What crisis simulations teach us about decision-making under pressure

Leaders often have to make decisions under pressure, but a crisis can be a particularly acute period of high-pressure that can really test people’s endurance.

You usually do not have all of the facts. What you do have is people, who are often very anxious, needing answers as soon as possible.

You have seemingly obvious solutions that end up being short-term sticking plasters, but the situation is so intense that you lose sight of the overall picture and sustainability of decisions made.

I have worked with leaders and their teams on crisis training for over 15 years now, and what is fascinating to me is just how much we can learn about the way leaders and the people on their teams, make decisions when under pressure.

On multiple occasions, I have seen that:

Without practice, it is easy for our panic response to take control of our choices. We are all human, no matter how brilliant we are at what we do. People who take part in our crisis simulations know that the situation they are in is not real, yet we have had instances where people have had to leave the room because they were so overwhelmed. Others have become hostile in their replies, stopped doing anything on the simulator for fear of making it worse, and even moving away from their team’s agreed strategy to try and placate their fictional audience. Running your teams through simulations and exercises helps them adapt to these natural responses, allowing them to make decisions with a clear mind.

Psychological safety shapes decision-making. An organisation that has strong psychological safety means people are comfortable with speaking up, talking about their ideas and giving their coworkers and managers their true thoughts and feelings on a project or idea. It means there is friction in teams, which often sparks more creative and bold thinking. In terms of crises, it means employees are not afraid to tell their boss when they think they are making the wrong decision.

Using collective experience improves decision-making. It is important to have a team of experts on hand, experienced employees from across the organisation, to present you with as many options as possible, and who can view the problem from many different perspectives. Including people who will need to implement any solution and can spot potential issues.

Team structure impacts our decisions. It might seem counterintuitive, but crisis teams really benefit from having someone on them whose job is to consider the other option. It is easy for teams to fall foul of groupthink, especially when it is their work being scrutinised. Your team can present you with several ideas, but if they are all thinking along the same lines, none of them might have the solution you need.

Crisis situations are high-pressure environments where leaders, and those reporting to them, are asked to make quick and effective decisions that resolve the crisis.

Getting these crucial decisions right involves knowing the strengths and skills of both you and your teams. It means gathering information from multiple perspectives and being able to evaluate long-term risks and benefits while under considerable pressure to get things right.

It is why emergency services, pilots and armed forces personnel train repeatedly in simulations and drills. They know that we make many important decisions during a crisis, and that we need to practice doing so under immense pressure if we want to get things right when the real crisis hits.

During a crisis, we are under pressure to make quick decisions that deliver rapid results. It is natural to want the crisis to be over as soon as possible, so the decision-making stakes are high.

In my time as a crisis trainer, I have taken thousands of people through simulations. They get to experience how hard it is to make decisions under pressure and how they can adapt what they do to get better results.

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