The Alibi of Crisis

"We can't do that because of the XYZ matter."

"Time is completely consumed by the XYZ matter."

"That employee will be unavailable until the XYZ matter is cleared up."

"Well, we thought we'd be able to wrap that up but the XYZ matter has gone on longer than we expected."

An organization that fails to isolate its response to a crisis runs the risk of the crisis dominating and even paralyzing its operations.

In some circumstances that may be unavoidable. In many, however, a crisis is a convenient excuse for poor performance and a shield to prevent scrutiny.