Mastering Crisis w/ Peter Willis & Gareth Morgan

With a strong focus on future planning and resilience, Peter Willis & Gareth Morgan bring a wealth of experience in crisis management and organizational strategy. Together, they have distilled lessons from real-world crises into actionable frameworks for leaders. The book is a concise manual derived from extensive real-world experience with crises, including the Cape Town drought and the global COVID-19 pandemic. It sheds light on the pivotal phases of crisis management and underscores the importance of strategic resilience and adaptability for leaders.

This discussion dives into the nuances of crisis management, emphasizing the significance of a structured approach to navigating tumultuous situations. Together, Peter & Gareth articulate the necessity for leaders to declare and own crises, fostering transparency and collective effort towards resolution. Furthermore, the conversation addresses the prolonged challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the unique aspects of its impact on leadership in various global contexts. As organizations worldwide face evolving challenges, the book emerges as an essential tool for leaders, advocating for proactive crisis planning and a strategic approach to resilience.

Key Takeaways:

• Effective crisis management begins with strategic planning and building resilience during peacetime.
• Declaring a crisis early and owning it is crucial for leadership credibility and effective management.
• Developing adaptability in supply chains, information, and communication is vital for crisis resilience.
• Recognizing secondary crises within the main crisis can prevent organizational failure.
• Leaders must commit to thriving in crises, continuously learning, and improving based on past experiences.

Notable Quotes:

• "It's a big moment for a leader to say this is a crisis, accepting that there's a small chance they may be wrong."
• "Resilience is a strategic decision. We want to build an organization that is resilient, that is strong."
• "Expect crises within the crisis. So often the primary crisis is not necessarily the one that will cripple the organization."

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Transcript

Cold Open: Authenticity Under Pressure

SPEAKER_01 0:01

You have to walk the tongue. You have to be authentic as a leader.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

If you're not doing it, they see that.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

It is entirely universal. There's other people who are going through this.

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For me, a great leader needs to be able to marry three things: vision, systems, and people.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Welcome to Leadership Moments. If this is your first time, and if you are returning, thank you for your support.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

This show is about leaders from all walks of life, leadership tips, and maybe even a little of what you wouldn't expect to help you in leadership.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

We would appreciate it if you tell someone else about our podcast as we strive to support all leaders that want to just be better.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Let's get on with the show. Welcome back to Leadership Moments, the podcast where we uncover the real, the raw, and the remarkable lessons of leadership. And today we're diving into a topic that is just not just timely, but timeless crises. So how do leaders show up when the unexpected hits? How do we prepare ourselves and our organizations for turbulence that can't always be predicted? We know this, we saw this happen recently. So to help us answer these questions, I'm joined by my two extraordinary guests, uh, fellow South Africans, which of course I love, co-authors of Becoming Good at Crises, a field guide for leaders. And between them, they've navigated some of the world's most high stake situations, including the Cape Town drought and the COVID-19 pandemic. And they've distilled years of frontline insights into this book. So Peter and Gareth, so fantastic to have you with me and welcome.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

Thank you. Lovely to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

So I'm gonna just jump right in because we have got so much to cover uh that we have to make sure we get we get it all in. Okay. So let's start at the very beginning. So you've both lived through and studied crises. And I'm talking about crises that shook entire cities and institutions. Why did you feel compelled to write this book now? And what gap were you trying to fill for leaders?

SPEAKER_04 2:38

I think if I may, Gareth, if I may go first on this. Uh what compelled us to do it now was that um we both have a sense that uh crises are becoming more frequent and more complex and more dangerous. That's a that's a big generalization, uh, but I don't think it's wildly out of um out of place. And we, having had these experiences of major existential crises, which you've referred to, um, and being both of us, as it turns out, this is what we discovered about each other as our friendship grew, was that we are both really interested in what difference leadership makes inside a major existential crisis. Because there are lots of things making a difference. But what about leadership? Uh and so we looked around and we realized that nobody has actually done what we've done. It doesn't make us very special, but it means that we're not simply re-treading a path that others have already walked before. There are lots of books about disasters and emergencies and how to handle those and various kinds of crises, but ours is directed primarily at the leader who holds that unique responsibility uh for leading through an incredibly unpredictable phase, like a major crisis. So that's I think what what made us think this there's a real need and a gap here, and we're interested to fill it.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah. And it's fascinating because this is a continual struggle, right? Is how do you lead through crises? Lead through crises being the operative word. It's not manage, it's not the individuals, it's like how do you really help everybody get through it? So, with that, you know, you describe this book as a field guide. What does that mean in practice?

SPEAKER_03 4:33

I think it is a step-by-step uh guide for leaders. It is practical. Peter and I decided to write a book that was on the shorter side because we want uh to encourage obviously leaders to uh pick it up. It comes from deep experience uh of actual crisis. And Peter and I have extracted those lessons, put them into a framework that is useful for any leader. So we are of the view that a leader could pick this up, uh, they could know where to start, and during a crisis, there'll be significant guidance on how they'll navigate what we call the four phases of crisis.

Drought And COVID: The Unthinkable

SPEAKER_01 5:16

And that's the most important part, because how many times do you read something and you're like, well, this is great, but I actually don't still don't know how to do it. You know what I mean? You know, so I think really being able to give practical step by step, this is how you go ahead and uh and and that then becomes habitual uh for for leaders because as you said, this is not gonna happen once, it's gonna keep happening, right? So uh were there moments in Cape Town uh or or or COVID when you personally thought, man, we we we might not we not we might not make through this?

SPEAKER_03 5:55

Yes, I certainly think during the drought there were moments uh in uh mid to late 2017 when uh those of us in leadership positions in the city were very much of the view that we were going to run out of water. In other words, we would have to turn the reticulation system off. It's easy to look back at that crisis in hindsight, uh, uh particularly for those who are not involved, and to think, oh, well, it was over overdone. The crisis wasn't as big as we thought. But, you know, we performance managed it and we know what the numbers said. Uh there were moments when uh that crisis uh not only felt uh like it was going to move up a few levels, but that it would arrive and um and uh gets considerably more severe within a matter of weeks. I think on the in the COVID one, look, we all live through COVID. So uh I don't think the Cape Town experience would would be all that unique compared to other cities around the world. But Peter and I obviously look at crisis from the point of view of a leader in an organization being confronted by an external shock event of some sorts. I think for uh COVID, it's interesting to reflect on sort of those early predictions uh from the uh modelers of the virus, uh, which were considerably more severe than probably turned out to be, which ramped up the feeling of crisis quite considerably and increased the urgency. And then I think the other thing which is unique about COVID, I'm sure your experience in the United States would be different, is that it uh was a very long crisis. It dragged on. And there were decisions, I think, made by political leaders in countries as well, which you know need to be looked upon in hindsight, because I suspect many of those interventions lasted longer than they probably needed to at the end of the day. That was a crisis that felt like it was never going to end until it did.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

When I heard you ask that question, the first place my mind went was um uh an interview I did. I did 39 interviews with senior leaders about their response to the drought about six to nine months after the drought had broken and everything was going to be okay. And one of the most senior city leaders who I interviewed, um, I asked him, Had did you ever worry that we were really going to run out of water? And he said, Yes, we we did. Um and he suddenly his voice sort of dropped, and and and I said, So what did you think about it? What were what was the discussion? And he paused and he said, Um, well, we thought we may have to evacuate Cape Town. So that's only four million people. And my first thought when he said that was, where on earth to? Because the whole countryside was going through the drought. There was no place where lots of water was sitting. Um, but if you genuinely are sitting in the responsible position, if you are a leader and you realize that your best efforts are not getting you to resolution, then you you are obliged to think the unthinkable. And that was what really struck me as a leadership moment from him, was that he was having to contemplate the unthinkable prospect of evacuating four million people to goodness knows where.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah, and and what it also brings to mind, and I know we'll get there when we talk about your your phases and that, but uh, you got to look at all the options, right?

SPEAKER_04 9:41

Yeah, that's your job. That is your responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

It's your responsibility. So, you know, that that was the extreme option, but you do have to consider the extreme option in in a crisis because you're not sure, you know, you're gonna do your best to manage through it as a leader, but just that just saying my mind's not gonna go there because you know, I I I don't want to go there doesn't mean you shouldn't be paying thinking for it, right? So I know we'll get there, but you know, I just it made me think like, wow, four million people, and to your point, like, where are they gonna go? You know, you have to you have to be thinking about that because that's that's that's a real like plan. You gotta plan that, right? Especially for those that are gonna resist, you know how this goes. People resist, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:27

Of course, yeah.

Resilience Built Before The Shock

SPEAKER_01 10:28

So there's a lot that goes into it. So then I want to ask you, you know, so this this word resilience. I love this word resilience. Why do you believe resilience has to be built uh while before a crisis, right? And and why is that the leader's responsibility, meaning not something that they can delegate?

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Well, I I literally have that word in the title of my of my job uh here in the city of Cape Town, being the executive director of future planning and resilience. So um, you know, my you know, my broad definition of resilience is uh the ability uh for an organization, let's talk about organizations here, uh, to be able to uh adapt uh and survive and ultimately thrive, no matter what shock event or crisis is thrown at that organization. I think crisis accentuates vulnerabilities. So that those areas where you are weaker and hence have less adaptability are likely to be more pronounced during a crisis. And so resilience, and maybe a nicer way to talk about it in this context of this discussion is really building strength. You know, we need to attend to those things that we can in what we call peacetime, Peter and I in our book, because you have the time uh in order to do it, to build that strength, to build that resilience, because you do not want those to be accentuated during crisis. But more importantly, you want to be able to pivot off that so that certain attributes of your organization uh actually become that which you can adapt and grow off as you navigate uh the crisis. With regards to it being a leader's responsibility, I would say that resilience is a strategic decision. We want to build an organization that is resilient, that is strong. And strategy, in my mind, is very much in the domain of a leader. And hence I would say uh that's why I would put it in the leader's responsibility. Of course, components can be uh delegated, leaders will always do that. But overall responsibility for building strength, that sounds like a leader's job.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

100%. It actually reminds me um uh last year I spent a lot of time uh with some of the government uh executives here, and they they had done in Austin, they had done a um sort of emergency plan. And Gareth, this is back to your point, and I really loved your point, which is about the plan, right? The plan in peacetime, uh, where they do simulation of the back of the emergency vehicle. So typically what happens is you know, there's there's there's times where you have this critical where maybe there's 20 or 30 people that are hurt, and now all of a sudden you've got to work in the back of that vehicle, right? And you don't know where everything is because you know you don't get to do that that real emergency urgent stuff like that, maybe treating one person at a time, right? So what they do is they do the simulation where they get to know, well, that's where the oxygen is, this is where the, you know, so that they're working faster, they're working quicker, uh, and that saves lives. Every second in that kind of disaster saves lives. So to your point, Gareth, that is so spot on. Uh, because the planning to be prepared during the crisis, it's like you got to know the battlefield. You gotta you have to plan for it, right? You're not gonna send men to war who can't shoot the gun or you know who who don't have the physical capability to fight. You know, uh, not that I want to talk about war because that's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 14:31

Can I just jump in there, Tracy? Because the the I think you've just surfaced one of the really critical distinctions that we make early on in the book uh between uh just what you've described now, which is where you have people who have a particular technically defined job to do when a particular kind of emergency, like a fire or a major accident or a building collapsing. There are people who've trained and trained and trained and are expected to be first responders uh in those situations. A leader, someone who's a CEO or the general manager of a large plant or whatever, they do not, they're not expected to have those particular skills. They should have some of those people to hand. But their particular training is uh is of a completely different order because it's preparing them to be, as Gareth says, adaptive in order to be resilient, adaptive when chaos erupts and your emergency teams rush out, and hopefully they do know the inside of the emergency vehicle well enough, etc. But that's not the leader's place. The leader's place is at a more strategic um level and viewpoint.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yes, for sure. But they are thinking about all those things forward thinking, which is why they're calmer in the crises. Because you don't, you know, ideally, because you don't be chasing the leader into the fire when he's freaking out. You know, I mean, I just think about that, you know, no one's gonna follow him, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

No, no, no, good point.

Excellence, Uncertainty, Declare The Crisis

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Uh, one other thing that you talk about too, though, that really intrigued me uh was this attitude of excellence. Right? It's something we all strive for. Uh hard, hard to get there. But in this case, what does excellence in crisis leadership actually look like?

SPEAKER_04 16:25

What I think we're talking about with excellence here is a personal commitment. And I you could think of it as a lifelong commitment by your leader to excellence in what they do. And we hope we we wrote this book, assuming that the leader who's reading it actually wants to be a leader, isn't somebody who's risen there by mistake and is rather dreading leading, but someone who actually most of their life have found themselves in leadership positions of one sort or another in a sports team, in their classroom, and then in an organization. And so the excellence we're talking about is that thing that motivates the best leaders because they're not satisfied unless they felt they have really led well and they welcome the challenges that leadership throws up, including, we hope, major crises. It's a very personal challenge. It's like a gauntlet being thrown down by the universe saying, okay, you want to lead? Well, lead through this. And the and the best leaders roll up their sleeves, they may feel anxious, they may, they may actually be at moments quite really quite scared. I mean, as Gareth was saying, you know, if your city is about to run out of water, you're right to be scared. But as a leader, you're also uh expected to say, okay, but the buck stops with me and my team. Let's get busy.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

Peter, I don't think I can add much to what you've said. I think we have so many mediocre leaders in the world today that the emphasis on excellence, yeah, I think is very, very important in the context of our book. We're literally talking here about making sure that organizations are able to survive in a crisis. Uh, nothing short of excellence is called upon, and hence we need to call it out as the authors of uh our book.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Now, you know, you write about the uncertainty and the confusion are are not byproducts of a crisis, but rather they're the hallmark. And I really loved that distinction. How should leaders reframe their mindset when everything feels unpredictable?

SPEAKER_04 18:43

For me, it hinges around their willingness to um to embrace, allow um uncertainty and simply not knowing what is the right thing to do. You know how how in both the private and the public sector, if you want to rise through the ranks, if you want to achieve and be noted as someone who is really good, then you're expected to get things right, and there are hurdles that you can see ahead of you, and you're expected to jump through them with ease, et cetera. Whereas in a crisis, you have no clue what's going to be thrown at you next. And that demands a different kind of confidence, self-confidence, where it says, I'm I'm probably gonna get this wrong, but it is my job to make my best effort, consult, pull together the best I can, and we may have to change our minds again tomorrow. So big decision today, and then we discover fresh information, do it differently tomorrow, and so on. So uh that's a sort of a that's a mindset that is not normally asked for of executives in organizations. It's much more linear.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Yeah, yeah. But I really appreciate that really what you're talking about there is uh I'm gonna go with the information I have today because I have to, I have to in this, you know, in this situation. If more information becomes available tomorrow, or if we find we have to pivot tomorrow, we're gonna do that, but we're gonna keep moving forward, is what I'm hearing, right? So they're taking the risk on knowing they may they may not have all the information that they need. But Gareth, to your point, mediocracy doesn't allow for that. You know, mediocracy means I'm just gonna sit back and I'm gonna see what happens, right? Whereas uh I think the expectation of a leader is no, you're not gonna sit back and see what happens. You you you you're going to take what you have and you're gonna keep moving forward because you've got to get everybody through this crisis. You've got to manage through the crises. Don't have the crises manage you.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

And I would say here that one of the most important things that we called on leaders to do, we actually talk about it in what we call phase two of the book, is to declare the crisis and own it. Because that's really the antidote to that leader that you were speaking about, who is spinning their wheels, not wanting to do anything. It's a big moment for a leader to say this is a crisis, accepting that there's a small chance they may be wrong and they would lose faith by doing it, but it requires bravery. This is a crisis. I may not know everything I need to know as of now, but we are going to do something together. Follow me on this journey, and we will update the information and the scenarios as we go along. That is very, very important for a leader to say, I am the person who's going to run this crisis.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Yeah. And I do want to get into those four phases because I think this is so valuable for every uh everyone in our audience to really. Just have them in a very, you know, quick uh just walk through that. But we before I get there, you you talk about this, uh you outlined these, you know, seven signs that an organization is entering crisis, right? Uh could you just walk us through just sort of a couple of those that leaders often miss?

SPEAKER_04 22:18

The ones that I think are most that are slightly left of center. You wouldn't normally uh think of these, are that the number of decisions you're having to make as a leader. I mean, a leader spends all day, every day making decisions. That's that's their job. But the you can you can feel the number ratcheting up, and you're starting to not be able to get to all the decisions you know you're supposed to make. And that's a sign to you that there's something happening to normal. Normal is teaching on the edge. Um, and and that there's to go back to what we were saying just now, there's also a much greater level of uncertainty. You actually don't know how to take a decision, and then the next decision is the same because there are too many variables and they're moving too quickly. So when you get that feeling that um I thought I was quite good at taking decisions, but I'm struggling, that's a really good sign that that normal is is shifting and maybe evaporating.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

There is uh you you have you lack some confidence, you know. It's it's fine for leaders to be vulnerable. And uh, you know, you look around you and you're like, this isn't this isn't what I have around me at this point in time, uh, is not the regular way of doing business. So there's uh there's a sense of vulnerability that you are feeling at this point in time, and it's worth trying to be curious about why that is the case. And I mean that that might be a good segue into phase one of uh of our book, if you don't mind me sort of just jumping there, because we in our we argue, Peter and I, that there are six capabilities that every leader should build during peacetime. And uh those are supply chain adaptability, the uh IST strength of your organization, that's your information technology, your data systems as well, how quickly is your data movable? Can you connect it with other streams of data? Is very, very important. Project execution abilities. Do you have protocols, people around you who, irrespective of what the challenge is, can be pointed at a particular area to turn strategy into projects for execution, very, very important. Communication protocols, are these in place? Are you able to segment the market and how you're going to communicate in different ways? And the last things is collaboration and partnership. Because if the leader, to sort of start, end where I started, the point is sitting around and going, this feels different, they need to be able to go to a place where they have already built capabilities and say, whatever this challenge is, I'm going to leverage off of these capabilities now to build my crisis response. That's phase one of uh how to become good at leading in crisis.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

So if I I just rattled through the first two, um, we've been and we've talked a bit about both of them indirectly. So the first two phases are peacetime, if you like, uh, when there isn't a crisis, um, which is the hardest in a way, because that's when you've got so many other things you'd rather do than prepare for a crisis. I mean, who would? Um, but in our in our view, that is priceless, priceless time because there are things you can build there, like trust, for example, and culture in your organization, the culture of trust and easy communication between levels and so on. You can't build that in the middle of a crisis. If it's there, fantastic. If it's not there, then you are handicapped. Um, so it's those subtle things like that that um are best done in peacetime. Then the second phase is what we call when the wave begins to break. And this is really what Gareth was talking about just now, where you're you're picking up signals from the outside world, maybe from your suppliers, from your customers that they're really worried about something, you're staffed. And uh that's the point where you have to um first of all put out your antennae as far as possible and gather relevant data fast to find out is this a thing? Uh and uh if it is, you need to set some people to working out what are the what are the likely impacts on our organization of this thing, insofar as we can see what it is. Because as we've been talking about, major crises constantly change and morph. But to your best estimate, you've got to be able to say, okay, because otherwise, what are you working to? When you gather your team and you say, okay, there's a crisis, uh, we have to um preserve the integrity of this organization and its basic functions as far as possible, during whatever this is going to be. Um, you can't do that unless you know what the risks are, what are the what's coming at you and what it what damage it could do. So there's that. And then uh I'll uh the the third one, the one I'll end on here for this stage, is the critical thing of picking your crisis management team. Because if you're the CEO of any organization, you will have your regular executive group that work with you on a weekly basis. Some of those people you absolutely would want to have with you in your crisis management team, but there will possibly be other people outside that group who you know are exactly the kind of person, either because of their skills or their temperament, who you want in your crisis management team. And there may be one or two in your regular team who you think they're not gonna be my biggest help. Or I really want them managing the everyday business in as much as they can. So I don't want them trying to split their efforts. Me and my team, my crisis management team, we're gonna be focusing on a daily basis, talking to each other all the time to stay on top of this crisis. So picking that team uh is a real success factor.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Then we have phase three, which is the turbulence. Um, and as you say, there are four phases. So phase three is I'll just pick out a few things here that are important. So the one is to attend closely to data and to adapt, because at this point, uh the crisis is changing uh direction. Uh, you have your data in place and you need to be performance managing and looking for whether your strategy is in fact working, whether you need to make adaptations against the data. Then one of the most important points Peter and I raise in the book is around the need to expect crises within the crisis. So, so often what hits the organization, the primary crisis, is not necessarily the crisis that is going to cripple the organization. So, you know, think here, for example, of COVID. COVID manifested as a public health crisis, and everyone responded to. But organizations felt it through its secondary crisis effects. They felt it through cash flow problems, for example, or the unavailability of their own team members due to the impacts of non-pharmaceutical interventions. And so constantly look out for the crises within the crisis. You might be excellent at keeping your eye on the main one, but actually you're going to get crippled by the secondary ones. And then communicate in a way that builds trust. You have your stakeholders, could even include your competitors, sometimes surviving together is very, very important in a crisis. But Peter and I write extensively about methods around communication during this stage because people want to know what is happening. We learned this in Cape Town through the drought. People became more water literate. And so stakeholders wanted to understand how are we doing and when will it end? That's a crucial question. Moving quickly on to the last phase, that's really about recovery and learning. Peter and I wrote this book because we learned so much about the two crises, which are the backdrop to this book. And I won't focus on everything here other than to say it's important for the leader to also declare that the crisis is over. And I used previously an example from COVID where it just seemed to drag on. It created major anxiety. But the leader needs to say it is over. And that is a psychologically important moment for your crisis team who might have been toiling for months. In some cases of crises, I've been involved in more than a year, so that they know that they can breathe and that they can be recovering and that there can be space for learning as well. And importantly, also appreciation, saying thank you to people who gave everything to be with you while you navigated to safety.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

And you know, my gosh, you just touched on something. And I it's I love that crisis within the crisis. I really loved that as part of your phase three. Uh, you know, I think back to COVID, one of the things that we dealt with that I'm around the world was uh single people stuck at home who then had mental well-being and mental health issues because they were comp, you know, we're social creatures, right? We're like lions, you know, we've got to be around everybody, you know, and so we're stuck at home and we're, you know, we're in our little boxes and people freaked out. I mean, people were not responding well to that over a period of time. Because at first you you're fine with it, right? But then, you know, over a period of time, that depression starts to set in, the mental state. So that was something just with it, just Gareth's your point of the crisis and the crisis. Who would have expected that as an example, right? You know, uh, second thing is small business. You know, uh the companies, you know, some of the larger business can sustain through. They might have had liquid assets and the gut the capital to sustain. Small businesses went out of business. Some of them have been in business 30 years. You know, what do you do? Uh when those, you know, small business is a major engine uh for the whole world, right? There's a lot of small business that drives our our economy. Um, and so you know, putting in the steps to support those small businesses, uh, you know, which you know, you you want to because that is a livelihood, majority of your livelihood in many of these communities, right?

SPEAKER_04 33:33

So if I could you just take that very example you've just surfaced, which I think is an excellent one, Tracy Ann, of the impact on small businesses. So if in my dream world, every national government uh that, as we all did, went through COVID, would take a pause and perhaps with some professional help, just think back through what were these crises within a crisis that we could have thought that were that we could have foreseen, even if it was just a few days ahead of when we did. Because that help for small businesses, what matters is timing. It's not necessarily the amount of money, um, it's the fact that you get a message out to them quickly. We're not going to let you go down if we can possibly help it. So hang in there. Whereas I think a lot of small businesses around the world, I was talking to leaders in many countries during COVID, and um a lot of small businesses were simply left waiting to find out, are we on government's radar? So actually, if if every government read our book, if every government read our book, the world would be a better place. Because they would realize that these are rational likelihoods that big impact, whether it's a weather event or a um a virus, whatever, they are going to have fairly expectable disruptive effects on commerce and finance and, as you say, mental health. So now we've been through COVID, there's a lot of latent wisdom, but it's kind of just been allowed to sort of float away and get lost in memory, I think.

Decide To Get Good At Crises

SPEAKER_01 35:19

But but Peter, that's why I feel so compelled to have you and Gareth uh on the podcast today, because I really do believe in the value system, which is that leaders are there to lead through crises, right? And and and that is our responsibility. We have accountability to our our companies, our communities to do that, right? And and we need to be in a position where we are prepared to do that. So the book to me gives you the template to say, hey, like here, here's what you need to do. And just the advice you gave. Did anybody go back after COVID and say, what did we learn? Therefore, what should we put in from an infrastructure perspective so this doesn't happen again? You know, just it it will a crisis will happen, but the lessons you learn need to be new lessons, not lessons that you should have already learned and already put in the the correct, you know, to two points apply trade, whether it's commercial, all those things, right? Uh as well as the human element, okay, because we're always dealing with that. Uh if somebody uh in our audience, you know, want to wanted to say, okay, uh Gareth and Peter, what's my first step? You know, give me what do I need to do? I want to become this leader that can lead through crises. What do I need to do? Read the book. I'm gonna say, read the book. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 36:44

Read the book, watch the movie. Yep. Uh now, I I I tell you what, I thought it's slightly and perhaps an unusual way to answer the question, but for me, the the one thing I would want every leader who's listening to this to do is to decide that they are going to be excellent at leading in crisis. That's because without that, you're it's somewhere down your agenda and you can put it off and put it off, and peacetime is wasted. If you've decided that you are going to be excellent, rather like people go and do MBAs and executive MBAs and they get further degrees and so on, because they've decided I want to be really good at this thing. Well, we're saying nothing is more worth being good at than being really good at leading your organization, your team, your people through a crisis.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

I would say you start, you decide, I'm going to be good at this, uh, because that's the key challenge. In the first two pages of our book, I'm going to be good at crisis. It is a deliberate choice to be good at this. And it is not necessarily high on everything that our current leadership organizations, NGOs, and governments are thinking about. Um, but because Peter and I think that more crises are on the horizon, because we want our organizations to survive and thrive in that context and to provide the value that they do, this now becomes a critical component of a leader's role. But it starts with the choice to be good at it, and we think that our book is an excellent start.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

There's no downside, meaning if you can lead through a crisis, every day becomes every day that without a crisis becomes a really great day. Because you become really good at what you do, okay?

SPEAKER_04 38:42

You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

You build a leader muscle, right?

SPEAKER_04 38:48

Yeah, a crisis. I mean, we say this in a in a different way as well. That the um every, you know, those six capabilities that Gareth um listed. Um if you if you build strength in each of those, you've got a very robust organization, peacetime or crisis. Uh so you can as it you cannot lose by seeing crisis. But there's something psychological, I think, about you just would rather not look. I mean, I say you, a lot of people would rather not look over in that direction because they're afraid they might not be up to it or they might fail and so on. Well, this is a question for you as a leader. If you take yourself seriously as a leader, have a go at looking at it and saying, what if it was really, really dark, dangerous, and scary? Who else is going to walk into it if not me? I'm the I'm the big thing around here. That's what I wanted to do. That's how I've got to this place.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

With that, uh, it's just been fantastic to have both of you on the show. Uh, is there any last advice that you would like to give our audience?

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Embrace it. It's it's coming anyway, whatever it is. Uh, and if you're alive, you're in it.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

Be excellent. Strive for excellence. It's uh it's important, uh, and leaders need to develop. And this is an area that I think we can all develop in even more.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

So uh thank you for being with us today. Um, I hope that you enjoyed uh Peter and Gareth's discussion around crises as much as I did. And as always, thank you for joining us on Leadership Moments. Uh, if today's conversation resonated with you, please share the episode with other leaders. Uh, we're out on YouTube as well as all of the different social platforms uh about leaders navigating through turbulent times uh and really becoming mastery at uh through that through that crises. So until next time, keep leading with courage and clarity. Thanks again, Peter and Gareth. If you enjoyed the show, please go to LeadershipMoments Podcast.com to subscribe to the podcast or on your favorite player, as well as follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

You can also send us a message on what you like and don't like, or what guests you want us to have on the show. So until next time, this is Stacy Castor, and what does it challenge you won't change you.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

And I'm Tracy M. Palmer. Be the change you wish to see in the world.