Neutralizing the emotional reactions of an upset or panicked group of people falls squarely into the “easier said than done” category. Our brains and bodies are designed to protect us and survive predators by remaining alert through a series of innate responses to certain stimuli. The reality in the modern workplace, however, is that most spirals are caused by the feeling that the power of choice has been lost. Choice is our most consistent interpretation of the idea of control, and when humans feel we’ve lost control, we tend to panic.
When the shit hits the fan in the agency world — which is more of an hourly occurrence than anything else — my first action is typically to establish a sense of calm by reestablishing a sense of choice within the team. A calm sense of intentional action will go further than reassuring words.
Confirm, Identify, and Repetition with Choice
The sense of choice can be regained through a series of steps:
- Confirm the reality of the situation, but position outcomes as choices to be made to help the team member weigh all options in a neutral manner.
Example: “The client has formally put the account up for review, and we know there is ground to be made up when it comes to our strategic leadership on the account. We have several choices for how to approach this. Let’s determine together which we feel gives us the best chance to retain the business without disrupting your team’s work on other accounts.”
- Identify the worst-case scenario, and work through the outcomes associated with it. The great Tim Ferris (author of The Four Hour Work Week and Tools of Titans) calls this Fear Setting. The fear of the unknown is always worse than the reality, and typically can be assuaged with a practical outlining of what happens in the event of the worst.
Example: “This client may leave, but the review will take 90 days to complete, which means we have 90 days to work a new client through our pipeline. Our average sales cycle is 60 days, so this is immediately accomplishable, and you’ll have my support the whole way. In the event that we do not replace the business, we may be forced to move a member of your team to another account, or we may have to look at our headcount. The good news is we have the time and resources to prevent that through at least two different paths.”
- As each choice is made throughout the conversation, establish a sense of calm by repeating the identified step towards a solution, a reminder that they have control over their outcomes but also over their emotions. Every second we spend in a spiral could be spent on a solution. The ideal outcome is not to emotionally cover up the crisis but rather to train your staff to engage their productive emotions toward a solution.
How do I stay calm, though? Over time, I have learned to look at individual crises as my greatest opportunities to create relationships with team members, optimize processes, build culture, and generally improve our agency. No one wants a problem to arise, and our job as leaders is ultimately to limit them, but a mindset of capitalizing on any opportunity to improve can be a strong mental model for projecting peace in times of crisis. Everyone has their own path to crisis reaction; my perspective is that great crisis management begins prior to the beginning of the event through a change in perception.
Think of this exercise as an experiment in compounding interest. The results will show up in your team’s language describing the event:
- Before: “I am freaking out. This client has put us up for review, and I feel like I’m too busy as it is. How can I handle a review? I don’t know what to do.” Here, the spiral of being too busy to manage the workload is derived from a lack of choice.
- After: “The client has put us up for review. I need to talk through my thoughts on how we might approach this and understand what the outcomes are here so I can decide how I want to proceed.”
Ultimately, instructing your team on how to employ this framework on their own will save everyone’s time and instill personal and procedural confidence.
The impact on the team will also show up through emotional endurance. When we spiral, we lose mental focus and physical energy. It takes a toll that will be noticeable to everyone. As the framework is instilled, the time to solution focus will be reduced, and the approach will spread. As I said, it’s an exercise in compounding interest.
Employ the Framework, Enjoy the Benefits
Crisis management is built on a foundation of action and acceptance. Neutralizing the emotional response triggered from an event by empowering individual choice can stop the initial spiral. Help your team find, and celebrate, small wins at the onset of a crisis event to build procedural loyal and emotional endurance.
