Ross Edwards | Principal, Ross Edwards Consulting

Organisations invest considerable effort in developing crisis management plans, defining responsibilities and establishing structures for executive decision-making.

Yet experienced crisis management teams can struggle to maintain effective decision-making during significant disruption, even when these arrangements are in place.

A crisis management team (CMT) may begin its initial meeting with an established agenda and briefing structure. As circumstances develop, however, increasing demands on the team can make it harder to maintain focus on organisational impacts, strategic priorities and decisions requiring executive authority.

The challenge may be less about the framework itself than sustaining the leadership and process discipline needed to apply it as the response develops.

When a crisis meeting becomes a problem-solving session

Executives are accustomed to solving complex problems. Their substantive roles require them to direct resources, resolve competing demands and make decisions within their areas of responsibility.

These capabilities remain valuable during a crisis. The challenge is distinguishing matters requiring executive direction from those appropriately managed through established operational arrangements.

When this distinction is unclear, a CMT may give disproportionate attention to individual issues rather than assessing their wider organisational implications and establishing strategic priorities.

The challenge of transitioning into crisis roles

CMT members bring valuable knowledge and experience from their substantive organisational roles. During a crisis, they must apply that expertise to organisation-wide priorities and their designated CMT responsibilities.

The designated crisis leader has an additional responsibility to guide the team's assessment of the situation, establish strategic direction and identify decisions requiring executive authority.

Functional expertise should inform CMT deliberations without displacing established operational responsibilities.

Substantive accountabilities do not disappear. Deputies, handover arrangements or alternative reporting mechanisms may be needed to maintain them.

Understanding organisational impacts and consequences

Effective executive decision-making depends on more than knowing what has happened.

The organisation needs to understand actual and potential impacts on people, critical operations and stakeholders, consider implications for its obligations, and anticipate how the situation may develop.

Operational briefings can provide extensive detail about an incident and the response underway without adequately explaining its wider organisational implications.

The CMT needs to know what is affected, what remains uncertain, which consequences require attention and what decisions may be necessary. This requires input from operational managers and subject matter experts, including those responsible for critical functions and business continuity.

Incomplete information is inevitable. The challenge is to identify material uncertainties, assess their possible consequences and decide what action is appropriate.

Moving straight to solutions risks directing effort towards the most visible problems rather than those of greatest significance. Equally, further assessment must not delay urgent protective action.

Effective crisis management requires timely decisions based on the best available information, with assumptions made explicit and priorities revisited as circumstances change.

Strategic leadership and operational incident management

Crisis management and incident management have distinct but connected responsibilities.

Operational incident management arrangements coordinate and manage the response within their authority. Depending on the organisation and incident, these may involve a dedicated incident management team (IMT), existing functions or another response structure.

The CMT considers wider organisational implications and provides strategic direction. It may establish priorities, resolve competing demands, authorise matters beyond operational authority, consider stakeholder consequences and oversee significant developments.

Business continuity arrangements may also be needed to maintain critical functions, manage dependencies and establish alternative ways of operating.

These functions must inform each other. The CMT requires reliable operational information, impact assessments and specialist advice. Operational and functional teams require clear priorities, authority and direction on matters affecting their responsibilities.

A CMT that takes on routine operational problems risks duplicating existing arrangements and diverting attention from strategic decisions. Conversely, a CMT that is too detached may set priorities without understanding whether they can be achieved.

The objective is not separation for its own sake, but clear responsibilities, informed direction and effective coordination.

Maintaining decision-making discipline

Crisis management frameworks commonly provide for situation assessment, priorities, decisions, actions and regular reporting. The challenge is sustaining this structure as circumstances become more demanding.

Effective crisis leadership means more than keeping a meeting on schedule. The crisis leader must maintain a shared understanding of the situation, consider significant impacts, provide strategic direction and oversee progress.

A useful discipline is to distinguish matters requiring strategic direction from those that can be managed within established operational authority.

Three questions can help the CMT maintain that distinction.

What is the organisational impact? What outcome do we need to achieve? Does this require a CMT decision, or can the IMT or relevant operational function act within its existing authority and resources?

Different professional perspectives and competing priorities are to be expected during a crisis. Effective leadership allows these views to be considered while maintaining focus on the decisions and outcomes that matter.

Administrative support may maintain the crisis log and associated action records. A crisis coordinator or suitably experienced facilitator can support the decision-making process by tracking unresolved matters, clarifying responsibilities and helping the CMT maintain its agreed priorities.

However, maintaining the CMT's strategic focus remains the crisis leader's responsibility, supported by the wider team.

Discipline also requires flexibility. Urgent developments may warrant changing the agenda, authorising immediate action or revisiting a decision. The purpose is sound judgement and coordinated action, not procedural compliance.

The distinction is between a deliberate change of priority and a meeting that has lost its focus.

What organisations should test

Crisis exercises should examine whether established arrangements translate into effective collective performance.

Exercises focused mainly on activation, role familiarity and templates may not show how a CMT behaves when circumstances become more demanding.

A useful test is whether participants sustain their designated crisis roles as information changes, priorities compete and decisions carry serious consequences.

Can the team sustain an organisation-wide perspective as new information emerges? Are responsibilities and decision authorities understood and maintained? Can strategic decisions be distinguished from matters appropriately managed through operational incident management?

Does the CMT continue to assess impacts, establish priorities, assign responsibilities and monitor decisions as the response develops?

These observations can inform targeted improvements and further exercising.

The real test of executive crisis readiness

Effective crisis management requires more than a plan, experienced executives or successful activation of a CMT.

The crisis leader and team must maintain strategic focus, exercise appropriate authority and provide effective oversight as circumstances change.

The real test is not simply whether the process begins well, but whether the team can sustain it when the situation becomes more difficult.

Ross Edwards | Principal, Ross Edwards Consulting

An organisation may have an approved crisis management framework, current plans and a regular exercise program without knowing how those arrangements would perform during significant disruption.

These foundations establish intended responsibilities, authorities and processes, but do not demonstrate that people can apply them, coordinate effectively or adapt when circumstances change.

Crisis readiness should be developed and maintained as an organisational capability, not treated simply as a compliance or reporting activity.

When completion becomes the measure of readiness

Preparedness is often reported through measures such as plans reviewed, training delivered and exercises completed. These show that a program is operating but offer only a partial view of its effectiveness.

A plan may assign responsibilities that participants have not practised. An exercise may demonstrate familiarity with a process without testing difficult decisions or coordination under pressure. An improvement action may be marked complete when a document is updated, even though the revised arrangements have not been communicated or tested.

The concern is not compliance itself. Documented arrangements, governance requirements and reporting all support readiness. The risk arises when evidence of completed activity is treated as evidence of operational capability.

Capability extends beyond the crisis management team

Crisis management depends on more than the people appointed to a crisis management team (CMT). It requires effective connections between executive leadership, operational incident management, business continuity and the specialist functions needed to assess and manage organisational consequences.

Operational teams manage incidents within their authority. Business continuity arrangements support the protection and recovery of critical functions. Communications, people, legal, technology and other specialists contribute according to the situation.

Participants need to know what information to provide, when to escalate, how priorities are established and who can make or implement decisions.

Experience in a substantive role does not automatically establish proficiency in a designated crisis role. Nor will capable individuals necessarily operate as a coordinated team without preparation and practice.

Capability must therefore be developed across functions and at the points where their responsibilities intersect.

Executive sponsorship and functional ownership

Coordination and maintenance of crisis management arrangements commonly sit with a designated function, such as emergency management, organisational resilience, risk or business continuity. Structures vary between organisations.

The function may maintain frameworks, coordinate training and exercises, identify gaps and track improvements. It cannot develop proficiency on behalf of every leader and team.

Executive sponsorship provides the organisational priority, authority and resources needed for that work to be effective. It also supports participation across functions and helps ensure that significant weaknesses receive attention. Executives must separately be prepared to fulfil their own crisis management responsibilities when required.

Boards and other governing bodies, where applicable, have an oversight role. They should receive proportionate information about material disruption risks, demonstrated capability and significant limitations, without assuming responsibility for the day-to-day management of preparedness activities.

Developing capability progressively

Crisis management proficiency develops through role familiarisation, targeted learning, exercises, experience and reflection. No single activity can demonstrate every aspect of readiness.

A progressive approach begins with the capabilities participants need. New members may require an understanding of responsibilities, decision authority and supporting arrangements. Discussion-based activities can then help teams practise escalation, impact assessment and coordination before more demanding exercises introduce uncertainty and competing priorities.

More advanced scenarios may test the availability of key people, disruption to systems, constraints on critical suppliers or the ability to maintain a response over an extended period.

Progression should follow identified needs, not a predetermined increase in complexity. A demanding simulation adds little if participants lack the underlying skills.

Development should also involve operational and functional teams, not just the CMT. Coordination is unlikely to improve if only one part of the organisation is practising its responsibilities.

Incidents and near misses can also inform capability development when reviewed constructively.

Exercises should develop capability as well as test it

Exercises can have different purposes. Some help participants become familiar with their roles or practise a new arrangement. Others examine how effectively an established capability performs against defined objectives.

Both are valuable, but they should not be reported as though they provide the same level of assurance.

A facilitated discussion may improve understanding and expose ambiguities. A demanding simulation may reveal problems with decisions, information flow or coordination. Even then, observations are limited to the circumstances and capabilities actually tested.

What matters is not simply completion or success, but what participants demonstrated, what constrained performance and what needs development.

Where an exercise identifies unclear decision authority, for example, improvement may require more than amending a role description. Participants may need to practise the revised arrangements and confirm that the change works at the relevant interface.

Exercises should be part of a development cycle, rather than isolated events used primarily to satisfy an annual reporting requirement.

Assurance should reflect demonstrated capability

Executives and boards need a reliable view of readiness. Activity measures should be accompanied by evidence of performance and remaining uncertainty.

A useful report might explain which capabilities have been exercised, the conditions under which they were tested, significant observations, unresolved dependencies and the status of priority improvements.

It should also distinguish between demonstrated performance and reasonable assumptions. A successful exercise does not guarantee an effective response to a different incident or a more severe set of conditions.

Meaningful assurance is therefore not a declaration that the organisation is fully prepared for every crisis. It is a considered account of strengths, limitations and the work required to maintain or improve capability.

Sustaining improvement as the organisation changes

Capability can weaken even while plans remain current. Personnel change, responsibilities shift, systems are replaced and dependencies develop. These changes can alter how effectively previously tested arrangements would operate.

Maintaining readiness requires clear ownership, a proportionate development program and a process for revisiting material assumptions. New participants need familiarisation, changed arrangements need practice and known weaknesses need appropriate attention.

Findings from exercises and actual incidents should be prioritised according to their potential consequences, assigned to accountable owners and followed through to implementation. Where an action is intended to change behaviour or coordination, closing it may require further practice or testing rather than an administrative update alone.

The objective is an organisation that understands its capabilities and limitations and strengthens them as circumstances change.

From documented readiness to demonstrated capability

Crisis management frameworks and preparedness activities provide essential foundations. They help organisations clarify expectations and establish arrangements for significant disruption.

They should not become substitutes for developing the people, relationships and collective proficiency needed to use those arrangements.

A credible organisational capability depends on clear functional ownership, sustained executive sponsorship, progressive development, proportionate assurance and the discipline to implement improvements.

The measure of readiness is not simply what an organisation has documented or completed, but what its people and teams can reasonably be expected to do when those arrangements are needed.