Leading through crises

Welcome to 📈🧠 Scale Smarter.

Forwarded this email? Sign up here.

🔗 Jake’s Picks

Must-Read Resources for Founders

🚀 Scaling Startups

• Avoid the siren song of rapid growth — why scaling too fast can sink your startup (Entrepreneur)

🧠 Founder Self-Development & Mental Health

• Want to improve the mental health benefits of your workout? Exercise outdoors, find a buddy and other ways to update your fitness routine (Yahoo!)

📈 Productivity Hacks

• The link between leadership and productivity (Talent Canada)

🛠 Tools for Scaling

• The best robotic process automation solutions for small businesses (Solutions Review)

💡 Hiring Insights

• Scaling Smart: How startups can leverage project workers for higher ROI (Crunch Base)

👀 ICYMI

• Scaling successfully through effective people management (Scale Smarter Newsletter)

🛠️ Crisis management from the front lines

Every company has that moment (or moments) that forces them to look themselves in the mirror and realize they messed up.  Whether anticipated or sudden, a company crisis oftentimes redefines who and what the company is, for better or for worse.

How you and your teams respond in high pressure moments is a strong signal for the kind of longevity potential your company may have, especially in the earlier years.

From PR disasters and system failures, to all of the above, crises test not just your team’s operational readiness but also you as a leader and your ability to remain steady under pressure.  And while it’s impossible to prevent every single crisis, being prepared and knowing the right steps can turn moments of adversity into invaluable learning experiences.

As they say, never let a good crisis go to waste.

But at the same time, you don’t want your teams to be underprepared by not being able to navigate the internal difficulties crises tend to create.

The playbook for contingency planning

When the team is in the heat of the moment, there will be very little time to think through rational decisions, and even less time to think through what the resulting outcome will be.  This is where a playbook becomes so important in being the essential user manual for your teams to navigate through chaos.

A good playbook should include:

Crisis scenarios - product failures, legal disputes, showing up on the front page of the newspaper, etc.

Roles & responsibilities - everyone should know what they have to do if a crisis hit the company

Step-by-step actions - literally map out what happens next at every stage.  For example, if it’s a data breach, IT disables systems, legal prepares statements, PR manages communication.

Decision pathways - who are the decision makers and how can they be accessed?

External communication templates - pre-draft responses to common crises so you don’t risk making any communication errors in the heat of the moment.

At Uber we had a playbook for if there was ever a crisis in a city we operated in.  The city team knew exactly what to do in conjunction with the engineering team.  We would turn off surge pricing, offer free rides, and disable features that weren’t helpful to our user base.

Our goal was to be able to help those who needed transportation ASAP and so we ensured our teams were able to perform key actions simply by clicking a button.

😬 Being the face of the crisis

The one thing that you learn as a founder (whether you like it or not) is how to apologize for things you personally didn’t do.  After all, it’s your company - when the world looks at who’s responsible for your company, the first person they look to is you.

As much as your teams will be the ones executing through the crisis, you play a critical role as a leader.  Employees feed off of your energy and so it’s important that through your clarity, confidence, and direction, employees can get a sense of comfort on what to do, and hopefully, that everything will be okay.

Internally set the tone immediately

Your team will react how you react.  Even if you’re still processing the crisis internally, externally project a calm confidence.  This will help the team navigate as best as they can, with as much comfort as they can muster up.  This will also help inspire the tone for internal and external communications.

Your reaction often has to do with how mentally strong you are. 

As a leader, it’s important to maintain strong physical and emotional health.  While regular exercise is always helpful, practicing “emotional pushups” consisting of small consistent actions that push you out of your comfort zone can help build mental fortitude.

This could be something as simple as putting your phone away at the end of the day if you’re used to having it beside you all night.  Or embracing atypical situations like going out to eat or watching a movie in public alone.

The key is to put yourself in situations that make you feel uncomfortable enough that you can go through them without giving up.

Externally, Scott Galloway’s method

NYU Stern professor and entrepreneur Scott Galloway has a very simple take on what a leader should do to manage a crisis:

Imagine you’re running a pizza place, it may go a little something like this:

Acknowledge the problem: We messed up, we put pineapple on pizza and realized no one likes that.

Top guy/gal takes responsibility: I (as the owner of the pizza place) take full responsibility for this.  I knew the pineapple was being put on pizza and I didn’t do anything to stop it.

Overcorrect: Within 24 hours our pizza restaurant will be scrubbed clean of any traces of pineapple and we are now in the process of instilling a no pineapple policy on pizza for life.

The key point here is that as the leader, it is your responsibility to publicly acknowledge the problem, take responsibility for it, and then hold yourself accountable for fixing it.

Reflecting once it’s all over

Crises don’t last forever.  Once you and your team make it through the crisis, however way you managed, it’s important to look back on what went well, what didn’t go well, and how you can improve for next time.

It’s not uncommon to experience a crisis for the first time and not know what to do.  Treat these experiences as learning opportunities for you and your team.  How did you respond as a leader?  What did you look like in front of your employees?  Were your actions effective enough to lead your team through the crisis?

When vulnerabilities are exposed within your company, it’s a moment for you to realize where systems and processes need to be refined, while also recognizing what truly matters.

As founders, we talk a lot about mission, vision, and values, but as the great Mike Tyson said, “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face”.

What really matters to you and your company after you get punched?

No one likes going through them but crises make you think differently, creating a true opportunity for growth and innovation within your company.  If there was ever a time to grow as a company, as a team, and as a founder, it’s within a crisis.

🎬 TLDR — Your Actions For The Week:

• Scale Your Team → Set up a handbook with your teams that defines specific actions needed in the time of a crisis

• Scale Yourself → Challenge yourself with “emotional pushups” to improve your mental strength

Whenever you're ready, here’s how I can help:

💼 Hiring? I built an expert bench of recruiters from companies like Uber, Amazon & Spotify to run the full recruiting process for you. We’re on-demand, can flex up & down, and there are zero commissions or hidden fees—Learn more here.