

One thing I’ve learned in the 25 years I’ve spent supporting companies in crisis that these people can, and often do, surprise in the face of adversity. When a crisis hits, it is the employees that represent an organization’s best hope for recovery.

Crises help to manifest the individuality of our employees. The people that make up our organizations are unique. They’re an asset, collectively and severally. But unlike a fire alarm or sprinkler system that switches on automatically in an emergency, employees are human. They are predictably unpredictable. In times of crisis, their humanity may cause them to stumble. But it might also help that person rise to the challenge and exceed your wildest expectations. 

I experienced this firsthand when I was asked to participate in a crisis simulation exercise designed by our crisis preparedness specialists. I took the role of the communications director in this simulation in a team of six other participants, each of whom represented another workstream. As the crisis developed, threats the organization faced became more numerous, more sophisticated, and less predictable. As the scenario became increasingly dire, I was surprised by how overwhelmed and discouraged I felt. It was frustrating and counterintuitive that a group of professionals as experienced as ours could not keep up with the challenges. The issue was that our qualified group of individuals remained exactly that; we could not find common ground, efficiently collaborate or effectively strategize. We were repeatedly caught off guard by the next stage of our crisis, and collectively grew more frustrated by our inability to catch a break.

But eventually we found our footing. We created an internal structure by assigning team members to each major pillar – legal, communications and operations – of our organization. We developed a comprehensive strategy and defined guiding principles that would help us craft our responses to the developing crisis. With those footholds established, we could reframe the necessary narrative and maintain communications with our key stakeholders. Our rudimentary network of structure, strategy and storytelling turned chaos into order.

The simulation lasted only a couple of hours. But during that period, I experienced a full range of human emotions, from frustration and annoyance to elation and pride. As our team dynamic evolved, the atmosphere in our war room shifted from frenetic to controlled. Through the simulation, we were reminded about the utility of our teammates, and when it was necessary to trust them to do their job well. Our team had genuinely bonded during our simulated campaign.   

That is why I wasn’t surprised when PwC’s Global Crisis Survey showed that 18% of respondents who experienced crises felt more determined, and 15% felt more resilient. I could see that in the simulation, as we were able to more rapidly respond to the challenge as pressure built. I could also understand why overall, 42% of respondents felt that their organization was in a better place after successfully weathering a crisis.

There is an unavoidable risk of something happening to your organization. But when it comes, a crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to increase the horizontal and vertical integration of your teams. This exercise, along with my 25-years as a corporate first responder, reminded me that crises present an opportunity for people to unify towards a common goal. These points of strategic inflection allow employees to build a rapport with one another, and to learn from one another. These crisis heroes can, with the help of their teammates, help save the organization. 

To learn more about PwC’s Global Crisis Survey, and for tips on managing teams through crises, please see our website. 

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