When technology works, nobody notices. It’s only when it stops working that people notice, and that’s when everything can grind to a halt.

The intense pressure of a crisis like a website going offline or someone having a laptop stolen or even ‘I can’t print this very important contract I have to sign in 10 minutes’ is enough to cause rapid onset alopecia.

However, I can’t remember a time, in a situation like that, where I felt true panic. What happens to me when a crisis hits is I (by default almost) get very focused and overly calm.

I also find myself being very dogmatic. I don’t take half answers and I get absolute clarity on an answer before I move on. I eliminate possibilities and gather ideas. We observe time but we don’t stress about it. We try the easy things first and we absolutely do not blame anyone. Usually my first plan of action is to stop the event from getting worse. Often that means removing access to people who are making things worse. I will also pull someone aside and ask them to leave if they are adding stress to an already stressful situation.

Managing a crisis is almost always just about managing stress.

Step 1: Organize ourselves

Elect a leader & gather the troops

If it is purely a technology problem, the leader is often me. If it is not me, I completely offer my assistance and focus to the elected leader. The person who is going to fix this problem does not need to also fight me for control. Assemble the troops Once a leader has been elected, everyone who needs to be in the room should be in the room, calling into the room or on the way to the room. The leader’s job is to communicate and facilitate. He’s going to be communicating to the people in the room, so let’s get them here.

In a crisis, we are all peers

In a crisis there is no management there is no org chart, there is just ‘us’ vs the problem. Status, rank or seniority in a crisis all become tools to use against the crisis and not tools to leverage influence. We’ve elected a leader, part of his toolkit is to leverage status.

Time management

Sometimes a crisis will have a deadline. Something like: The CEO is leaving for the airport and he can not find the laptop with the demo on it. Or we have 3 days to a trade show and the software does not work at all. Or an employee is going to be fired tomorrow morning and we need his data. or a hacker has encrypted an entire server, is asking for a ransom and if we are not back online in 2 days people will die because of it. Those are all examples of the types of crises I’ve managed.

The point of time management here is to communicate the deadline so we can make decisions based on it. Time is a nonrenewable resource. We can not manufacture more time, that’s why it is the first thing to manage.

Step 2: Solve the Problem

State the problem

A problem clearly stated is a problem half solved.

Say the problem out loud in front of everyone in the room. Assure them that right now we need honest, unfiltered feedback in an organized way. I usually say “Is that the exact problem we are having right now? How are we wrong?”

I will often let the group speak at will until we have consensus on what the problem is.

Then I will call out certain people and ask them specifically: “Ken, what do you think?” or “Mary I’m wondering what your perspective is on this?” I will literally call out people to draw them into saying something, anything.

Stop the bleeding

If the printers are all continuously and randomly printing pornography becauase an ex employee has sabatoged us then unplug all the printers. If a software update is destroying phones, take down the update. If a virus is running rampant on an internal network, turn off all nonessential computers or routers

The idea being: don’t wait for a perfect solution to fix the problem. Take the advantage of making a problem have less impact.

Calm is contagious

If the room descends into chaos I will stand on a chair which is usually enough to get people to look at me. If not, I will clap my hands. The idea is to get a moment of focus.

In a calm voice I will say “We’re going to work on this together, I have some ideas and all of you have ideas and I’m going to hear every one of them.” I keep talking and saying things that are calm so everyone relaxes. I will ask people to leave if they can not remain calm.

It isn’t a matter of stress management, it’s a matter of practicality. Emotionally unhinged people do not think clearly. You are smarter if you are calm, it’s that simple. We need to be calm as a group so we can be smarter as a group.

Giving people information makes them calm for a moment. Giving them a plan makes them calm until that plan goes off the rails. The important thing is to constantly give them things as soon as I know them so everyone can collectively move to the next step.

Calm is contagious. If a leader is calm, others will be calm and we’ll work through this faster. Remove stressful people

I remember one executive I used to work with would take the first 20 minutes of every meeting to rant about his particular problems. He couldn’t help himself. He would hijack every single meeting to just tell us about this customer or that deal or a particular software problem causing him grief that day. This was just on a regular day, forget about a crisis. By the end of his rant everyone was so agitated that we rarely had productive meetings. Everyone just wanted to get out of that damn room.

A lot of what he was saying was valid. He brought up valid concerns, it wasn’t like he was making things up; he was right. But he would dump this stress on us and then we’re supposed to sit there and have a productive meeting.

It got to the point that the CEO had to tell him to raise his hand if he wanted to speak in any meeting, which he did. But that just made it worse because now you have a grown man sitting there with his hand up in a meeting which is impossible to ignore. As soon as you see his hand go up your stomach would tighten. then when he was called, he was off to the races again.

I quit inviting him to my meetings and then one day, one of the managers who worked for me, invited him. So I didn’t say anything. I just sat there. I was the most senior person there so I just let him rant. 20 minutes, 30 minutes 40 minutes. He got to 45 minutes and he ran out of steam. He always felt better after one of these rants, I could tell. But now we had his stress. As soon as he was done, I ended the meeting and held the manager back.

“That’s why I don’t invite him to my meetings, please never do that again”

The point of the story is; we all only have so much energy to give each day. If someone constantly consumes everyone’s energy, make sure to know that in a crisis and watch them. Everything is intensified in a crisis and someone who is that oblivious in the day to day,

The data is our dogma

People want to help so they will speculate when giving you ideas. They want this problem to be over, so they will subconsciously fudge numbers or drop details. In a crisis I don’t believe anyone, least of all myself.

Do not guess. The fastest way to turn a 4 alarm fire into a 5 alarm fire is to guess at solutions. Don’t guess and make things worse.

Details can get lost in the shuffle too. Someone will talk over someone else right when I’m hearing a critical piece of data. I do not lose focus, I do not let go. I don’t even break eye contact. I focus until I have received that piece of data. I then repeat it until it’s heard and I get some sign that I said it right.

If you get bad data you will waste time, the one thing we do not have.

Try the easy stuff first

The boss lost his laptop. Ok, check iCloud first to see if he has an easy backup. That’s an easy, no cost test that someone else can do while we sit in the room and continue to plan. Don’t eliminate easy fixes because you are too stressed. Do the easy things first and get clear results from the person doing them.

Eliminate possibilities

If the easy things don’t work, start eliminating other possibilities all together. If we have 10 minutes to print a contract, don’t waste time finding a thumb drive to copy it and take it to kinkos. Work the actual problem and cut off things that are not a possibility.

Manage up

If a crisis is big enough, you’re going to be reporting information up to someone. Sometimes that person will be in the room and sometimes they will be the most prone to outbursts or slamming things.

If they were not elected leader in the first step, then treat them just like everyone else. Complete respect, ultimate calm but be direct and do not be afraid to privately ask them to calm down or please leave.

If a senior partner can use his influence to solve a problem, ask him to do so. Imagine all of the tools and influence the people in that room have. If you can imagine that you will give yourself a lot more tools to solve this problem with. Oftentimes it may not even occur to a manager to call in a favor, or to call off an event or to buy time some other way. You may need to have that thought for them.