In every sport, a team’s best players want the ball when the game is on the line and nothing but an amazing performance will help their team win the game. Regardless of the potential cost to them personally, the risk of failure and the pressure of the moment, they take charge during tough situations.
In your business, you likely have staff members built the same way. These are typically the folks on your team who step up in tough situations, probably for the same reason. It’s how they’re wired.
How’d they get wired that way?
I haven’t ever explicitly asked someone what makes them “want the ball late in the fourth quarter” but I suspect they would answer one of two ways:
1) In the early / formative years of their career, they had responsibility thrust upon them by virtue of the work laid in front of them. As a result, they’re become accustomed to tough situations.
In this case, it’s a matter of training and familiarity. Once these situations become normal, their confidence in handling them grows over time to the point where stepping up is simply part of what they do. They don’t see it as a big deal because being the one who deals with these situations is just part of who they are. One of the things that gives them this confidence is time spent in tough situations in the past. Be sure to include your up-and-comers to participate and observe so that they also gain this experience.
2) Leaders and peers have always shown confidence in their ability to perform under pressure, under deadline and in other tough situations.
This demonstration of confidence comes in several forms. It shows in team members asking not simply how they can help, but by taking on specific tasks that they’re confident your “crisis players” can trust them to handle. It shows in leadership asking if they can help (and if so, how) rather than yielding to the temptation to check for progress so frequently that it becomes an interruption. It shows in everyone asking questions that provoke the team to think a little differently about the problem, and to question and discuss every assumption.
How do you find more people like that?
Ask.
Prepare interview questions that provide your candidates with the opportunity to explain their experiences during crisis situations. When your team nominates someone for an opening at your company, discuss your “interview crisis” questions with the nominating employee. Your goal: to gather their viewpoint of candidate’s ability to handle crisis situations, and their observations of the candidate’s behavior under pressure.
Here are a few generic examples that will help you create better, more specific questions that are more appropriate for your business: Would you want to work with this person when trying to solve a problem that threatens the life of the company? Why? What about this person’s behavior under pressure impresses or concerns you? How do the peers of this person react to this person’s crisis behavior?
How do you help in tough situations?
Ask any crisis player you know what kind of help they need most when dealing with these situations. It may take them a while to mentally step back through the process. This should encourage you to plan on a discussion after the crisis abates. It’s not unusual to have these meetings so that we can, as we are famous for, make sure this never happens again.
Reacting to what happened so that it doesn’t reoccur is important, but what’s desperately needed is getting a lot better at prevention. Ask your crisis players what would have averted this situation. Ask them if they saw this coming. Ask them who else saw the oncoming problem. Ask them who listened to those who raised the alarm and who didn’t. For that matter, did ANYONE listen?
You’re not asking for names so you can have a witch hunt, but so that you can identify those who see things before others do. Some people have a sense about these things and ask questions or notice issues long before others. These folks need to know that management has their back when they think they see something.
One way you help your existing crisis players is by identifying players in the making and by giving all of them the resources and ear they need.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on Twitter, or email him at [email protected].