From Crisis to Day-to-Day: Turning Emergencies into Manageable Problems
“Madam Chancellor, we have a crisis!”
Those words immediately trigger adrenaline, urgency, and sometimes panic. But here’s the truth: nobody actually solves a crisis. What we solve are problems.
Describing something as a crisis is really shorthand for something has happened and we don’t have an immediate solution. But calling something a crisis doesn’t give us a path forward. When leaders discipline themselves and use better language, they chunk a crisis down into solvable pieces as problems, regaining clarity of purpose. Experience and pattern recognition help us do this. We’ve seen elements before, we recognize the patterns, and we know there are steps we can take.
If we go one step further, we can anticipate many of these problems in advance. By identifying likely scenarios, writing down solutions, we turn problems into issues to solve because we are prepared. If we practice the issues ahead of time, what once looked like a crisis transforms into something manageable. Maybe even routine.
In other words: if we do the preparation, the “crisis” simply becomes part of the day-to-day.
A Colorado Example
Take Colorado winters. It snows. Sometimes it snows a lot. People might call it “Snowmageddon,” but we don’t treat it like the end of the world.
Why? Because we know what’s coming and we’ve already prepared. We know the parking lots need to be cleared so staff can get to work. We know dorm entrances and dining hall walkways must stay accessible. We know backup power must be ready so students aren’t left cold, calling their parents, who in turn will call us.
These are not unpredictable crises. They are expected problems. And because they’re expected, we’ve built solutions, policies, and practices around them. Clearing snow, maintaining power, and keeping campus moving are just part of the job.
What once felt like crisis management now lives comfortably in the category of day-to-day operations.
From Trauma to Drama:
There’s another dimension to this shift: moving the energy of the situation from trauma to drama. Trauma is when people are hurt, things get broken, and reputations take a major hit. Trauma feels out of control. Drama is an emotional reaction to something uncomfortable but if put in perspective, can be managed successfully.
New students to CU Boulder from warmer climates often see their first snowfall as an emergency. They’ll ask, “Are you canceling class? It’s snowing!”
The answer in Colorado is simple: No. Welcome to winter. Grab your skis.
By reframing the experience, we avoid the feeling of trauma. The same event, a snowstorm, moves from “trauma” to “drama.” Students adjust, staff adapt, and leaders focus on solutions rather than stress.
The Leadership Lexicon
This shift is more than semantics. The language we use matters. If every challenge is labeled a “crisis,” leaders and teams live in a constant state of emergency, which erodes confidence and clouds judgment. But if we reframe and address challenges as problems, which are solvable, expected, even routine—we create steadiness.
The real work of leadership happens before the crisis. It’s in the preparation, the policies, the rehearsals, and the mindset we build. By changing the lexicon from “crisis” to “problem,” leaders equip their teams to face the unexpected with confidence.
When we do this enough times, the extraordinary becomes ordinary. The crisis becomes the day-to-day.
There is a Chinese proverb that says:
"A crisis is an opportunity riding a dangerous wind."
Take the danger out of the wind by preparing, creating the difference between crisis and routine.
