Spirituality and Crisis Management

In 1999, Elizabeth Denton and I wrote one of the very first books on spirituality in the workplace. Appropriately, it was entitled A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America: A Hard Look at Spirituality, Religion, and Values in the Workplace. [i] By means of both extensive interviews and national surveys, we showed that those organizations that not only espoused “spiritual values,” but “actually lived them” were experienced as substantially better places in which to work. As a consequence, their employees invested more effort on the companies' behalf, resulting in their greater profitability.

It cannot be emphasized enough that by spirituality it was not a case of having to practice a “company religion in order to ‘fit in.’” Rather, it was being able to “bring one’s entire being—soul—to the setting in which one spent the majority of one’s waking life.” The primary sentiment was that “Spirituality was the intense feeling of being connected to the entire universe and all living beings.”

Although at the time of the study, I had been working in the field of crisis management (CM) for nearly two decades, I had never made the link with spirituality. Indeed, it’s taken until now for me to even consider it. For what possibly could connect the two most seemingly disparate fields of human experience?

First of all, it’s important to note that spirituality is not only the feeling of “being connected with all things"—often, it’s also a state of peace and calmness. As such, it gives one the ability to persevere and thereby endure the most difficult of situations. In this sense, spirituality has an undeniable bearing on crisis management. It not only allows one to face up to the serious realities of major crises—and not just their possibilities—but to prepare actively for them. In short, spirituality is the animating force behind everything important that we do. It allows one to heal from the absolute worst.

To examine it further, consider the key activities that need to be accomplished before, during, and after major crises.

Before a Crisis

The primary tasks that need to be accomplished before a crisis occurs include the active consideration of multiple worst-case scenarios; the formation and training of crisis management teams, or CMTs; the design and deployment of early warning systems that can pick the inevitable early warning signals that not only precede, but announce the likely occurrence of virtually all crises; the establishment of appropriate systems that will reward people for attending to the signals; and comprehensive simulations that will test the absolute limits of the entire system.

If spirituality is the basic ability to accept that despite our best efforts, the worst can and will still occur, then once again it gives us the “’fortitude’ to do all that we can to prevent it.” It gives us “the basic strength to carry on.”

Worst-case scenarios involve the simultaneous or near occurrence of multiple crises for which an organization is not prepared—they will happen at the worst possible places and times; do the most damage; set off uncontrolled chain reactions of other crises for which one is equally unprepared; exploit the inherent weaknesses of the system as a whole; affect major stakeholders, especially innocent parties and the most vulnerable; and more.

Crisis management teams or CMTs are essential in planning and testing how the organization as a whole will respond to worst-case scenarios. Given that insiders cannot be fully trusted to consider the worst, outsiders need to be intimately involved as well in the creation of worst-case scenarios.

In particular, the CMT needs to consider how each of the various types of crises can and will happen to their organization. (In previous blogs, I’ve laid out the various types of crises.) That is, none of the types of crises should be taken literally and therefore as not applying to them. Instead, every organization needs to ask, “What is the form of every type that can happen to us?”

Consider, for example, the case of a major oil company. Since they were not in the consumers products’ business, except for tampering with their gas pumps, they explicitly excluded the possibility of product tampering—that is, until they were asked about the products that they carried in the convenience stores that were integral parts of their service stations. Only then did “the proverbial light come on” that they were indeed extremely vulnerable to product tampering.

CMTs need to have all of the major officers and functions of an organization represented. Thus, the CEO and COO (or Chief Operating Officer) need to be stalwart members. But since all crises involve legal and public relations, the heads of legal and corporate communications and/or PR need to be members as well. The heads of IT and security are also needed. They not only need to be involved in the formation of worst-case scenarios but how the organization will prepare and respond to them.

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This group needs to meet regularly to review the status of early warning signals. Namely, are things "heating up"? For one, what’s happening to other companies in one’s industry? What’s happening in general? Are they precursors of bad things that can happen to us?

Most of all, they need to ensure that the organization’s reward systems are in alignment with CM. In short, are the messengers of bad news “rewarded as they need to be, or in the worst cases, ‘killed”? In this regard, one of the worst instances is the coronavirus. Unfortunately, out of fear that jobs would be lost, the Chinese doctors in Wuhan who first spotted the coronavirus were explicitly warned not to pass “bad news” onto their superiors in Beijing, thus delaying in warning the world.

Finally, simulations that are as realistic as possible need to be conducted that will test as many parts of the system as possible. I discuss later other key tasks that the CMT needs to perform.

During a Crisis

The CMT needs to be activated during a crisis as soon as possible. If key members cannot be present, then their designated substitutes need to take their places. The assignment and training of key substitutes is thereby another of the important things that needs to be done before.

The CMT needs to determine the full extent and nature of the immediate crisis and/or crises; assess the damage; treat the injured; and ascertain the potential for its spreading to other crises, as well as other parts of the organization, thereby affecting the whole system.

It also needs to determine how the public(s) will respond. Is the organization primarily at fault? Whether it is or not, will it be perceived to be at fault? Is it prepared to accept full responsibility for what it did and/or didn’t do? What will it do in the future to prevent similar crises? Who will be the spokesperson or persons who will talk to the media, investors, reassure employees, calm the stock market, suppliers, etc.? Does it have a plan to address social media?

In this respect, accepting responsibility—indeed, acting responsibly—is one of the key aspects of spirituality.

After a Crisis

Led by the CMT, the organization needs to conduct a no-holds-barred, brutal assessment of how it did during the crises. What did it do well? Not do well? Why in both cases? What are the chief lessons that need to be learned? Will they? What are the barriers that need to be overcome so that the organization will do substantially better next time? Who will lead the effort? Finally, does CM need to be aligned with an on-going program such as quality assurance that the organization already takes seriously to ensure that it will be given the major attention it demands? These are only a few of the many issues that need to be addressed.

I cannot overemphasize the critical role of crisis leadership. Indeed, it’s the critical variable that affects every aspect of CM. In the first place, it affects the basic ability to take CM seriously; set up a CMT; consider worst-case scenarios; set up early warning systems. In short, the character, fitness, style, and mental health of a leader and his or her team are decisive. Spirituality impacts each and every one of these in countless ways.

This post is based on The Psychodynamics of Enlightened Leadership: Coping with Chaos, with Ralph H. Kilmann, Springer, New York, 2021.