Understanding the Connections Between Different Crises

One of the greatest challenges facing the field of crisis management is the cold hard fact that the most disparate and seemingly unrelated crises have a strange way of linking up—and thus doing even greater damage than if they had merely occurred by themselves.

The coronavirus is, unfortunately, one of the worst possible examples. Few if any anticipated the slew of crises that it unleashed. It thereby illustrates one of the prime features of all crises—namely, that no crisis is ever a single, self-standing, and isolated crisis. Every crisis is either the end result of a long chain of other crises or is itself capable of setting off an uncontrolled chain reaction of its own. In the worst cases, both happen simultaneously and thus continually reinforce one another.

In the case of coronavirus, what started as a major global health crisis set off an uncontrolled wave of other crises: economic, education, nursing home, and unemployment, not to mention a renewed reckoning with racial disparities. While epidemiologists have been warning of major pandemics for years and have conducted simulations for them, no one apparently thought to conduct a simulation for a whole system of crises occurring all at once.

In addition, while major effort was given to the prompt development of vaccines, little thought was given to the fact that distribution of the vaccines was just as important and as such should have proceeded simultaneously. Indeed, it caused a logjam—thus preventing their distribution on a timely basis, and thereby adding to the pandemic.

In short, the virus revealed the abject failure of our collective will and imagination. It laid bare the failure of our academic and professional specialties to surmount the boundaries that keep them from working together for the collective good.

It’s not that we don’t know the different types of crises. Indeed, the field of crisis management has long been aware of the following. They are in fact those with which it began:

• Product recalls
• Product/service/logo tampering
• Employee sabotage
• Fires, explosions, chemical spills
• Environmental disasters
• Significant drop in revenues/other financial challenges
• Natural hazards
• Loss of confidential/sensitive information
• Terrorism
• Ethical breaches
• Government/regulatory
• Technological

Just as important are those that were not on the original list. Thus, public health crises in the form of pandemics were not included. In addition, given the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, domestic terrorism was recognized, but it was not given the importance it deserved. Needless to say, with the assault on the nation’s capital on January 6, 2020, it’s become even more prominent. Indeed, never again can it be ignored.

Furthermore, arrows of influence can be drawn between every type, illustrating once again that every kind of crisis is capable of linking up with and setting off all of the others. The fundamental challenge is to imagine how the most disparate and seemingly unrelated crises can and will link up. For example, what do product/service tampering and threats of armed violence—aka domestic terrorism—possibly have in common? What could possibly connect them?

First of all, it’s absolutely necessary to appreciate that none of the types should ever be taken entirely literally. Every organization, institution, and person are subject to, for example, product/service tampering. If we view a person’s reputation or image as their “brand,” then they are subject to a form of product/service tampering, namely what’s capable of doing serious damage to their perceived standing. Thus, instead of dismissing any type as not applicable to them personally, their organization, or industry, one always needs to ask, “What is the form that a particular type can take such that it can and will happen to us?”

In the case of the January 6th riots in the Capitol, the link might be as follows: If the “brand” of the former President was “'damaged’ through the stealing of the election,” then his supporters may have been emboldened, if not strongly urged on, to engage in domestic terrorism.

In a similar fashion, it’s thereby possible to imagine the links between domestic terrorism and any and all of the other types. I will be doing this in the weeks ahead in future blogs.