Rogue Waves: Navigating an Organizational Crisis When Leadership Matters Most (Book Review)

The Mystery of the MS München

What happened to the MS München? By all accounts, she was unsinkable. Born of German technology, the freighter was a workhorse two hundred meters long and eighteen meters tall designed specifically for the turbulence of the North Atlantic. On December 7, 1978, the München left the port of Bremerhaven, Germany, without incident. She was no maiden, having been pressed into service six years earlier, and her twenty-eight man crew was as capable as any in the German fleet. Loaded with steel, a nuclear reactor-vessel head, and an endless supply of wine, she was bound for Savannah, Georgia. Five days later, the ship and crew vanished. 

What happened to the München remains a mystery to this day, but the most accepted scientific theory is that the “unsinkable” ship was destroyed by a rogue wave. For hundreds of years the very existence of this ocean phenomenon was dismissed as an old sailor’s tale—in the same league as Disney's mermaids and Homer's sirens. In 1826, when the French explorer Captain Jules Dumont d’Urville claimed to have seen waves over 100 feet high, the French Prime Minister heaped scorn on him. A wave of that magnitude? It came out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly, leaving not even a trace? Incroyable!  These days, rogue waves are an accepted phenomenon. Some researchers estimate there are as many as 10 of them roiling in the oceans at any given moment. 

Fig. 1: The Draupner wave was the first rogue wave detected with modern instruments. On December 24, 1995, experts measured wave heights upwards of eighty feet off the coast of Norway. Average height in the area was 39 feet (which itself was considered high!) (photo credit: Wikipedia)

When Rogue Waves Strike: Navigating Organizational Crisis

Rogue waves have much in common with the kind of organizational crisis authors Harry Hutson and Martha Johnson study in their new book Navigating an Organizational Crisis: When Leadership Matters Most. For these two management experts, rogue waves are more than metaphor—more even than natural disaster. "We envisage a rogue wave as containing deep meaning and power as an archetype, an innate and universal pattern that can shed light on leadership under conditions of extreme threat." In other words, there is a psychic energy behind the symbol of a rogue wave, which shows up in our collective culture. How many times have you said in despair: "I'm drowning"? Consider how painters, musicians and poets have found inspiration in the symbol.

Fig. 2:  The Great Wave by Katsushika Hokusai (photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all fear the power of a rogue wave. Whether natural or man made, we tremble with dread at the mere thought of a sudden onslaught of events bearing down on us with uncontainable ferocity. How exactly are we supposed to lead in that moment? Yet, Hutson and Johnson maintain, this is precisely the time when organizations most need leadership.

In Navigating an Organizational Crisis: When Leadership Matters Most, Hutson and Johnson define rogue waves—of the organizational crisis variety—as "a sudden, spontaneous, and significant crisis for leadership.” They interview survivors of these organizational rogue waves to ask two critical questions: How did they do it? What can we learn from their experience? The book does not attempt to fashion grand theories or adopt a hard-and-fast menu based on these discrete cases, for which I am grateful. Lawyers often say "bad cases make bad law," and the same holds true here: bad rogue waves make for bad organizational policy. It is emotionally crippling to run an organization as if we'll be swallowed whole tomorrow. Forget about innovation, strategic planning, long-term thinking. The sky is falling! But still, these rogue wave events are interesting—not because they supply answers but because they open the door to some important questions.

Hutson and Johnson found that leaders who survive a rogue wave bring with them some common and persistent questions—and some extraordinary insights. The book is an attempt to capture and frame those gifts. What are some of these interesting questions?

• Transparency: How much truth telling should I really do? 
• Strategy: We cannot recover the past. Where do we go from here? 
• Heroics: How can I take care of everyone?
• Sense making: How do I explain what just happened? 
• Recovery: Does resilience training work? Really? 

Rogue waves also take a personal toll. Some of the questions to emerge here include:

• Am I a fraud? (I feel like one) 
• Why does it seem so wrong for leaders to pay attention to their own needs? 
• How is it that some people show up and others disappear? 
• Who can I trust? 
• In crisis, there is trauma. How do I handle emotional issues?

In fact, the core lesson Hutson and Johnson learned is that it's all about the personal. A rogue wave event challenges all of a leader's fundamental assumptions about herself:

When a Rogue Wave arrives, the real issue will not be the wave. The issue will be you ... Can you suspend your need to feel in control? Can you deal with the real situation? Will you be able to postpone blame, excuses, analyses, distractions, surrenders, escapes, and denials?

Telling Stories in Times of Crisis

You might imagine that stories play no role in combatting a rogue wave—that it's all about brute strength and endurance. You would be wrong. Survival demands that you embrace the story. In chapter five of the book, aptly titled It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Leadership Storytelling, the authors take on the need for story.

One of the core messages for leaders in times of disaster is to embrace the function of storytelling. Don't delegate it to your . . . communications department, press secretary, HR professional or any other stand-in. When your community has been wounded, it's up to you to lead, and that means telling the story. As Rogue Wave leader, you become Storyteller-in-Chief

It may seem a tall order: solve the problem and take up the mantel of Storyteller-in-Chief? But by now, leaders should be well-acquainted with the mountain of research supporting the storytelling function in business. It can be summed up in one short sentence: humans are storytelling animals. When a rogue wave strikes, we lose our rational function, and we can no longer be reached with facts and statistics. What we need is catharsis—an outlet for the powerful emotions that inevitably come with crisis. Story provides that catharsis in a way that facts and statistics could never do. Story restores, thus it is indispensable to a community in crisis.

Conclusion

Navigating an Organizational Crisis: When Leadership Matters Most, is an excellent addition to the library of anyone interested in questions of leadership in times of crisis. While we cannot predict if or when a rogue wave might appear, modern science tells us the possibility is ever present. It helps to be prepared—as well as we can be.

Marjorie Florestal is a storytelling consultant for universities and mission-driven corporations. She works with clients to gather, nurture, and spread stories that drive change and innovation, manage crisis, and support a culture of collaboration in the workplace.