Crisis Management

In life it doesn’t matter who you are, where you live, how much education or money you have, or who you’re connected to; it’s guaranteed that you are going to face crisis at one point in your life. A crisis doesn’t discriminate, it just happens to every one sporadically.

When we hear the word crisis, negativity is often the first thing we think about because a crisis as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is, “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending.” With a definition like that, who in the world would want to embrace a crisis? Yet what makes the difference in the midst of a crisis is how you manage it.

I recently learned that in the Chinese language the word ‘crisis’ is made up of two characters. One of the characters means danger, the other means opportunity. I think how well you manage a crisis is based on your perspective of what is before you: The crisis will be interpreted as the end of the world or an opportunity for something new.

Now the term ‘crisis management’ has been used in organizational structures when facing events that will harm it, its stake holders or the public; but what about plain old ordinary people like you and I? Shouldn’t we become experts at crisis management? I think we should if we want to survive the different crises we are confronted with in life.

So how do we get trained?
Where do we get our ‘crisis management’ certificate?
How much does it cost?

Does it have a good warranty for when it doesn’t work?

I haven’t found the school, or the certificate program, or the course that guarantees that we will know how to manage the different crises, but I have personally learned that it’s all about perspective. If each crisis I am faced with becomes my opportunity, I can learn to seize the moment and make the most of it.

You may or may not agree with me, and that’s quite alright. Yet I’d like to give you a challenge: Why not try to look at your next moment of crisis not as a danger, desperation, despair filled moment, but rather as a moment to seize an opportunity to learn, grow and mature? I dare you!

“Make the most of every opportunity.”
Colossians 4:5 (NIV)

posted by Will Ravelob at the PHIAA e-group