Page 152 - MS Year in Review 2020

 Some leaders can simultaneously solve a current crisis while positioning the

company for the future.
 Planning is an essential tool to lead an organization through a crisis.
 “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

 There are times when the organization just needs to “cut its losses.”
 Solutions tend to require a transformation of operations, management and
management systems.

 Solutions tend to require Culture change.
 Leaders must model the changes required to address a crisis.

 It might be necessary to create a new leadership Team.

These finding and lessons are discussed and explained below.

Each Crisis Requires a “Situation-Specific” Solution

All crises are different. There is no one factor that leads to either success or failure

in addressing it. However, the overriding principle seems to be the ability to
understand the nature of the crisis and design an appropriate strategy to deal with
it. In some cases, an appropriate strategy means acquisition of other firms. In

others case, it means divestitures such as at International Harvester that
transformed into Navistar by divesting other business segments. In still other cases,
it involves developing new or refining existing internal systems and processes to

better align with the company’s size and complexity.

Leadership Must Address the Technical/Business and Human Dynamics
Aspects of the Crisis

A surgeon can give a patient an anesthetic and put them to sleep while he or she
operates. A business leader must deal with the beliefs, feelings, and reactions of
people during the process of “organizational surgery.” People can either embrace or

actively resist the “surgical” plan for dealing with a crisis.

An acquisition must make sense to members of the organization on a human as
well as a technical/strategic level. We have seen that in two instances – UAL and

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