Learning from the Current Crisis

Part 1 in a series on crisis decision-making

I had written a solo article to share with you about crisis decision-making today, but I found myself editing and rewriting it over and over again. I would expand an entire thought, throw a bunch out, and then start over again. Sometimes writing works that way—you can’t figure out why it’s not working for you even if you thought it had the right trajectory at the beginning.

I finally realized why. We are in times of significant crisis. It felt disingenuous to not directly reference our current ones while trying to walk through objective principles for leaders.

So, we can talk about crisis in general, and we will. But first, let's talk about our current crisis.

If you get the sense that you are living in fairly unequaled times of crisis, you are not alone. Both Michelle Goldberg and David French have itemized how many of the crises of the last 18 months remind us of what would have been the single greatest crisis of any other year. The crises of 2020-2021, do have American parallels:

• the 1876 election dispute

• the 1918 pandemic

• the 1929 stock market crash

• the 1968 unrest over racial injustice

• the 1968 murder rate increase

• the 1974 impeachment

• the 1975 lost war and embarrassing evacuation

You could add other fateful history moments to this list, but the point is that these are times of intense crisis. 

As a guest in August 2021 on this episode of the Vibrant Pastors Podcast, I shared about this particularly taxing season for pastors and church leaders. It has been a season of one challenge after another as church leaders. In fact, I suggested that perhaps this has been the most challenging year for church leaders in a hundred years or more. No wonder there are so many reports of pastors leaving their roles.

If you're not having a bit of an existential crisis in this season, you may not be paying attention.

So, what are we learning in the current age of crisis? I have a few key principles I'm not sure I grasped as well in 2019 (ah yes, simpler times, they were, in 2019):

Crisis Multiplication, Not Addition

It's true whether you're the President of the United States, the superintendent of a school, or a pastor of a church:

Crises don't add; they multiply.

A kind of exponential effect happens as crises build on each other. People tire of one crisis by itself. But as they compound upon one another patience wears even thinner. Eventually, it feels like trying to dig yourself up out of a hole. Just as “one does not merely walk into Mordor,” one does not merely add one crisis onto another, you have to multiply them.

I sat with eight pastors from a variety of strong, sizable congregations in the fall of 2020. Every one said they were facing compounding crises at once, and a few wondered if their church would even make it through.

Distrust of Power is Contagious

A virus may be contagious, but a distrust of power is also. While some leaders have been keen in 2020-2021 on stoking distrust in other domains, they have failed to realize that such distrust often turns back upon them later. Followers trained to distrust get pretty darn good at being distrustful.

When people distrust those in power in one domain of their lives, they begin to distrust those in power in other domains, as well. Many have sensed unexpected energies of distrust in their organization or church, and cannot figure out what has changed. Perhaps not much in their org did change. The surrounding culture changed enough to bleed over.

Misinformation is a Persistent Challenge

While misinformation is a buzzword of the day, in reality, every leader in all times deals with misinformation. It can come from careless rumors that the uninformed spread, random conjecture from those who entertain themselves through idle speculation, and intentional slander from overt enemies.

In any case, clear, consistent communication for a long time is the only weapon one can use against misinformation. One has to become comfortable with some percentage of those you aim to influence becoming led astray by misinformation. You cannot let it distract you from consistent, faithful clarity.

In watching officials navigate 2020-2021, I have observed their exasperation with misinformation. It takes grit to stay the course and faithfully communicate in such times, but it is a win to just keep communicating. Misinformation changes constantly, but the consistency of clear messages eventually wins.

Multiple Crises Reveal Interconnected Problems

Crisis reveals our problems are not only worse than thought, they are also more complicated. There is no one silver bullet for a crisis. But when more than one crisis comes your way, you begin to realize that all the problems knot together in a kind of rat-king of challenges.

It takes a holistic view of the people you serve to begin to see how each individual challenge's solution might not work on its own, without other solutions being offered simultaneously. One-track minds fail in a crisis, and they fail even harder when more than one crisis emerges.

This era exposed, for instance, how race is a factor not just in policing, but also in vaccination. Likewise, it showed that wages were low enough in some corners it didn’t take much to make not working feel all that different than working, financially. Problems in religion affected politics, and vice-versa. Our problems are a web, not a line.

Multiple Crises Reveal Interconnected Strengths

As we are finding in our economy and workforce, even the things we do best are often so interconnected that when you change one small component, an entire distribution or production process is interrupted, and that has a wide-ranging impact. Because we have tight pipelines and increased efficiency to maximize profits, our strengths are more fragile than anticipated.

Our strengths are so interconnected that they do not function well when even one of them is off the table. They work as a unit and are not independent of one another. When we need our strengths most they sometimes are a no-show and exacerbate the crisis. The US perfected global supply chains to feed its massive consumerism. But just a few blows of pandemic winds and the house of cards came tumbling down—and we still haven’t rebuilt it.

So, what are you learning about crisis leadership during the crises of our age? I'd love to discuss it here:

I'll be back next week to go deeper into crisis-leadership, with a specific diagram to offer on decision-making But for now, let's focus on what we've learned from the best teacher: experience. One silver lining of the last 18 months has been all the crisis experiences we've been exposed to and educated by.