Conquering Crisis: Great Advice From A True American Hero
By
Leonard Zwelling
On the way back from a weekend in Durham, NC with the BW, I did something I have not done in months. I read a book. Between writing the blog, finishing my new novel Light, reading three newspapers, and preparing for the podcast I do with my son called A New Prescription, I haven’t had the time to read.
The book I chose is called Conquering Crisis by Admiral William H. McRaven. Yes, that’s right, the Bill McRaven who used to be the Chancellor of the UT System (2015-2018). He had appeared on CBS Mornings the week before to promote the book and I was inspired to buy the book because he had been so gracious to the BW and me when we went to see him in Austin because of the chaos on the MD Anderson campus caused by the immediate past president. Let’s not go there.
The sub-title of the book is Ten Lessons To Learn Before You Need Them. Obviously, this is all about managing crisis and the lessons Admiral McRaven learned in his years in the military as a Navy SEAL and in his abbreviated career in academia.
Each chapter is a lesson:
“First reports are always wrong.” This is a quote from Napoleon and pertains to the beginning of any crisis. You cannot trust the first news you hear.
“Have a council of colonels.” Trusted advisors are essential in a crisis.
“Bad news doesn’t get better with age.” This is a lesson I learned from Steve Stuyck, my mentor at MD Anderson in public relations. Steve used to say about bad news when I had to deal with it as the institution’s media spokesman: “get it out, get it all out, and get it right the first time.”
”Weaponize the truth.” This is the last part of the Stuyck maxim. “Get it right.” Transparency can save you in a crisis. The people you lead will not think that you are hiding anything.
“Move all your options forward.” In an information vacuum, you must have as many options as possible to solve the crisis.
“Trust the Second Law of Thermodynamics.” This is my personal favorite. In essence, inaction will not solve the crisis. You must put energy into the system to prevent degeneration to chaos.
“Don’t rush to failure.” This is where the balance between action and patience is so critical and so difficult to attain.
“Micromanagement is not an ugly word.” This is where communication with those upon who you depend to solve the crisis is so important. You must make sure they know what you want of them. Details matter.
“Dictate the tempo.” This is one that seems most easy to understand in sports. If you can determine the tempo at which the game is being played, and it fits your game, you will win.
“There is always time for a morale check.” This is essentially management by walking around, something that I totally believed in when I was in any leadership role. It is also what I find lacking in most leaders today. By the way, this cannot be done over Zoom. You must be visible to all those you lead.
These are the lessons.
There is no shortage of demonstrated courage by the author, up to and including his mistake as Chancellor to try to acquire land in Houston for a Data Center for UT that created a political furor from which he never really recovered.
Reading this entire story and having discussed health care reform with the author in person, I realized that his temperament was not that of an academic, but of a warrior. After all, he was the man that led the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.
Admiral McRaven bookends his story with the tale of Apollo 13 and how the astronauts whose lives were in the balance after a near—fatal explosion in space, worked with the team on the ground to handle a series of what seemed to be insurmountable crises. But, they conquered their fear and the crisis.
There is much to be learned from a real warrior and a real American hero.
Read this book. By the way, I finished the whole thing on the airplane trip home.
