People good at crisis management got that way for a reason.
Think about that statement for a moment.
I’ve met a number of people that come through big when the chips are down. I’ve also seen a lot of those same people unable to manage an operation on a day-to-day basis. Crisis is where they operate best, and they continuously cycle in and out of crisis.
Take it from me. I was one of those people for many years. I saw it in co-workers while working a banking data center - the guy that managed to bring the system back from a crash always seemed to have the most system crashes while running the mainframe.
Ironically, these people are compensated well and viewed as key employees. When the company is in crisis and people are receiving layoff notices, the crisis managers are seen as indispensable. These are often the same people that others are whispering about during the layoff, saying “But Joe ran his department so well, never a problem, never a hiccup, while Sam’s department is the whole reason we’re in this mess”.
But, Sam can save the day.
As managers, it is our responsibility to identify solid performers and do our best to retain them. These are the people that aren’t scrambling around to make a shipment on the last day of the month, or pulling their hair out designing yet-another-forecast-system-to-replace-the-crappy-forecast-system-we-already-use.
Think carefully the next time you’re faced with a great crisis manager - he or she may be the root cause.
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