The Crisis Leader

Hey, this is Richard Chancy with the John Maxwell Leadership podcast. Today, Dr. Maxwell is going to be sharing with you a great message called The Crisis Leader. Dr. Maxwell is going to walk you through seven steps to handle crisis in your organization. Now, if you want to get the bonus for this session, go on over to Maxwellpodcast.com/crisis and you can download the notes there. Now, if this is your first time with us, you're going to see something a little unusual happen after Dr. Maxwell gets through talking. What happens after that is the CEO of the John Maxwell Enterprises, Mark Cole and I come on and we dive deep into the subject that John's carrying and we tell you how we use that here in John Maxwell's companies. Okay? With that being said, here's Dr. John Maxwell. Sometimes you have a minute to make a difference. Sometimes you have a few seconds to make a difference. Maybe if you're lucky, you have an hour or maybe a day or two to make a difference. At that time, leadership, it either emerges to its greatest hour or it can sink to its worst hour. There's something that forces you as a leader to come out, either in a positive or negative way in the midst of a crisis. Every age there comes a time when a leader must come forward to meet the needs of the hour. Therefore, there is no potential leader who does not have the opportunity to make a positive difference in society, tragically. There are times when a leader does not rise to the hour. That's a fact. Have you ever wondered how would I handle myself on a time of crisis or have you ever wondered yourself, and this is more important in leadership context for which I teach? Have you ever asked yourself, how would I handle others in a time of crisis? Well, here's what I know about crisis and here's what I know about leadership. A bad situation needs good leadership. Now that's just a simple thought, but it's true. For some leaders, in your notes, a crisis will put them on top. If you go back to desert storm, look at Swartzkopf, the guy became bigger than life. If you go back to the Civil War, Elysses is S. Grant. Do you know Grant was kind of a non-effective leader, basically, kind of had an alcohol problem until President Lincoln put him as the commander-in-chief of the Northern Army, and all of a sudden, it just turned Grant around. Not only did he come out victorious as a general, but he became President of the United States, but it was that crisis. Churchill. Winston Churchill. No one for his leadership during World War II in the crisis. I mean, classic examples of when a crisis comes, some leaders, literally the crisis kind of like puts them on the top. Now let me say something else in your notes. For some leaders, a crisis will topple them, and all of a sudden, they go to the bottom. Let me give you an example. I'm going to read this to you. General, and I think his first name would be pronounced Gustavus Smith. He was a Southern general. Okay. In the middle of a hard fought battle in the may of 1862, Major Smith was suddenly handed command of the Confederacy's largest army after his boss, Joseph Johnson, was wounded. There's a reason you don't see General Smith's elementary schools in the South today. The General simply froze, incapacitated by the hugeness of the responsibility, and at one point, he asked the Confederate President what he thought he should do during the ongoing battle. In other words, he just froze, he clamped up. And less than a day, he had already lost his job, he'd been relieved, and Davis gave the job to Robert E. Lee, and you know the rest of that story. So you don't go to General Smith's elementary school. When you get toppled or when you blow it as a leader, they don't name buildings after you. Okay. So some crisis that puts you on top, some of them that topples you. Okay. Here's number one, stand up and be seen. When the crisis occurs, the leader must be visible because the leader is a symbol of many things that gives the people security. Okay. In your notes, "Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done." The same goes for leadership. A leader becomes extremely visible for the people. You're right out there where the people can see you, where they can touch you, because you give a sense of security. In fact, in your notes, let's go right straight to them. In a crisis, leader serve as a repository of people's fears and they absorb uncertainty. When the people see the leader, there's a great amount of security that is given. And in your notes, stay right there with me. Leaders can also act as a mirror, reflecting a group's anger, grief, resolve, or joy on a much larger scale than is available to most. Leaders say, "In effect, I hear you." Telling everybody, "It's okay." Being that calming reassurance that everything's going to be fine. That's what we're talking about in this whole issue of a leader. At times of crisis is very visible to the people. And by the way, let me say one more thing about visibility. The very fact that we're leaders means we're visible. We're out front. So everybody sees us. Everybody sees us. And there's a compounding effect. You know what? And things are going good, I think the leaders' joys compound greater than the followers' joys because you've brought your team to victory. Does that make sense? And I think when things are going bad like a crisis, I think the concerns and the worries and the burdens compound much more for the leader than they do for the followers. You will have fears. You will have questions. But as a leader, your first responsibility is not to display your fears or not to ask the questions, it's to show confidence and security. Things are going to be fine. We're going to win this. We don't have all the understanding of it yet, but trust me, we're going to make it through. We're going to be successful. That, I think, is extremely essential as a leader. Stand up and be seated. If you're in a crisis, leaders, don't go hibernate, don't go hide. Don't go off to the sides. Oh man, I've got to get my act together. Already have your act together. See, when the crisis comes, you don't have time to get good. Good stuff inside. You don't say, "Oh, we got a crisis. Good stuff, get in me." All right, with me? That's why I've had people talk to me and they say, "Well, a crisis makes a person." I don't know. A crisis reveals a person. Your decisions throughout life make you whether good or bad. A crisis reveals you. If you've got the good stuff in you and the crisis comes, don't go huddle over the corner. Stand up. Be visual. If you've been put good stuff in you, that day it'll be squeezed out of you and it'll be an incredible blessing to the people that follow you. If you don't have the good stuff in you, that day the bad stuff will be squeezed out of you, okay? You'll be like General Smith and the Civil War. What do I do? You'll freeze, okay? And you'll lose your job. The second thing to do in a crisis is embrace brutal optimism. Let me explain what I call brutal optimism. In the end, the best leaders combined two counter-vailing messages, Jim Collins' Management thinker and author of Good to Great. Sometimes describes this as, and I love this, the Churchill paradox. On the one hand was the Prime Minister's grim promise of blood, toil, tears, and sweat in the near term. On the other hand was his upbeat certainty that England would prevail however long and however hard the road may be. Now do you see what he's doing? He's going to be able to say right now it's going to take blood to sweat in tears. But we'll persevere and in the long one we'll have victory. He's giving you the reality of the present and he's giving you the optimism of the future. And basically saying the optimism of the future is not possible without the reality, without blood, sweat, tears, and toil right now, we won't have victory. So he was basically saying the brutal optimism, if you pay the price today, there will be success tomorrow. How much emotion should a leader show, the followers, I'm talking obviously during crisis? The answer, it's okay to show quite a lot of emotion, but it's not okay to show fear. And let me just talk to you about what happens when a leader shows fear. You see fear constricts the mind, preventing it from doing two things. One, taking in new information, and two, fashioning creative responses. So when as a leader I have fear, I shut off new information I can receive. And I also stymie creative responses that I should be given as leader. So fear paralyzes me. So when it comes to fear, it's just huge as a leader to be able to successfully not rid fear. You're not going to rid yourself of fear, but to manage it correctly. Let me read something that was taken out of my research that is not in your notes. And this will help us on the emotion and providing the right kind of security for people. That's why Eugene Kranz, the NASA flight director, charged with returning the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft. Remember the movie of Tom Hanks was in that, remember? The spacecraft couldn't come back, okay, because some of you won't remember the real event, but you remember the movie, okay. Eugene Kranz was responsible of getting this crippled ship safely back to Earth, this hat back in 1970. As soon as they realized what had happened, he aimed his first comments at stemming the mounting panic that was inside mission control. He said, "Let's everybody keep cool. Let's not make it worse by guessing." While he privately invited to a superior that the mission was in deep due to. That's the Maxwell translation. He also knew the anticipation of failure could become very self-fulfilling. You do not pass uncertainty down to your team members," he said later, "No matter what is going on around you, you have to be cooler than cool." Now, that doesn't mean the denying of the existence of danger. Indeed, there's nothing scarier than a leader who tries to reassure too much. In Treasure Secretary Paul O'Neill, blithily predicted after the attacks that a recession could be avoided, and that the stock market would hit an all-time high in 12 to 18 months few believed him. In other words, this isn't the time for Paulianna stuff. Even fewer believed health and human services, Secretary Tommy Thompson, when he speculated that the first anthrax vision got the disease by drinking from a stream in North Carolina. Both men are now suffering from what one leadership expert calls the credibility spiral. The lesson is simple. People need to hear the bad news straight so that when they hear the good news, it means something. That's a great statement. They need to hear the bad news straight so that when they hear the good news, it means something. That's that brutal optimism that a leader must have. Always telling reality with a little bit of faith mixed in it. Churchill said this. In fact, he concluded this statement after the war. He said, "There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away." Boy, that's just very, very true. Leadership practices under times of crisis. Number three, stick to the facts. Just stick to the facts. Don't get ahead of them. Don't let them get ahead of you. Don't bog down in them. Now, Warren Buffett, you know, Warren Buffett is probably the wealthiest man in the world, okay? What he did is he wrote a letter to the operating managers of his organization, late in September, and let me read from here. How big a hit had his company taken? Here's what he said. Even with tax recoveries, our loss is huge, Buffett wrote. Nonetheless, it's one that our organization can easily bear. What about the economy? He said, "I'm sure that we are in a recession, probably a relatively deep and extended one, but that is part of the business life, and we're prepared for that also." In short, here's what he said. You do the managing. He's talking to his operators. You do the managing, and I'll do the worrying. Now, you just can't get much planer than that. He said, "Don't worry." He said, "We're going to be able to handle this. We're going to be able to get through this. You manage the company. You do your best. I'll do the worrying. I'm the leader." Nothing is scarier than a leader who offers reassurances that fly in the face of facts. Oh, yes. Few believe Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill when he cheerfully predicted a quick economic recovery nor did health and human services Secretary Tommy Thompson inspire trust when he speculated the first answer, again, was drinking from a strain. Classic example of, again, not sticking with the facts. To have their proper effects, words must be aligned with actions. You've got to align your actions with your words. So you don't get in front of your people and say one thing and then show them a total different response. Because remember this, people will follow what you do, not what you say. Remember this, reassurance and security is not wrapped up in words. It's wrapped up in actions. You walk slowly through the crowd, you reassure, but don't tell your people to stay calm and panic. Don't tell your people to stand still and run. You know, actions got to align with words, okay? A leader is a symbol as a matter of fact, not as a matter of choice. Now which, when you're a leader, it's a fact. I love when leaders say, well, I don't want to be a model and something like that. You don't get that choice. If your actions seem to undermine your words, you'll create problems no amount of jaw boning can fix, okay? So stick to the facts. Fourth practice is tell a story in a statement. The best leaders, what I'm saying here, use narratives, not PowerPoint slides to inspire people. And they have the ability in a sentence to tell a story. Abraham Lincoln's story in 1861, here's what he said. The union stands for liberty. Succession would destroy the union, therefore succession is a threat to liberty. What a great classic statement. Our church hill, here was his story in 1942. This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, though it is perhaps the end of the beginning. He was explaining in that time what was ahead for them in World War II. Stories and statements that just really sticks with the people. These stories in a statement, distinguished leadership from crisis management because they are above all forward looking. They tell a story, but the story is more than just what is, the story is what is to come. That's what leaders see, a manager would tell you what is, a leader would tell you what is, but what also is to come. Okay. Let me give you the fifth practice of leaders in times of crisis. The bottom line comes second. When you have a crisis, leaders do not go to the bottom line issues. In fact, the best thing to do is just to read this paragraph. We shouldn't have to tell you what comes first. The most important thing is to have people know that they are secure and cared about, and they are not just cogs, says desodder, and advisor of top executives in front of the CEO of prospective group out of New York City. Because many workers fill a company reveals it is true color during a crisis, companies that come off as insensitive or grudging run the risk of alien employees permanently. Now, very simple, what I am saying to you is, when the crisis comes, forget the bottom line. Care for the people. Give them security. People don't care about the bottom line during a crisis. They want to know are they safe. They want to know are they secure. They want to know, is there a way out? Is there hope? And great leaders understand that and they have the ability to what maybe they would, in normal times, press that bottom line or those results or that production. They let that all slide back and now they are into sharing and caring and loving and assuring and reassuring. That's their whole motivation. eBay. Remember they had the auction for America? Now, this was huge. In fact, we remember Jay Leno, the night show, auction off Harley. Remember we had all the people come on and sign at the ill and I don't know. It sold for like a quarter million or something, sold for quite a bit of money. But anyway, it was interesting, eBay decided to have the America auction and you remember what they decided to forego their commissions because that's how they make their money just so that the money could go to the crisis. And an interesting story, which I'm not going to read about, how the chief financial advisor went to the major stockholders of eBay and shared with them what they were going to do and he said he did it over telephone discussion and there was a silence on the other room and for a while the chairman said, oh my goodness, I'm not sure that the stockholders are going to buy into this and then they said, we're proud of you, we're behind you. But what I want you to see about that is, eBay did what a lot of companies did and that is they said, forget the bottom line right now. Let's do what is right. Let's do what is compassion. Let's do what's caring. Let's give. That's the kind of thing. Okay, that's a very important practice. Practice number six. In times of crisis, link the ordinary to the extraordinary. Take what is ordinary and try to link it to that, which is extraordinary. We'll read a paragraph. In the wake of events, employees are apt to ask themselves searching questions about their careers and priorities. With national security at stake, the thought goes, how important can my little job be? Well, probably not as important as the work of firefighters or army rangers granted. But creative leaders find ways to connect the humdrum of people's jobs with the larger causes on their minds. Let me read you a classic example, Michael Orr, a 45 year old CEO of a high tech investment bank, sound view technology group, did that by announcing that the profits for an entire day's trading would go to victim relief. He just said, the profits for this day of all of our trades are going to go completely victory. That day happened to be September 20th. And that became sound views, business ever, with the CEO personally managing the training desk in Stanford, Connecticut, the firm earned more than $6 million, far exceeding the previous one day high of earning $1.2 million. Less calculable was the impact on the employee morale. He said, when I look back on this year, and what was the most important day for me and the others, other than the day of the attack says one of the traders, he said, instead of feeling helpless and watching on TV, he said that day, he said, we felt like we were doing something. You see what the CEO did? The ECO got the company together and said, we're going to spend one day. All the profits today is going to go to the victims of New York City. And all he did is he took an extraordinary crisis. And what was the average person in America saying during this time, what can I do? What could I do? And we all kind of felt like helpless because what can you do? We're not in New York City geographically, we're apart, you know, what kind of do? Well he took the extraordinary event, the crisis, and he said, okay, we're going to do something in our company to make a difference. And it just made a whole difference for the morale of the people. When you take the crisis and then somehow connect and kind of put the cookies on the lower shelf so everybody can get it, all of a sudden everybody feels apart. And leaders do that exceptionally well. They let everybody have a piece of the action. And during the times of crisis, people want to do something. They want to say something, they want to express something. And as leaders, you have to give them that opportunity to share, to vent, to give. to do, to act. And that's how you link the extraordinary to the ordinary. In other words, make yourself as a leader, the conduit, between what happened and what the people are feeling. And somehow let them touch, let them respond, let them feel the event and become a part of it. When a crisis occurs, leaders must do three things. And I give them two in sequence. The first thought of a leader when a crisis occurs, stabilize. Get everybody calm. Get everybody under control. Stabilize the people if you can stabilize the situation. Once you feel that the stabilization has happened, number two, organize. Now you begin to put gifted people in organized responses to begin to handle the issue and then thirdly, mobilize. Mobilize them, link them up, let them go. But always think of that in sequence. You stabilize, you organize, and then you mobilize. Number seven, one more thing that leaders must do during a crisis and that is don't overreach. Don't do more than you need to be doing. And this is a timing issue. This is almost an art issue. But let me explain what I mean by don't overreach. And I think you'll have it. So you've done everything right. You've earned your leadership merit badge. And now your people are giving you a standing ovation. Here's the next piece of advice. They're not really cheering for you. They're cheering for themselves. And for the group's ability to unite and persevere under a threat. Loose side of that, and you violate the delicate compact between leader and lead. Because you know what? As a leader, if you do it right in a crisis, and this is so true of what we've already read, they're not really cheering for you. They're doing what they thought was not possible. They're living, behaving, acting, responding on a higher level than they thought would have been. And so when they're all excited, and you brought them through a tough time, and it was a dark day, and the valley was low, and the going was rough. You know what? As a leader, oh yeah, they're thanking you. Yeah, thanks. We like you, leader. But really what they're saying is, we did it. And you overreach as a leader when you make yourself more important than the event you just led them through. Understand, the only reason you got a lead was because there was a problem. So don't overestimate your value, and don't overreach, as far as what you try to accomplish. As a leader, I have a charge to keep. And it comes from a hymn that says, "To serve the present age, my calling to fulfill, O may it in all my powers engage to do my master's will." When you're a leader, you're responsible for the welfare of your people. When you're a leader, you're responsible to make sure the people come through it successfully. It's a charge to keep. Too many leaders want the perks of leadership, but they don't want to pay the price of leadership. This is not a time during a crisis for a leader to ask, what's in it for me? What's in it for the leader is a lot of work, sleepless nights, difficult, agonizing, unbelievable decisions to make. But you got a charge to keep. My father had a verse that I heard all the time when I grew up, he'd say, "John, remember this. To whom sever much is given, much shall be required." If you've been given a lot, the good news is, you've been given a lot. He'd look at me and say, "John, you've been given major gifts, you've been given major leadership gifts, you've got some skills, you've got some pretty good ability." You've been given a lot. Now that's the good news. Let me tell you the other side of it. To whom sever much is given, much shall be required. And during a crisis, leaders understand that they have a charge to keep. But I think those are practices that every one of us have observed and seen in these leaders. Some are doing it better than others. Take them and apply them to your life. Take them and apply them to your leadership, to your people that follow you, your group. And I think, as you really reflect on those, it'll help you and it'll help me to be a better leader to other people who are so depending on us, to walk slowly through the crowd and make a difference. - Hey, this is Richard Chancy. And once again, I'm with my co-host and the CEO of the John Maxwell Enterprises, Mark Cole. Mark, thanks for being with us today. - Welcome. I'm glad to be here myself, man. Good to have you with me. - Super. Hey, it's not if it's when your life or your organization is going to experience a crisis. Here's our advice to you. Don't waste it. Okay. This message that John brought today is a step-by-step guide to walk your organization through a crisis. Mark, why don't you jump in and talk about how we do that here at the John Maxwell Company? - Well, I love this whole talk. This whole time John's talking, I'm going, oh, I don't think I want a crisis. And then I went, what am I talking about? Every day's a crisis. And then I went, have I ever really been through a crisis? I mean, I went through this conundrum of why thinking on crisis? Because none of us look for crisis, but all of us appreciate what crisis does if they're handled well. But none of us really, perhaps many of us have never experienced a life-altering crisis in our leadership. And then perhaps some of us are going through it right now. And so I felt everyone of those emotions today as I was listening to John. You know, one of the things I'd say right at the very beginning of this Richard is, John Maxwell quotes John Wooden often when he says, "When opportunity comes, it's too late to prepare." And I was reminded of that quote by John Wooden re-quoted by John Maxwell oftentimes as I listen to this, because you know, I think when crisis happens, it's too late to prepare. When a crisis comes, John says it like this. He says, "Decisions makes a leader. Crisis reveals a leader." And what John's really saying there is if you're waiting for a crisis to reveal yourself as a leadership you've waited too late. The decisions you make in preparing yourself, the decisions that you make in discipline yourself in leadership will be the result of what happens when you're squeezed. And that's what crisis does. It squeezes us and reveals the real person. I don't believe that the good times is what reveals a leader. I think it's the difficult times. I think it's the challenging times. And John says that in this teaching today, crisis will put people on top. Crisis will put people on bottom. You get to determine how you're going to respond to crisis but you don't get to determine how the crisis is going to determine you. You don't. You have to be because in that being and in that responding in a moment of crisis, at the recording of this podcast, Richard, I mean, we're in the middle of a crisis hitting the Carolinas. And I don't want to date this recording, but I'm sitting here today thinking about my friends. Many of you, when you listen to this, you have been impacted by Florence, the hurricane, or family members have been impacted. And haven't we all, we know of hurricanes that have been mishandled by leadership and we know hurricanes, hopefully, that have been handled a little bit better. What we've done is we've politicized how we respond to national attitude to tragedies involving mother nature because leadership is under a scrutiny of opinion when crisis happens. And I was reminded by that today just as we're listening to John teaching. - Yeah, let me take you all the way back to one of the first things you said was you asked the question of whether or not you've ever been through a crisis. I think oftentimes it looks like crisis through the windshield. In the rearview mirror, it looks like opportunity or maybe even a catalyst for change. And if we get prepared for a crisis, it can be an opportunity when I'm looking at these seven steps that are on the whiteboard in front of me and what's here, even in the context of this hurricane that's heading this way. And the number two, John said embrace brutal optimism, which is you're looking at reality. There's gonna be blood, sweat, and tears. And the optimism is, hey, no matter what hits us, we can rebuild because we've seen people do it before. - A few weeks ago, a few weeks ago, it was September 11th here in the United States. And September 11th, 2001 was a world altering event. Not just for me personally, who was emotionally impacted that day, but for many of my friends and family in New York. And then we as a country, we changed. Think of all the things that's changed since September 11th, 2001. But I would dare say we've got international people that listen to this podcast, Richard. I'd say the entire world landscape changed. September 11th, 2001. And so it's a real moment for me. was hosting a phone call on September in the 11th, 2018, and the question was asked me, Mark, what were you doing at September the 11th, 2001? And I took a 17-year memory journey back to that moment. And I remember standing in our offices at InJoy and watching on big screen projection on the wall, didn't have a leadership position, I didn't have the responsibility, but I watched and leadership for me kicked in. John Maxwell, he didn't even know my name at that point, but he was in the back studio of the building that we had then. And I remember just going into action and making sure that he knew immediately with the 200 people that was in the room with him. And just the things that leaders do and respond intuitively without thinking, I did a little research this time. I just wanted to go back and remember Richard and I did a little research about 9/11 and even how our then President, President George W. Bush responded and I saw the images he was speaking to a group of elementary kids at the time and his chief of staff whispered in his ear and you could see in his eyes, you could see shock, you could see resolve, you could see uncertainty even. But in his face, it was still just a love and a compassion for the kids. He finished it up, jumped on Air Force One and got in the sky away from all danger. But then I also saw the video and it impacted me significantly. If you've not seen this, Google it. It will impact you to where President Bush went to New York and all the firefighters were there and the dust was still there and he had a megaphone that he was talking on and somebody screamed from the audience and says, President Bush, we can't hear you. And then the infamous, this is now in the 9/11 museum in New York, the infamous response of George W. Bush when he said, I can hear you and the world is hearing you right now and the people who did this will hear from us soon. And there was a rallying cry to that. I've got chill buns so as I talk about that right now. There was a rallying cry from a leader. He didn't script that, that wasn't prompted. That came out of him because of the resolve and the squeeze that was there and that's not a political statement. Some people listening, this agreed with President Bush. Some people did not. But the resolve in that crisis rallied men and women who had just lost people. They had worked alongside of for 20, 30 years and they realized, you know what? We are being heard and we're going to be represented and we're going to do something about that. That is a leader's responsibility. Go through every one of these seven points that John did and you're going to see a resolve in that image by our then president in response in a time of crisis. That's how I want to do. I do want to prepare for crisis but I don't want to wait till crisis to be prepared with a great response. - Yeah, there's so many things in what you just said right there, Mark. One thing that I'm reminded of, the big picture of what you said, what John said, is that in times of crisis, that's when leadership matters most. - Yep. - And the other thing, not to run off our rabbit trail on the political thing but many people think that who gets elected president is or is not a crisis. That is indicative of a crisis. As leaders, I think the first question you have to ask is, is this a crisis? - Yeah. - And then the next thing is, if it is, if it's not, don't turn it into one, right? Don't invent crisis. And if it is, don't let it be a tripwire. Now sometimes it is a tripwire, meaning September 11th. I'm pretty sure that the reason I came to work for John the first time, it was in December of 2001. So it was three months after and I remember how much, the business I was working for, how much our business dropped off. I mean, like the six weeks after that, we didn't sell anything. I was working for a medical staffing firm. We didn't sell anything. And it was just like, oh my gosh, the world is falling. So sometimes there's a cascading effect you can't help. Other times, you can take political environment and turn it into a negative for you and your family and your business and the whole thing can go sideways on you. - Well, it's, it's, you're reminding me of Max to pre-s quote that says a leader's first responsibility is to define reality. And you've worked for those leaders. They're a crisis a minute. Oh my gosh, the sky's falling and you know, it's not falling at all. They really have this crisis orientation that they perceive a crisis when it's really not there. We were talking before, we started recording. I truly believe there are some leaders that create crisis because people rally around crisis. People rally around the underdog. They don't like the champion. Somebody that's championed for too long, they become the recipient of great hate. But then you've got these leaders that wanna create crisis. I think you're touching on a great point, Richard. Are we really able to define a true crisis in our organization? Because there are some things that are difficulty that's not crisis. There are some things that are not important, but we make them important by changing people's perspective when really we should be lifting their perspective. Yeah, and that can be sometimes that's as simple as the language that you use. When you're describing an event, if you're, and we all know people that live in extremes right, something's either the best or it's the worst. It's a minus ten or a plus ten. There's nothing in the middle. And I think as leaders, we've got to be very careful of the kind of language that we even use in those environments. I think John gave us a lot of that, Richard, I don't wanna jump ahead of where you wanna go here, but I think John gave us a lot of that language when he said stabilize, organize, mobilize. That was kind of even his last minute teaching there. He said, in a time of crisis, you've got to stabilize, you've got to organize, you've got to mobilize. And taking that kind of a model, here at the John Maxwell Company, here in our enterprise, we have had moments that, for me, felt very much crisis. I mean, it felt like the world was coming to an end. I mean, we've had moments that I've had to transition very well-liked, well-performing leadership. We've had other times to where I, we've had underperforming teams that required major change and major shakeup. I mean, we've been through all of that. And again, to me, my people oriented self, those moments feel like crisis, seeing the pain of a team hearing that they're underperforming. I don't like doing that. I don't mind doing it, it's my responsibility. But I don't like going in and saying, hey, your performance sucks. That's not a message I like to deliver. I don't like going into a meeting with a leader that it's time to transition them and say, hey, we gotta make some changes. That's not fun. I stay up a little bit of time the night before. But there's times in an organization that that happens. And I think John gave us a great roadmap there. For me, here at the John MaxiCompat, I've had two times that I've used this language I'm getting ready to tell you. I'm in it right now. Stabilize, find the bottom. Let's define reality to max to pre-spoint. Stabilize, the second thing that I say, John says we're gonna, I say rekindle. Let's go back and let's remember the first filter. John in point five says the bottom line comes second. In other words, what then comes first? People's security, people's calling, people's purpose for being here. I think comes first. That's what we call our second point rekindle. Let's rekindle what makes us special. And then the third point for us is expand. John calls it mobilize, I call it expand. One of our teams is in the middle of rekindle, I'm sorry, Stabilize, rekindle expand right now because we went through some transition. We had to make some changes. And for some of us, that felt like a crisis. We identified it as a crisis. - Yeah, and let me point the finger in that situation at myself. And it feels like I should talk about myself in third person right now. Maybe if I should start doing that. One of the things that Richard did wrong when he came here. But when I came in, we talked about this. Stabilize, rekindle, expand. And I live in expand mode. That's kind of the way my mind is set. And I always wanna build new things and wrote things. The mistake that I made when coming in was trying to turn Stabilize into expand too quickly. And I don't know that it was anything that I said or anything that was like a heart thing. I think in general, if you're trying to expand in a season of stabilization, you are inherently going to create a crisis for people because while they're trying to stabilize, you're trying to grow. And they're going to feel the tension. And I think that was one of the things that took me a couple of months to get my mind around. And the way it was making people feel on the team because I'm so focused on the numbers and growing and hitting targets, that was a real challenge that I had. So that's, I mean, and if you're doing that right now in your organization really, nobody wants to be in Stabilize. Everybody wants to feel like they're moving forward and they're growing and expanding. You don't realize that there is a life cycle. And if you don't honor the life cycle, you can actually kill it. Yeah, you know, I love that. I'd thanks for your authenticity there, Richard. I love your vulnerability. The, I'm reminded when you say that, expanding is not always a good thing. And entrepreneurs, many women that are designed to build something, they just gotta go make something happen. A lot of times they think all movement is great movement. And it's not. I'm reminded, we, Stephanie, my wife and I, we have a place up in Pigeon Forge, a rental property up there. And we were within a mile of losing it about two years ago. What happened was a 15 year old and a 16 year old was out playing with fire. And they, they realized that the fire that they had killed Kindled that they wanted to make a bigger fire and what they didn't realize is the stability of the area was very The stability was not there. It was unstable everything was dry They were saying don't like fires anywhere. It will catch a fire It was a one of the driest seasons and over two decades in that area Well, these boys that rekindled the fire then decided to expand the fire and they lost over 700 homes and over a million acres were burned because two kids wanted to expand a little bit of a fire and the Environment was not stable. Well, it's a homely example, but there's two kids right now that are still in prison because of that decision My point is you've got to Recognize the crisis you've got to identify the crisis But when it's time to expand you've got to have stabilized the the uncontrollable factors So that you can really be expanding on the right things Yeah, and there's two things that'll kill a company right there's the lack of growth and too much too fast And if you're growing really fast then you probably need to force yourself into a stabilized season to make sure you have The systems the processes and the people in place to continue to go in that direction. Yeah, you know One of the thing I wanted to say Richard kind of transitioning John talks about a leader is again is 0.5 I mentioned it while ago the bottom line comes second And a lot of times when we get into a crisis we want to respond to the question of somebody else Rather than painting the picture of a bigger vision I'm reminded I mean in the sports world right now people are falling off like flies I mean we we've just had some top level coaches that have just been knocked off because of indiscretion or not Giving all the full information in the media when they were asked the first question We better make sure we understand this point of John's the bottom line comes second many times Yeah, and he did start this thing off mark by saying stand up and be seen that assumes that When you stand up to be seen you've thought about your response sometimes in some of the situations We're talking about the best response would have been to say I'm not prepared to make a comment on that Yeah, you know as a leader you don't get that option when you're in crisis a crisis you can't stand up and say I don't know yet You've got to get yourself ready and be prepared to stand up and be seen. Yeah for sure But again, I think that's the whole point John's walking through this lesson with us is leaders Don't wait till the crisis happens to prepare be prepared live it out be authentic the entire journey So what's what's the application with this more? Where do we where do we go with this? Well, I think that I Think that as a leader I think you need to bring your leadership team together and you need to think about the unknowns I had to see CFO one time that worked alongside us and he would take us through a journey of Responding to the what ifs What if the economy dies tomorrow what if this organization is accused of something so horrific that it would break our entire brand And image down what would be the next day what so I think every leader everyone listening you need to have a what if session with your Leadership, maybe it's just you you're an entrepreneur you need to have a what if situation a setting session rather with your Significant other Maybe you're like me and you Richard we're a part of a band of brothers and you need to have a what if session with your inner circle I'm gonna challenge everyone in this call or everyone on everyone on this podcast. I'm gonna challenge you to do a what if session What if the crisis that is beyond your control happens? What will be your next 48 hours? What will be your next seven days? What will be your next 30 days? I think all of us Need to prepare it take a time don't don't live under the anticipation of a black cloud But every once in a while take a what if session and go talk about crisis and how you and your team will respond to it Yeah, and there's probably three or four things that are threats to your organization You probably know a couple of those already. Here's the thing I would add on to that Go to our site Maxwell podcast.com forward slash crisis Download the show notes for this message and listen to John's part of it again Mark and I'd love it if you listen to us again But listen to that 20 25 minutes of John walking through these seven steps and then Print several copies for your team and walk through this process related to each one of those Threats just to get yourself just do it for one and I think you'll see the power and having a process like this where you're Pre deciding how you're going to react to crisis in your organization Awesome, man. I love that cool. Hey, Mark. Thanks for being with us As always if you haven't subscribed go ahead and do that now We love having you on the podcast with us and we will catch you on the next time around You