Crisis Lessons from the Ex-Director of GCHQ

I had a conversation recently with Laura Raznick, who leads MBA Careers at Bayes Business School.

We were talking about what really separates great leaders from the rest, especially when the pressure’s on.

Her take?

In a world of AI, uncertainty, and constant disruption… strategy isn’t enough. You need a crisis playbook.

She pointed me to the work of Professor Sir David Omand - the former Director of GCHQ and the UK’s top intelligence official during some of the most turbulent moments in recent history.

In his book How to Survive a Crisis, Omand shares frameworks forged in the highest-pressure environments imaginable:

• National defence

• Terrorism response

• Cyber warfare

He’s helped manage everything from 9/11 and the Deepwater Horizon spill to WannaCry and Chernobyl’s long tail.

The big idea?

Put simply: he’s who elite teams call when the stakes are real.

So in this week’s edition, I’ve broken down Omand’s best advice, alongside examples from elite sport, business, and military leadership, so you can build your own high-performance crisis playbook.

1. Crises Are Fast and Complex

The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center collapse on 9/11 created instant complexity:

• Infrastructure shutdown

• Communication blackouts

• Emergency services overwhelmed

The NYPD and FDNY had to act fast with limited information.

Commanders on the ground made life-or-death decisions without waiting for top-down orders.

Crises are defined by two things:

• High complexity (many moving parts)

• High speed (things escalate quickly)

Your usual decision-making models break under that pressure.

In your business, when a key platform goes down or a product launch fails, the window for “thinking time” shrinks.

A great example of this was the Crowdstrike faulty security update that caused a global outage hitting airlines, hospitals, and banks, causing $10bn+ damages and their stock to drop by ~39%.

The CEO’s delayed apology was heavily criticised. 

In digital-era crises, early empathy and communication are as critical as the fix (ideally within the first 4 hours).

Then you need trained people who can move decisively without perfect clarity.

How you can instil this your team today?

Decentralise control.

In fast-moving crises, the bottleneck is usually at the top.

In the military, special forces units like the SAS operate on a “commander’s intent” model.

• They push responsibility outward, not upward.

• The best teams empower every level to act.

Command gives the why and end goal but execution is left to the team in the field.

No micromanagement. Total trust. Speed of action.

• Clear intent > micromanaged instructions.

In a crisis, speed beats accuracy, if your people know the mission.

In your team, check that you’ve given your team clarity on the objective.

Then trust them to execute.

2. Don’t Rely on the Manual

Most crises don’t follow the playbook.

By the time you flip to the right page, it’s already outdated.

When BrewDog faced public backlash for its “toxic culture” exposé, its leadership team initially defaulted to PR spin and denial.

It backfired. Why?

Because the situation didn’t follow the usual rules.

You can find all the details here on how Wiser ran an independent review to learn, take accountability, and move forward constructively following the challenges Brewdog faced around public perception.

The key lesson?

In today’s cancel culture and social media firestorms, reputation crises evolve hourly, not monthly.

You can’t “policy” your way out of it.

Instead of rigid SOPs, build frameworks that help your team:

• Sense emerging problems

• Communicate clearly under stress

• Take action without waiting for orders

Principles > policies.

Phil Knight’s example of how to do this with Nike, still stands the test of time today 👇

Then train people to ask:

“What’s the most values-aligned action we can take now?”

3. Plan For The Second Hit

Most damage in a crisis comes not from the first hit, but the second-order failures:

• Systems collapse

• Communication breaks

• Morale drops

In Formula 1, when a crash happens, the best teams don’t just replace the damaged wing, they immediately simulate how that crash affects tyre wear, fuel strategy, and race position.

The initial crisis isn’t what beats you. It’s the knock-on effects.

In 2014, new General Motors CEO Mary Barra publicly acknowledged a decade-long delay on a faulty ignition switch which led to 97 deaths and 2.6 million+ recalled vehicles.

The second hit impact:

• Over 30 million vehicles were recalled

• Kenneth Feinberg was appointed to oversee victim payouts

• 15 senior execs were fired

Anticipate the dominoes. Play out the knock-on effects before they happen.

In your business: If your ad account gets hacked, think beyond restoring access.

• What trust signals have you lost?

• What team strain has it created?

• What’s the new customer journey gap?

Think in systems. Plan for ripple effects, not just the initial wave.

4. Train For Calm In The Chaos

Navy SEALs are famous for their mantra:

They rehearse chaos so often that when the real thing hits, they default to muscle memory, not panic.

Resilience is built in the boring times.

High performers don’t magically “rise to the occasion.”

They fall back on relentless reps done under pressure.

Rubens’ core message:

In your team:

• Simulate “crisis sprints” in controlled environments.

• Run mock product recalls. Simulate a key person quitting.

• Reward calm decision-making under artificial stress.

Your Crisis Playbook To Stay Ready

Each crisis was reversed by leaders who:

1. Swung early with full accountability

2. Communicated plainly and empathetically

3. Empowered rapid, values-aligned action

4. Enacted hard fixes at pace

5. Rebuilt trust through transparency, restitution, and cultural recalibration

These aren’t hero journeys, they’re repeatable systems.

Use this as your CEO’s blueprint for “phase zero” crisis readiness.

• Decentralise decisions

• Train the reps

• Lead with values

• Expect ripple effects

• Prepare in peacetime

Drop me a reply to this email if you want access to a full crisis handbook 🤝

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Senna, Jordan, Lewis Hamilton - “This mindset is actually a pattern of all the great ones” (Link)

For Your Team

• One of the best frameworks for hiring from Morning Brew founder, Alex Lieberman (Link)

For Your Health

• I’m running my first half marathon today in 30 degree London heat so for anyone else out there training in the heat today, follow this checklist (Link)