Don't Let Your Next Crisis Go to Waste
Share thisThis idea from Ron Ashkenas, managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and author of several books on organization management, takes the experience of a crisis and puts it to work in less trying situations. He offers these ideas on learning from a crisis:
- Organize a post-crisis learning clinic. Include the key people who were involved — from your team, other parts of your organization, and even outside parties. Take stock of what you learned: What was done differently? What new patterns or innovations were sparked by the crisis? And most importantly, what new ways of working — individually or collectively — should be continued?
- Identify a critical initiative that you want to accelerate. Carve out a stretch goal that will demonstrate progress in 100 days or less — and then consciously apply one or more of the new patterns to it. Use the next 100 days as a real-time experiment to build the new innovations into your team's muscle memory, while also generating additional learning from the 100-day challenge.