Time Management In Crisis

Don’t think what I used to: “After the opera gala is over, then I’ll have time to do the strategic, important things.” Or… “Once the orchestra’s season brochure goes to print, then things will settle down enough to work on our patron retention strategy.” What I learned is that doing the urgent things \*does not\* free up your time later. 🛑 It's just the opposite: making sure you prioritize some of the important, strategic things is what in turn will free you up. This is especially true in times of crisis, and even just during times of busyness where it all feels like a lot. Keeping your day full with putting out fires 🔥 means you don't have to face the bigger, harder questions. Sometimes it's "easier" to do all the tasks that fill your day, instead of facing the fact that there are some big issues that need your leadership. And leadership done well is often incredibly hard work. 💪 It's not a question of what won't get done; it's a question of how long is filling your day with All. The. Things. and not leading strategy going to work for your organization? ➡️ Saying next year/season will be better without doing the strategic work to get there now is like saying you made a New Year's Resolution to lose 100 lbs but you're not changing anything about your diet or lifestyle. What’s one big strategic element that you’ve been putting off spending time on? Start with that. Carve out a few hours for some deep thinking, flow state work to get it going. Your organization will benefit more than you ever knew. 🔔 Follow for more strategies and insights to fill your seats and keep audiences coming back. #opera #orchestra #leadership

Sam Altman and Mr. Beast made the same mistake last week. Reeling from Google's latest AI model, Sam Altman declared "Code Red" at OpenAI—a company where employees already call work-life balance "non-existent." Meanwhile, Mr. Beast apologized for flopped videos and vowed "ultra grind mode" for 2026. He already lives in a studio apartment inside his office to avoid the commute. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀: 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗴𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴. No reserve tank for emergencies means you're driving on empty with the next gas station 40 miles away. That's poor planning, not crisis management. 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀. If your team is maxed out and still falling behind, the issue isn't effort—it's direction. Cognitive science is clear: stress and cortisol don't unlock breakthrough thinking. They kill it. It’s okay to ask a lot of your employees, and in many situations, greater effort does lead to greater reward. Still, if you’re already running your teams ragged and falling further behind, it might be time to look for another solution. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱: 1. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺. It’s easy to say that teams should operate at 80-90% capacity to maintain reserves, but nearly impossible to do that in practice. Our work always finds a way to expand to fill the time we have for it. Instead, it’s okay to have teams working at 100%, but fill their plates with a mix of long and short-term goals. When times are tough, they can focus on the more urgent needs and put the longer-term goals aside as needed. 2. 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵-𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲. "Code Red" only works if it's rare and time-bound. If possible, communicate an end date for the crunch period and pre-schedule recovery time.  If it’s not possible to know the end date, try to make the goals of the grind period as concrete as possible. End-dates and concrete goals signal that the sprint is not the new normal. 3. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻���𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘇𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸. When leaders panic, they usually throw hours at the problem, set more ambitious goals, and call for all hands on deck. What they miss is an excellent opportunity to clear off lower-priority efforts and zombie work.  👩💻 I'm Mary Kate Stimmler, PhD, and I write about using social science to build great workplaces and careers. I’m a practitioner fellow at Stanford’s CASBS, researching intense work. Thanks to JP Elliott, PhD for sharing the Mr. Beast article 😊

The 2009 financial crisis wiped out trillions globally. Companies stopped investing in people. Unilever's CEO increased training spend by and made it non-negotiable. Everyone thought it was reckless. A decade later, they called it genius. When Paul Polman walked into Unilever in January 2009, the world was collapsing. Companies everywhere were cutting everything. Travel. Hiring. Training budgets disappeared first. Unilever wasn't immune. Revenue pressure was crushing. Investors wanted cuts. The board expected their new CEO to do what everyone else was doing: survive by slashing costs. Polman made a call that stunned them: training budgets would increase. And it wouldn't be optional. People thought he'd lost his mind. In the middle of a financial meltdown, he was spending more on people? But Polman understood something others didn't:  You don't rebuild a company after a crisis with people you neglected during it. When everyone else was treating employees as costs to manage, he treated them as the reason the company would survive. Here's what that decision proved: 👉 Capability building isn't a reward for good times, it's preparation for hard ones. 👉 Cutting development during a crisis guarantees you're weak when recovery comes. 👉 People don't give their best when they feel expendable. 👉 Readiness is a strategic choice, not a budget line. During his decade as CEO, Unilever didn't just survive; it thrived. Strong returns. Deep leadership bench. When recovery came, they had the only workforce ready to scale. Crises reveal what leaders truly believe about people. Polman chose to invest in readiness when it mattered most. PS: If your organization faced a crisis tomorrow, would you cut training or protect it?

They spent three weeks perfecting the statement. By then, no one cared what they had to say. The crisis had already been defined. The narrative had hardened. And their perfectly crafted response landed like a whisper in an empty room. I see this pattern constantly: Leaders waiting for perfect clarity before they speak. Teams refining messages until every word is bulletproof. Organizations paralyzed by the fear of saying the wrong thing. And while they wait, someone else fills the silence. Here's the hard truth: Perfect, delivered late, loses to good enough, delivered now. In crisis, timing matters more than polish. A decent response in the first three hours beats a flawless one three days later. Waiting for perfect clarity is waiting forever. You'll never have all the information. You'll never eliminate all risk. You'll never craft the statement that pleases everyone. If you're waiting for that, you're not managing a crisis. You're avoiding one. Action creates options. Hesitation eliminates them. When you move—even imperfectly—you shape the conversation. When you wait, the conversation shapes you. The best crisis responders I know aren't perfectionists. They're decision-makers. They assess quickly. They move decisively. They adjust as they go. Because they understand something most people don't: Progress beats perfection. Every time. Follow for weekly insights on decision-making, timing, and action.

We're always told to visualize our success. But here's why it's also important to imagine failure. It's called Crisis Mapping. Hustle culture will encourage you to: → Quit your job → Go big or going home  → Burn the boats on the beach → Leverage out beyond the point of return The Planning Fallacy is a cognitive bias.  People are famously bad at judging how long something will take. But it's often not due to their abilities,  but things out of their control. When you hope for the best and plan for the worst,  you will not only set more realistic timelines,  but get to your outcome faster,  and with less stress. Nobody is exempt from → A lawsuit  → A cyberattack  → A health crisis  → Market changes  → Regulatory changes  → Supply chain issues  → An economic downturn  → Burnout or loss of motivation  → Funding environment changes BUT, you can have contingency plans in place for all of them.  ↳ Hope for the best but plan for the worst. 1. List all potential crises or emergencies your business or project could face.  2. Rank the risks based on their likelihood and potential impact.  3. Identify all key stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, etc.)  and understand how each would be affected during a crisis.  4. Conduct simulations for different crisis scenarios to test plans for weaknesses  5. Regularly review and update your plans to account for new risks P.S. Have you had a crisis map that saved you? (in biz or life)

🌊 When the Pressure Hits, Managing Crisis in Offshore Projects Interdependencies is an ART!🎨⚓ Offshore works happen in a hyper-connected web of tight spatial and schedule dependencies. Picture that you are managing a complex brownfield project and a sudden Shamal wind hits, a critical support vessel suffers a sudden mechanical breakdown, and an installation stalls at the jacket face. Instantly, a domino effect triggers. Topside crews are blocked, SIMOPS schedules shatter, and massive day rates tick away in a highly congested field. In offshore projects, an offshore crisis is never isolated but it tests your entire ecosystem. When the pressure rises, traditional silos between marine, subsea, and platform teams must instantly dissolve into a unified command. A breakdown delay must be vetted in real-time for its impact on topsides. No team can operate in a vacuum. Static contingency plans fail the moment assets break down or weather turns. Survival relies on live SIMOPS re-planning, shifting from rigid schedules to agile, risk-mapped models. If a critical path activity stalls, the team must immediately pivot, identifying side tasks that can be safely accelerated to protect the overall schedule. This agility requires championing culture over contractual blame. The marine environment doesn't care about interface boundaries between operators and installation contractors. Cultivating a "One Team, One Horizon" mindset means solving the safety and technical crisis first; auditing the change orders later. Finally, protect psychological safety. In a tight, brownfield crisis, the most valuable data comes from the vessel deck or platform floor. If crews fear reprisal for reporting clearance issues or equipment failures, leadership is flying blind. Clear the corporate noise, protect your offshore team from onshore panic, and let them focus on safe, precise execution. Managing offshore interdependencies isn’t about flawless execution—it’s about building a project architecture resilient enough to absorb the shock, re-route the critical path, and protect asset integrity without missing a beat. #OffshoreEngineering #CrisisManagement #ProjectManagement #SIMOPS #EnergyIndustry #OilAndGas #MarineOperations #OffshorePlatforms #Leadership #RiskManagement #MiddleEastEnergy

In a crisis, the first 24 hours rarely feel like 24 hours. It feels like five minutes. After decades of leading businesses through crises, from product issues to regulatory issues, here’s the simple truth: Minutes matter. Silence is costly. Clarity is everything. In the first 24 hours of a business crisis, here’s what you should do: 👉 Build the war room immediately: You need the people who know the facts and execute quickly. And for heaven’s sake, make sure you have at least one tough thinker in the room that’s willing to push back and say the uncomfortable truths. 👉 Know exactly what requires CEO engagement and what doesn’t: Pulling the CEO in too early can escalate the perceived severity; pulling them in too late can undermine credibility and cost you time. 👉 Scenario-map all paths: Fully outline the best case, worst case, and most likely scenarios, detailing the impacts of each so you’re well-prepared for any outcome. Some will tell you not to worry about the worst case. Worry about it. Know it. Map it all. 👉 Control the narrative before it controls you: Companies that get front-footed, even with imperfect information, recover faster. That is fact and real-world scenarios. Not opinion. If you don’t engage quickly, people will make up their own story. For those who’ve sat in a crisis war room: what’s the most overlooked step in those first critical hours? What would you do differently if you had a do-over? #CrisisManagement #ReputationManagement #BrandReputation #CEOs #BusinessStrategy

𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐆𝐨’𝐬 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐈𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐅𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 — 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐚 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 & 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐞 In the first week of December 2025, India witnessed one of the most disruptive aviation crises in recent memory: IndiGo, India’s largest airline, cancelled a large number of flights, stranding passengers across major metros. But beneath the headlines was a deeper lesson for HR leaders and business strategists: this wasn’t just an operational glitch — it was a failure of workforce planning, risk anticipation, and strategic people management. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝? • India’s aviation regulator, the DGCA, rolled out new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) norms effective November 1, 2025 — increasing weekly rest periods for pilots from 36 to 48 hours, redefining night duty windows, and drastically reducing allowable night landings per pilot. • These rules were introduced with months of notice to all carriers as safety-critical regulatory changes. • IndiGo failed to scale its pilot workforce and rosters to match these rules, resulting in a severe pilot shortfall, cascading crew scheduling collapses, and subsequent mass flight cancellations. • The DGCA had to grant temporary exemptions on some rules, deploy oversight teams, and closely monitor operational recovery. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗥 & 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀: IndiGo’s crisis is more than an aviation case — it’s a management case study on how people strategy can make or break business performance: 1. HR Planning Must Be as Strategic as Capacity Planning Workforce planning isn’t a support task — it’s core to operational resilience. IndiGo’s misjudgment of crew needs under new rules triggered ripple effects across the nation’s travel ecosystem. 2. Buffers Beat Last-Minute Firefighting Lean manpower policies might reduce short-term costs, but lack of workforce buffers created systemic fragility. When change hit — there was no slack to absorb shocks. 3. Regulatory Compliance Is Strategic, Not Bureaucratic Regulations impact product, operations, and people. Treat compliance as a business driver, not a checkbox. Ignoring its strategic implications amplifies risk. 4. Employees Are Strategic Assets — Not Just Numbers When people are stretched beyond limits, systems fail — publicly and painfully. 5. Communication & Crisis Leadership Defines Culture In a service industry, brand trust evaporates instantly when systems fail. Transparent, human-centred leadership during disruptions is non-negotiable. As HR professionals, we often talk about metrics, KPIs, attrition, talent acquisition — but IndiGo underscores this truth: HR isn’t a support function; it’s the runway on which business performance takes off. When planning fails, it’s not just flights that are delayed — reputation, customer trust, employee morale, and shareholder value take off without you. #indigo #HR #leadership #workplaceculture #aviationcrisis

5 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 = ₹10 𝐋𝐚𝐤𝐡𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 When a sudden outage threatened critical telecom operations, we acted fast.  Here's how we turned a potential disaster into a recovery success story with zero client churn.  𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐬         • Incident: Partial network outage during a peak billing cycle         • Impact: Recharge failures, call drops, and blocked customer logins         • Estimated Loss: ₹2L per minute; 5 minutes = ₹10L revenue risk  𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧 1. 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦 (𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 3 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬) • Cross-functional team: Network Ops, Application Support, DevOps, and Client SPOCs • Slack and MS Teams channels went live instantly for real-time updates 2. 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 • DNS rerouted to secondary cloud-hosted instance 3. 𝐈𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐥 • Immediate rollback of a faulty patch from an external vendor.Triggered service-level monitoring to confirm data integrity 4. 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 5 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬) • Proactive updates sent to key clients and stakeholders • Shared ETA for restoration and offered visibility into issue logs 5. 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 • Issued a full RCA (Root Cause Analysis) within 24 hours • Released a hotfix for vendor patch • Rolled out auto-healing scripts to reduce future MTTR by 40% 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭 • Full service restored in under 5 minutes • ₹10L revenue preserved • 0 clients churned • +15 NPS boost due to transparency and speed follow Shraddha Sahu for more insights