Getting out of crisis mode

1. Are You Stuck in Fire-Fighting Syndrome?
Move from Fire Fighting to Fire Prevention
Stephanie Arnoldin, MBA, PhD
Business Strategist

2. Do these statements sound familiar?
• There isn’t enough time to solve all the problems
• Solutions tend to be “patched” or incomplete
• Problems you already fixed once or even twice seem to reoccur and
cascade
• Urgency supersedes importance
• Many problems become crisis
• Performance and morale is low
If these sound familiar, chances are you are stuck in fire-fighting mode.

3. How Problems Flow- Fire Fighting
Syndrome
Queue of
Problems
Manager or
Committee
sets priorities
and pressure
to get quick
results
It’s a crisis
It’s important, but not a
crisis
It’s not important at all
Pull the right
Team together
to work
towards a
solution
Good
Permanent
Solutions
reached
Individuals
work in silos Badly Solved
Problems
New
Problems
Repeat
problems
Backlog of
Problems

4. Systematic Problem Solving
• Tactical
• Find a temporary solution
• Shut down operations
• Perform Triage
• Strategic
• Change design
• Develop more problem solvers
• Solve clusters of problems
• Cultural
• Don’t tolerate patches or work-arounds
• Don’t reward fire-fighting

5. How Did We Get Here?
Traditional Mindset A Different Perspective
SelectingProblems
• Investigate every possible problem
• Work on all things you are asked to work on
• Always work on the problem with the nearest
deadline
• Behave as if the urgency of the tasks is proportional
to the rank of the person requesting it
• If you do not set priorities, important problems don’t get
solved
• If you allow people outside your group to set the agenda,
you will never stay on top of things.
• If you are always working on the deliverable that is due
the soonest, every thing else will eventually become a
crisis.
• Not all people with a title know all the information to
make informed decisions. Find out what is driving the
urgency.
SolvingProblems
• Be sure that everyone who might be affected or able
to help comes to meetings. Consult and inform
widely before acting.
• Give people short deadlines to get them to work
harder
• If you cannot solve the problem completely, do the
best you can.
• Give your most difficult problems to your best
trouble shooters
• Give your most trusted people complete discretion
over the how to solve problems and don’t waste
their time with needless training.
• All those well-intentioned meetings eat into valuable
problem solving time.
• While most people do work best under pressure, they also
are more likely to cut corners
• Giving difficult problems to you best people will rob
others from the learning experience and eventually burn
out the A players.
• You cannot create and grow a problem-solving culture if
you do not train new problem solvers.

6. Preventative Methods
• Start hiring people with good problem-solving skills
• Describe a time you had to solve a problem without management input. How
did you do it and what was the result?
• Do not allow fire-fighting to become a habit!
• A habit consists of the following three components:
• 1. Cue (trigger)
• 2. Routine (behavior)
• 3. Reward (result)
• The key to eliminating a bad habit such as the fire drill is to replace the
routine, or behavior, with a more positive or productive one.
• Cure the Fire-fighting Syndrome
• Shift the organizational mindset away from thinking people work harder
under pressure

7. Focus on Prevention as a Strategy
• Establish Goals
• One method of prevention is to have your set of 3-5 goals and corresponding
strategies written down and visible to all.
• Prioritize
• If clear priorities are not established up front, then it becomes difficult for
people to determine what they should be working on and why
• Focus on Fire Prevention
• Control: Invest resources the first time (and only the first time) a fire appears
in order to control it, prior to further analysis.
• Delegate: Pass the resource investment requirement to a group or person
with the appropriate accountability for such an event.
• Prevent: Determine and eliminate the root cause.

8. Remember….
Engage your people in the
solutions to correctly identify the
root cause of all problems.
Do not make assumptions!
Most problems remain hidden until
they become a crisis!