• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

InFront on the Workforce

Long-term and post-acute care publication

Subscribe | Events | Advertise | Contact Us

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • Who We Are & What We Do
    • The Vision
    • Readership
  • RESOURCES
    • Important Links
  • Retention & Engagement
  • Culture & Leadership
  • Regulatory
  • Technology
  • Industry Trends

Keep Calm and Decide On: How To Make Decisions in a Crisis

By Joanne Kaldy / April 6, 2020

Even strong leaders who make tough choices every day can be unduly tasked in a crisis.

Limited time, lack of information, overwrought emotions, and lack of sleep are just a few of the factors that complicate decision-making during a crisis. However, there are some keys to separating feelings, uncertainties, fears, and stress from facts and sound reasoning. These efforts can help enable more effective, productive decision-making during this COVID-19 pandemic, and it can help you keep calm and work on.

  1. Write down your gut reactions to the situation. Put these notes aside for a few minutes (or more if you have the luxury of time). Think a bit more about your decision, then revisit your notes. If your original and new thoughts are the same, great. If not, consider why your thinking changed.
  2. Seek an impartial person’s opinion. This individual can help offer thoughts not burdened by your own experiences, feelings, and biases. However, realize that everyone comes with baggage, so you should weigh your thoughts with the other person’s.
  3. Analyze the potential consequences of both your gut reaction and its opposite. If your first thought it to lay off a certain portion of staff, consider the possible impact of that as well as the implications of not laying off anyone.
  4. If you have to make multiple decisions, weigh all options at once. This type of decision-making is less susceptible to bias.
  5. Consider using the seven steps of the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP): receipt of mission (the issue requiring a decision); mission analysis (analyzing all variables contributing to the end decision/outcome); development of a course of action; evaluation of each course of action; comparing courses of action; final determination of the course of action; and implementation of the decision.

Making tough decisions in a crisis is never easy. However, using some of these process steps can help prevent knee-jerk reactions or directives based on emotion or undue pressure. Instead of being paralyzed by fear or overwhelmed by analysis, you can make sound decisions grounded in the moment. So take a deep breath, keep calm, and decide on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related Posts

  • Be the Leader Your Employees Need in a Crisis
  • (1/22) A Crisis Can Be Good for You
  • Keep Calm and Follow the Guidance: New Information, Resources Are Designed to Keep Workers, Residents Safe
  • Keep Commuting Conundrums from Causing Turnover Traffic
  • (7/29) Are Slow Hiring Decisions Dragging You Down?

Categories: Culture & Leadership / Tags: Featured

Primary Sidebar

AROUND THE WEB

Items of interest from across the web.

  • As More States Are Legalizing Marijuana, How Should Employers Respond – HR Executive
  • Giving Thanks for Senior Living Employees, Leaders — McKnights
  • 22 States Petition CMS to End Mandate As 76% of SNF Staff Behind on Vaccines – Skilled Nursing News
  • 6 Ways to Re-energize a Depleted Team – Harvard Business Review
  • 7 Ways to Lift Up the Employees’ Morale Ahead of Holiday Season — Entrepreneur
  • Workforce, Financial Relief Focus in ‘Tumultuous Period’ After Midterms: Argentum – McKnights
  • 6 Steps to Creating More Inclusive Job Descriptions – HR Morning
  • Mental Wellbeing and Resilience: Tech + Culture to the Rescue – HR Daily Advisor
  • Employers Have ‘Flexibility Fatigue.’ But That Could Put Them on the Wrong Side of the ADA. – HR Dive(11/16) Employers Must Push Preventive Care to Inflation-Worried Staff – TLNT

View All

CONTACT INFO

Publisher: CC Andrews
440.638.6990
Editor: Joanne Kaldy

PO Box 360727
Cleveland, OH 44136

CATEGORIES

  • CULTURE & LEADERSHIP
  • RETENTION & ENGAGEMENT
  • REGULATORY
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • TRENDS IN THE INDUSTRY

Copyright © 2025 - InFrontWorkforce.com. All rights reserved.