Judging Crisis Mode In The Workplace
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Oct 3, 2011
I'm betting you know someone where you work that judges everything that happens that's not a positive thing as a crisis. They run around acting as if the world is ending unless the offending malady is taken care of. It could be as tragic as the building burning around you or as miniscule as someone being 2 minutes late.
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I've obviously had to deal with these people in my working life, and one of the best things about being in management is that you don't always have to react to someone else's reaction to things. Even peers and sometimes those above you don't always have to shake your foundation, no matter how much they try.
You see I added the caveat "always" because every once in awhile there is a true crisis, something that has to be addressed immediately, if it's your job to do so. For instance, I remember once when the computer system of the hospital went down and some people came to me. I just looked at all of them because I wasn't over IT; not even close. But people got used to coming to me for those issues because there were some system functions I took care of. Was it a crisis; definitely, because no one in the hospital could do a thing. Was it my crisis; nope.
Therefore, it's not that there are no crises in business; it's just that people need some education on what constitutes a crisis, or in measuring the severity of a crisis. I'm here to help; here are some tips to follow when trying to decide what's a crisis or not.
1. If people are dying or may possibly die, that's a crisis. This is the ultimate crisis; you will be forgiven any time if this is on the table.
2. If systems have crashed. When work can't proceed because there's a glitch in either software, hardware, or processes, this is a crisis to deal with. After all, time is money, and without both of these at full speed no work gets done, thus no money comes in and no one gets paid.
3. If money goes missing, it's a crisis but not an immediate crisis. Most of the time if money goes missing it happened a while ago, or there's been a miscalculation. The world doesn't stop here unless all the money is gone; if that happens it probably means your processes were flawed way before now, in which case it's management's fault; somebody's getting fired.
4. If a client or customer is upset, that's not a crisis, but it's something that can be alleviated if addressed as soon as possible. There's never any reason to get upset if a client is upset unless you're the one who caused it and you think you might be in the wrong.
5. If employees or co-workers aren't behaving, that's not a crisis unless they're physically fighting right now. If they're presently fighting that goes back to #1; if not, you still don't want people fighting but it's probably something that's been built up and thus it's not a true crisis even though you have to stop it as quickly as you can.
6. If you're informed or see for yourself that employees aren't acting like they normally do, that's not a crisis, but you don't want to let it linger too long. It should be easy to address if you're not a wimp, but it might not be something you can easily solve.
7. If people are late or not following procedures it's not a crisis. This is education of some type, and it takes time to create policies or administer behavioral write-ups.
That should be enough for now. Pretty much everything else should fall within these categories; if not, let me know and we'll see if I can help.
This is shocking picture..It could be as tragic as the building burning around you or as miniscule as someone being 2 minutes late.
I’ve personally have never look it from that many angles, but most of the times have been flexible as a manager. Trying to adopt to environment and practices, but at the same time implementing my own way. I personally think that everybody should feel more responsible at work and help to colleagues when it is possible.
Carl, in some situations you’re kind of powerless to alter certain things, such as if you’re working at a place with lots of employees. Still, going crazy over the little stuff only gums up the process.
A leadership crisis to some people can be catastrophe of it could just be the simplest thing that is made out to be a crisis. I never looked at it the way you pointed out. Looking at the building on fire make you think what I can do to help and what would be my first step to help. Everyone react to a crisis in their own way and what they get right would be a positive and what they get wrong will be a negative. There will always be a positive and a negative no matter how you react to the crisis. Someone would find a way to turn it into a negative don’t matter if you get it all minus something minor that you failed to implement.
Melissa, there are some people that just like to live in crisis mode all the time. That is either draining or stimulating to that person; depends on their motivation. But the rest of us don’t always have to get caught up in someone else’s drama; it’s certainly not my style anyway.
Some people are a bit more dramatic, emotional or volatile than others, and therefore these types of situations are unfortunately a bit to common in the workplace. As a paralegal, I’ve seen quite a few of these workplace incidents leading to personal injury claims.
In order for employers to help alleviate tensions, proper containment and understanding of the issue(s) needs to occur. After the scale and scope of the problem is determined, investigating the cause of the problem can help prevent future instances. All of this information can be used to outline and test theories to help resolve the matter, which can then lead to changes being implemented or long term controls being put into place.
This of course, could be in addition to better screening and background checks of employees and also helping to ensure everyone is in good mental health – but people can change very quickly, even those who may be least suspected.
Good stuff Greg. I think many people have faulty filters that hurts their being able to determine what’s crucial and what isn’t. They also lack the proper communication skills to either get their point across or understand what someone else is saying. That’s why it’s imperative for leaders to figure out how to work with diverse people and get them working with each other better also. Of course, better screening up front helps a lot too. 🙂