Massive Action Method - how to operate in crisis situations

A good friend asked could I advise how to operate in crisis situations. I described him my Massive Action Method and thought it is beneficial to share with anyone else interested. In this article I will go through some of the fundamentals and then the four steps of Massive Active Method to follow when making decisions and actions in exceptional situations.

A crisis or any other sudden situation with undesired consequences has a certain dynamic into it. When you know the dynamics, you can also design best practice how to act on those situations. The situation itself can be your largest customer cancelling orders immediately, new prospects declining all meetings, car accident, unemployment, market crash or a pandemic. In general, in all these situations, the same approach brings the best end result.

First of all, a crisis situation will last as long as it lasts and that’s ok. Even though we have grown to enjoy a very safe daily life, we all have a vast reservoir of resilience enabling us to withstand and operate in awkward and stressful conditions even for extended time. Just remember that it is ok feel unpleasantness, it is just a feeling, and that too will eventually pass.

Typically, people have three standard reactions in a crisis situation: fight, flight or freeze. We want to take the first one and turn that into deliberate action. The only way you can alter the situation to your benefit is to be an active participant in it i.e. to act. It’s all a mental game and your job is to have an attitude of resourcefulness. When you are actively engaged in a resourceful way, you will turn the odds in your favour.

After having a resourceful and action-oriented attitude, let’s look at the dynamics of the crisis. Typically, the crisis or any other situation with undesired consequences takes you by surprise and that’s ok also. Different kinds of situations come and go and this just might be a more stressful than others. Luckily, you already know how to act when you follow these simple steps of Massive Action Method.

The dynamics of your action can be divided into four steps: 1) massive decisive action 2) assess the situation and take more deliberation action 3) iterate assessment and action 4) after the situation is over, conduct a de-brief and decide on the improvements. Let’s go through these one by one.

1) Take massive decisive action. When you find yourself in a crisis situation the first thing is to take a massive action that will guide your clear of the situation, buy time for the next move or anything else that moves the initiative even partly to you. It is crucial to make the first action so massive that you get the control instead of the situation itself or your possible adversary. If you get taken by surprise you might have a standard procedure what to follow (like a business continuation plan or an immediate action drill) or you just base the action on the best possible available information. It is ok to take the action based on limited information, that’s how majority of the decisions are done. Note that this is not flight reaction but a decisive action aiming to improve your odds and giving you more control. The key point: take massive action.

2) Assess the situation and take more deliberate action. After your initial action, you are hopefully now in more control (at least of yourself). Now it’s time to do a very short assessment and on the basis of that immediately continue with more deliberate action. Again, you are making decisions based on the situation and the outcome of your first massive decisive action. This will put you in more control.

3) Iterate assessment and action. Next you iterate on the assessment and action cycle. After each action, you quickly assess the results and make decision on the next action. All the actions are executed without hesitation. You iterate the cycle as long as you are out of the situation or the situation has ended. Note that in order to keep you in control the action needs to be constant.

4) De-brief and decide on improvements. After the situation is over, it is time to do a de-brief. Together with others involved you are answering the basic questions: what happened, what went well and what didn’t, how can we improve and what are the actions to improve. Then you decide on who is responsible of the actions, commit to do the actions and follow-up.

With these simple steps of Massive Action Method: first taking massive decisive action and then iterating action and assessing of situation, you can prevail basically in any dire situation. I have used this approach for years in military, business, business continuity, market crash, private, accidents etc. situations. Remember that you can only make this work when you are in a resourceful and aware state yourself. You are the active participant in the situations of your own life.

Massive Action Method is my best practice. I hope describing it was helpful to you. Please let me know yours. Thanks and take care.

P.S. the picture is an AI impression of me doing the Massive Action Method ;)