The Importance of a Calm Assessment

Do you ever apply “first aid” before thinking about the situation calmly?

A while back, I was presented with a situation where a customer thought they had discovered a security breach into our system. Within literally minutes, Legal, Product Management, a few Developers, the CSM, Executives, the Account Executive and Sales Managers were all scrambling with various email threads and Slack channels to start to “put out the fire”. Calls were being booked, the word “churn” was being thrown out, and we were already talking about “liability”. 

These actions were all before our Support team had any chance to do real research into the situation. Leadership was in panic mode, trying to find water for a fire that we didn’t even know the size of yet. It was like we were preparing the amount of water to use to put out a fire before knowing if we were dealing with a forest fire or a match.

After investigating through the appropriate channel, Product and Support determined it was a user error that exposed the data. I got on a call with the customer, in a room that included all the people mentioned above and explained what had happened based on our audit logging and research. The customer agreed with our assessment, wanted some further details from the CSM, and then said we could close the case. The fire was a match and we had amassed a dump-truck of water, wasting both time and resources. Luckily, none of this panic spilled over to the customer, because when it does, new fires are lit that could have even more devastating effects than the original.

Jumping to conclusions or imagining scenarios is rarely useful. Formulate plans by gathering all the inputs you need. Before that happens, it is just wild speculation that leads to panic. Panic is never a good thing. It is part of the reason why Slack and other instant, group messaging tools can be harmful. If a situation is posted without full context on Slack, such that any person who reads it can speculate on what is happening, you don’t end up with a better solution, you end up with several side threads from everyone who has input, none of which is commonly captured or assessed and some of which is surely duplicate effort or outright false.

This problem can be resolved with common, lightweight process which involves the people needed, as they are necessary, and as information becomes clear. That process should include heads-up notifications to stakeholders, but should not be delivered in a contextless way via a text or Slack message. Be mindful, when a situation arises that needs more attention, that you are not screaming “FIRE” inside a crowded arena, rather staying calm and gathering the important information to provide full context to to the people who need it.