Management by Crisis: The Only System That Turns Neglect into Strategy

Years ago, when I started my career, I was fascinated by a senior who tore up nearly half the mail that landed on his desk. One morning I watched his ruthless disposal system and could not resist asking why so many papers were going straight into the wastepaper basket.

I handle sanctions for office furniture, he said. These are all requests for bookcases and two-drawer filing cabinets.

But why destroy them?

Every fellow who gets hold of a couple of rule books suddenly decides he must have a bookcase. The moment he collects two ‘confidential’ files, he needs a filing cabinet. If we approve everything, the office will overflow with bookcases full of stationery and junk, and filing cabinets whose only permanent residents will be tennis shoes and old lunch boxes.

And if someone genuinely needs one?

Then he will send a reminder. Then a second reminder. Finally he will walk into my office, drag me to his seat and show me books piled on the floor and files bursting out of drawers. That is the exact moment when the indent becomes worthy of consideration.

Only later did I understand that I had witnessed a pure, living demonstration of Management by Crisis — the one management philosophy that requires no foreign degree, no expensive consultant and no colourful PowerPoint. It grows wild on our soil and has never needed fertiliser.

 Indigenous Know-How We Prefer Not to Advertise

We import management theories by the container-load: management by objectives, management by results, management by exception, agile frameworks, and whatever new phrase the latest airport bookstore is selling this month. We discuss them with great seriousness in seminars and conferences.

Yet we remain curiously silent about the only system we have perfected ourselves. Why publicise a method that already works with such quiet efficiency? When delay is policy, neglect is strategy, and temporary patches are treated as permanent solutions, there is really nothing left to improve — and improvement, after all, is the enemy of job security.

How to Practise Management by Crisis

For all of you  who wish to master this refined art, the following rules have stood the test of time:

1. Do not recognise a problem until it becomes a full-blown crisis 

Canteen food is bad? Students are grumbling? So what? I have been complaining about my wife’s cooking for twenty years — carefully, of course, only when she cannot hear me. Grumbling is free speech. A tool-down strike is a crisis. We respond only to the latter. Anything less is mere background noise.

2. Never complete routine work on time

The golden rule of the trade. Finish anything on schedule and you rob yourself of a future crisis. Leave routine files, indent processing, maintenance schedules and  compliance pending just long enough. What begins as ordinary delay matures beautifully into an emergency that only you can handle.

3. If possible, shift the crisis to someone else

Second-shift workers finish so late that no transport is available? Advance their timing by one hour. Yes, the first-shift people will now report earlier and may face the same problem… but tomorrow’s crisis is tomorrow’s responsibility. Today’s has been successfully postponed. Efficiency, after all, is the art of moving problems around until they look like progress.

4. In a crisis, always prefer the temporary solution.  

Permanent solutions are dangerous. They have this nasty habit of reducing the administration’s future workload — and nobody wants that.

Lab assistant comes rushing in, eyes watering, to report that the fume cupboard has died and solvent fumes are turning the chemistry lab into a free chemical spa? Perfect. Issue a shiny new set of safety goggles and tick the PPE box with great ceremony. Looks progressive. Looks scientific. Looks like something was done.  

The fumes, of course, remain exactly where they are — free to continue their work. But at least there will be a beautiful photograph for progress in school magazine.  

The same golden rule applies to every other lab crisis: a signature on a “fault noted” form or a quick counselling chat is always safer than the radical act of actually getting the equipment fixed.

5. Never give independent boards or boss enough time to check anything factually

When an inspection or boss asks for some file, ensure the files are “under process”, the key person is on leave, or the data is “being compiled”. Factual verification is the natural enemy of management by crisis. A well-timed shortage of time has saved more careers than any amount of actual work.

 How to Generate a Crisis When None Exists

In this system, an officer’s importance is measured strictly by the size of the crisis under his charge. The principle is old. Traditional accounts credit Malhar Rao Holkar with the practical wisdom that a warrior should never destroy the enemy so completely that the Royalty no longer need his services. The logic remains timeless: never solve a problem so thoroughly that you make yourself redundant.

Some officers are fortunate enough to inherit ready-made crises. The less lucky ones must manufacture their own. The following methods have never failed:

1. Time-the-great-creator Approach

Leave a small problem unattended long enough and it will mature into a first-class crisis free of charge.  

Pilots have stopped flying for want of blankets? We received the demand two years ago. After the first reminder it went to the Grievance Committee. Three meetings later we called for quotations. Six months after that the file travelled ‘through proper channels’. Sanction arrived last month. We are now ready to purchase — but these pilots, it appears, lack the administrative patience that true professionals possess.

2. We-have-our-rules Approach

Meet every reasonable request with an inflexible rule and a crisis will eventually appear as a reward for loyalty.  

Staff want bed sheet six inches longer? The rule clearly specifies four-and-a-half feet. Yes, the dhobi may have shrunk them, but if we start measuring after washing we shall need a fresh directive from the Policy Committee — a process that itself can take anotheryear and keep several files alive.

3. Keep-them-in-their-place Approach

Treat people with the correct degree of contempt and crises will queue outside your door of their own free will.  

Rajesh has suggested moving the cycle-stand into shade. Who is this Rajesh? Does he imagine he runs the establishment? Hierarchy is preserved only when such dangerous ideas are crushed at birth. Initiative is the first symptom of insubordination.”

4. Keep cribbing continuously about quality

Never stop complaining — about the quality of items supplied, the quality of staff, the quality of students, the quality of contractors, even the quality of the tea. Constant cribbing serves two purposes: it creates an atmosphere of permanent dissatisfaction (fertile ground for crises) and it cleverly shifts attention away from one’s own performance.

5. Tough-talk-with-wobbly-knees Approach

Deliver thunderous instructions that no one believes, and the crisis will arrive exactly on schedule.  

No one leaves his workplace. Thirst, hunger and nature are irrelevant. Two toilet visits, three smoking breaks, five minutes for headache. I am extremely firm about this — until the first real confrontation, after which firmness will be reviewed.

6. Always shift the blame — either upwards or downwards

When something goes wrong, the reflex must be automatic. If the failure is small, blame the subordinates. If it is large, blame the higher authorities for “lack of clear policy” or “inadequate resources”. Never let responsibility stop at your table. Blame is like a hot potato — the skilled administrator keeps it moving.

7. Give-him-cake Approach

Appease every aggressor and you will be blessed with an unending series of demands.  

A schoolboy came home with one black eye.  

“The class bully hit me.”  

“Take him a piece of cake tomorrow and make friends.”  

Next day the other eye was black.  

“He wants more cake.”  

Appeasement, it turns out, is simply crisis on an instalment plan.

The Hidden Advantages

The greatest advantage is job security. When everything runs smoothly, someone upstairs begins to wonder whether “even a child could manage this”. Keep a healthy supply of crises and suddenly you become irreplaceable, invaluable, and occasionally even promotable.

Workload is also reduced in the early stages. Since nothing is acknowledged until it explodes, most problems considerately vanish or wait for a more dramatic moment. And the sense of achievement is unmatched. While the dull administrator of a peaceful department yawns by lunchtime, the crisis specialist returns home late every evening with stories that earn both sympathy and status of his family.

 Final Punch

Management by crisis is the only system that turns neglect into strategy, delay into wisdom, and temporary patches into permanent policy. It ensures that the administration never becomes redundant, the files never become thin, Rule Book  remains a checklist rather than a culture, and office life never becomes boring.

Smooth functioning is for the unimaginative.  

Real professionals know the deeper truth:

A well-timed crisis is not a problem.  

It is a performance appraisal waiting to happen.