The "new crisis playbook" is a framework developed by Jason Miklian and John E. Katsos in Harvard Business Review (2021) arguing that traditional crisis management — built for discrete, time-bounded emergencies — systematically fails under polycrisis conditions where multiple crises cascade, interact, and persist simultaneously. The playbook calls for businesses to abandon sequential crisis response in favor of adaptive, community-embedded strategies that treat overlapping crises as the new normal rather than temporary disruptions.
The conventional crisis playbook assumes emergencies are discrete events with beginnings, middles, and ends. A hurricane hits, companies respond, recovery happens, operations return to normal. This model breaks down in polycrisis environments where multiple emergencies overlap and persist. A supply chain disruption from a pandemic intersects with climate disasters, geopolitical tensions, and market volatility. Resolving one crisis destabilizes another. The "return to normal" never comes.
Traditional crisis management is also sequential: identify the problem, communicate internally, mobilize resources, stabilize operations, recover, return to business as usual. In polycrisis conditions, phases overlap. While still managing one crisis, new ones emerge. Sequential response creates cascading failures because organizations exhaust resources responding to the first emergency only to face a second one with depleted capacity.
The new crisis playbook shifts from sequential, problem-focused response to adaptive, anticipatory, community-embedded strategies. Rather than treating crises as disruptions to business, companies accept that overlapping crises are the baseline operating environment. This requires maintaining reserve capacity for continuous adaptation, embedding operations within community resilience networks, and building relationships with local institutions and stakeholders who provide stability across multiple shocks.
The new playbook emphasizes continuous learning, flexibility in resource allocation, and investment in community relationships rather than just operational efficiency. Businesses that succeed in polycrisis environments are those that position themselves as community resources—providing essential services, maintaining employment even during shocks, and contributing to local resilience—rather than entities trying to maximize efficiency while minimizing exposure to external disruptions.
Miklian, Jason and John E. Katsos. "A New Crisis Playbook for an Uncertain World." Harvard Business Review, November 2021.
Miklian, Jason and John E. Katsos. "A New Crisis Playbook for an Uncertain World." Harvard Business Review, November 2021.
The New Crisis Playbook is a framework developed by Jason Miklian and John E. Katsos in Harvard Business Review (2021). It argues that traditional crisis management—built for discrete, time-bounded emergencies—systematically fails under polycrisis conditions where multiple crises cascade, interact, and persist simultaneously.
Traditional crisis management assumes emergencies are discrete events with beginnings and ends. It uses sequential response: identify, communicate, mobilize, stabilize, recover, return to normal. In polycrisis conditions, multiple emergencies overlap and persist, phases overlap, and sequential response causes cascading failures as organizations exhaust resources on one crisis only to face others with depleted capacity.
The new playbook shifts from sequential, problem-focused response to adaptive, anticipatory, community-embedded strategies. Organizations must maintain reserve capacity for continuous adaptation, embed operations within community resilience networks, and position themselves as community resources—providing essential services and maintaining employment even during shocks.