Wanted: Open Doors in Times of Crisis

We hear the word at least once every day: Crisis.

“Economic Crisis”
“Budget Crisis”
“Mid-Life Crisis”
“Automotive Crisis”
“Environmental Crisis”
“CRISIS!”

The shock! The horror!  Grab your children and hide!  Turn on the news and you would think that the whole world is coming to the end.  The news ratings race aside, the word crisis and its negative connotation are impossible to avoid.  Is the world really in this dire of a state?  Is there no hope for the future?

This past weekend I attended a session on Psychology and the Economic Downturn given by Dr. Michael Frese.  As you would guess, the initial discussion centered on the financial banking crisis.  What happened?  Who failed?  Is the future bleak?

The answer: NO!  Just look at the idiom “When one door closes another door opens.”  Look at the Chinese characters for the word – the first character signifies danger and the second character signifies opportunity.  I think we all tend to forget that there can be a positive side to a crisis.  A crisis is an event that can act as a game changer, an unfreezing event, or something that just says, “Hey, something here needs to change.”

When organizations reach crisis-level, the tendency is to constrict decision-making and risk taking.   Organizations become more centralized, more formalized, and less flexible.  Unfortunately, this can sometimes be the worst thing that an organization can do.  A crisis calls for flexibility and adaptability, and error management instead of error prevention.

A look to past organizations in crisis can demonstrate how innovation and growth can occur if the crisis is handled correctly.  Out of the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol crisis in 1982 came tamper-proof packaging and out of the Jack in the Box E. Coli crisis in 1993 came new standards for food safety.  While it is true that these were horrible incidents that I would never wish on any organization, the point is that a crisis can be used to spawn positive implications for the future.

The future implications of the recent banking crisis have yet to be seen.  Hopefully the leaders in charge of the financial institutions can get beyond the initial recoil of the crisis and turn this event into a learning opportunity and positive change.

As for me, whenever I hear the word crisis I’m going to look for the open door and repeat the old Chinese proverb “A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.”