The Key to Crisis Management? Graceful Degradation
Sounds theoretical? It isn’t. Start by training regularly for crises, and by creating redundancies and backups.
In a world of abundance, there are plenty of resources and time for everything you deem important. That’s how most of us in the rich world lived in the past 30 years — increasing prosperity year-on-year, no real security threats, and more and more time and money for leisure.
In times of crisis, what you deem important and what is important might slightly differ. Ask the people in Florida who just suffered the consequences of Hurricane Milton. Suddenly, your physical security or even survival is threatened, and water and food are much more important than leisure. Not to mention that a hurricane can destroy your home and with it most of your prosperity.
Well, the good times are over. There isn’t just one lonely hurricane out there, there are plenty of them, plus a ton of other problems that will throw our world into crisis.
So what can you do? I suggest you get familiar with the concept of degradation.
Degradation
No matter what crisis you face, you won’t have the time and resources to do it all. The sooner you accept this fact, the better you can handle any crisis.
Start with “simple” crises such as a car accident. When you walk up to such an emergency, would you think of cleaning up your mailbox first before you assist? Of course not. You would let go of everything and assist in saving lives.
Degradation in a “real” crisis such as an aircraft crash is much harder because, besides the crisis management team, regular operations continue. So the majority of your organization will continue to work in normal operations, whilst you battle the crisis. This can lead to odd situations when your CFO wants to know the financial impact of the aircraft crash, whilst you desperately try to figure out how many crash survivors there are. The same can happen within your crisis management team: Because everybody is still part of the regular organization with all its culture, it’s hard for them to switch from regular meetings to briefings, for example.
Now for the hardest part — looming crises. Climate change, the deteriorating security situation in Europe, migration, and elderly care financing, to name just a few. We all know those looming crises are there and we will need to handle them at some point, but we haven’t switched our minds from regular operations to crisis yet. We still think we can do it all, which we surely can’t. Time to think about degradation.
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Graceful Degradation (Call It Preparation)
In IT, there is the concept of graceful degradation. In simple terms, graceful degradation describes a system’s ability to maintain partial functionality when parts of it fail, instead of completely breaking down. In other words, even in the event of problems or failures, the system can continue operating at a reduced capacity, allowing users to still access essential features or services.
Isn’t this exactly what we need in times of crisis? Instead of everything breaking down at one tipping point, we need to maintain the core functions of our organizations and our society even under adverse conditions.
Sounds theoretical? It isn’t. Start by training regularly for crises, and by creating redundancies and backups.
Yes, you will be laughed at. For your power anxiety, for your cold warrior attitude, for whatever.
But when the looming crises blow up in your face, you’ll be much better off when you’ve done your preparation. Nobody will laugh at you anymore, but everybody will ask you for help and advice.
In such a moment, don’t be resentful with people who laughed at you earlier. Be graceful and help them handle their crises.
Growing a company 📈 in troubled times 🔥🧨 is a marathon.
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