Crisis simulation workshops have been amongst the most effective ways to get leadership teams to take risks (including ethics & compliance) seriously. Subjecting folks to stress makes abstract concepts more tangible. But what always surprises me is the feedback. The main suggestion was always, “make it longer [and by default, harder]”.
Had I tapped into a masochistic trait that most leaders shared? Were they less busy than the endless calendar tennis had suggested? Were their jobs actually very dull?
Beyond the glibness, most of us like a bit of adversity. Especially those of us privileged to live in developed nations with first-world problems. I am not denigrating or belittling the challenges – death, health issues, financial troubles, loss, and family challenges – that anyone, anywhere, can (and usually will) experience. In an evolutionary heartbeat, many of us have skipped from survival to social media. Firing those survival neurons every once in a while helps connect those at the top (and middle) with frontline risks.
Try it; you’ll get a few immediate benefits that should improve your life (especially if in-house in risk, ethics and/or compliance). I’ll use the vehicle of some recent escapades at our new home to explain the benefits.
Does Santa visit motels?
Just before Christmas, our pump died. Then the pipes froze.
We called a plumbing and drainage firm that arrived late and then quoted the earth for a solution that would arrive a week after Christmas. My wife and son, desperate for warmth (frozen pipes = no radiators), and a shower, escaped to a nearby motel. Aly offered to stay with me as snow and ice thawed and a slew of water coming off the hill threatened the house. One particularly memorable night, I didn’t sleep as torrential rain exacerbated the problems – swilling buckets out of flooding drains every 30-45mins.
This was a good experience. Bear with me. I learned how everything was connected, which parts of the house might be vulnerable, and how water flowed across the land surrounding the property.
Getting your hands dirty in a (simulated) crisis is much more effective a teacher than a theoretical training session. It also helped prioritise a risk mitigation plan to avoid recurrence and develop some contingencies.
Planting trees and digging trenches
As my resourceful wife, motivated by a night sharing a bed with a 5-year-old who never shuts up (even when asleep), found a better plumbing firm, Aly and I embarked on mitigation.
We dug trenches to redirect water from the farmer’s adjacent field into a small pond. That was the short-term fix, but it created an immediate other problem – the pond overflowed almost instantly and flooded a pathway. Not the end of the world, as we’d now reduced flow to the house by around 90%, but still suboptimal.
A medium-to-longer-term fix involves planting trees and bushes along the perimeter fence (finished this weekend). In dryer times, we will deepen and extend the pond. When funds allow, we will sink a subterranean water tank after the pond to catch run-off and ensure supplies during droughts.
In crisis simulation workshops, with some experience, you can develop these unintended consequences and learnings into the session. It’s like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book where different decisions can take you on a wildly different journey. I do this with leadership teams – splitting them into different groups. When the exercise concludes, and they see how different decisions by colleagues resulted in better/worse outcomes, it’s gold. Why? Because they’re now thinking like risk people – consequences, impact, alternatives, etc.
If you do it well enough, the leadership team will ask you to help them better plan and bring you into the sacred strategy fold.
Nobody is coming, are they?
Crises seldom happen at 9am on a Monday. They happen over weekends and near/on major public holidays. The new pump took a few days. Not that long in the grand scheme of things.
No one was going to help in those days beforehand. Knowing you have to figure out some patch fixes and then plan longer-term mitigation is a good exercise. In crisis simulations, you can artificially force ownership. You have to. If you don’t, the first thing someone will say (when presented with something going wrong) is, “I’d call [risk/legal/compliance]”. Taking this option away (on a plane, on leave, different timezone, etc.) may initially seem artificial, but it’s not.
Forcing leaders to own risks, even in a tabletop exercise, increases awareness, understanding, and empathy toward risk and those charged with managing it.
Rainy day funds
Faced with (even a fictitious scenario) disaster, people start to recognise the importance of adequate risk management budgets. It doesn’t last long! But strike while that iron is hot and make your requests, as they get a glimpse at the resources needed to properly manage it.
Just remember to focus on short-, medium-, and long-term solutions; not go straight for the budgetary jugular and ask for all immediately.
Safe spaces for daft decisions
Finally, it’s fun. Playing risk manager is much more enjoyable than tawdry tracts of legislation. It’s a safe space to make mistakes. In recent surveys of thousands of people across several different organisations, a few barriers to effective risk mitigation emerge:
- It’s hard for people to admit they don’t know what to do (without being judged as incompetent).
- It’s hard for people to speak about ethical consequences (unrealistic targets, bad ideas, risky choices, etc.).
- There’s no space (or tolerance) for making mistakes.
There are good reasons not to make risky mistakes in real settings, but that’s how we learn. If we don’t want harm out in the real world, we need to create a simulation. Learning to admit we don’t have a clue or speaking up is also easier in a scenario.
In one memorable crisis workshop, one team got it so badly wrong that they’d used hired goons to fight off an angry local community trying to storm their facility. As the GC (asking for a briefing ahead of a fictitious board meeting) worriedly probed, one team member replied, “It was only a little bit of violence”.
Crises are crucibles of learning, empathy, ownership and planning, even when fake. At least, that’s been my experience, professionally and personally.