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Decision-making in crisis situations is hard. Information is not clear; the stakes are high and the outcome unsure.
The importance of a clear process cannot be overemphasized. Without a good information gathering process, tensions run high, perceptions diverge and we do not get to a balanced decision-making process.
One of the main problems in many circumstances, but certainly in crisis situations, is rushing to decisions. Forget the Hollywood representation of the authoritative decisive crisis manager. In disaster movies a dominant leader who knows everything is running around while barking orders that are miraculously carried out at once.
This works only in movies.
In reality we need to assign roles and delegate responsibilities. In chapter 3 the book ‘Turn the ship around’ by David Marquet was mentioned. It describes the transformation from a directive commanding leadership style to a more mission oriented style where everyone in the organization takes initiative and responsibility. We call this mission command and it is a leadership style that is used both in civil crisis management and in military operations. In short it means giving people in a certain role a mission instead of detailed orders. Allow others to make their own decisions to achieve a given mission.
Forget Command and Control, embrace Mission Command.
So no SMART goals in crisis management.
When working in a crisis management team it is important to look at the division of tasks and roles but also to structure the decision-making process, individually but also as a team. ×