"Everyone is affected mostly by their enemies"

"In three years, the best levees ever constructed will be completed with great fanfare [and] the Superdome or its replacement will have been outfitted to keep thousands of people housed and fed for a month," predicts Jack Welch in his Opinion Journal piece this morning on why Katrina will make us stronger. His words called to mind blind paleontologist Dr. Geerat Vermeij's work showing that "mollusks appear to have evolved ever more rugged armor to protect their delicate flesh just as their predators developed more vicious weaponry . . . It's nasty, and things get nastier and nastier. Everyone is affected mostly by their enemies." In this case Mother Nature's fury is the predator, and the aggregate response of our fellow Americans -- compassionate citizens lending their neighbors a helping hand, grasping politicians grandstanding for electoral advantage, high-energy entrepreneurs finding silver linings in dark clouds -- is the mollusk evolving ever more rugged armor.  (Image is scan of New York Times Science Times article from our snail files dated February 7, 1995)

"Contrary to the sound and fury out there right now, the Katrina crisis follows a well-worn pattern," writes former General Electric Chairman and CEO Jack Welsh in a powerhouse piece in Opinion Journal that casts Katrina's aftermath in crisis-management terms as "a case study of the five stages people seem to have to go through during severe crises":

The first stage of that pattern is denial. The problem isn't that bad, the thinking usually goes, it can't be, because bad things don't happen here, to us. The second is containment. This is the stage where people, including perfectly capable leaders, try to make the problem disappear by giving it to someone else to solve. The third stage is shame-mongering, in which all parties with a stake in the problem enter into a frantic dance of self-defense, assigning blame and claiming credit. Fourth comes blood on the floor. In just about every crisis, a high profile person pays with his job, and sometimes he takes a crowd with him. In the fifth and final stage, the crisis gets fixed and, despite prophecies of permanent doom, life goes on, usually for the better.

Like an eye in the Force 5 political hurricane that followed Katrina and rages 24/7 full force, Welch's vision affords a moment of calm. His article is so well written and psychologically true that it's hard to pull out just a few excerpts, but in case you don't have time, here's a sampling:

Denial in the face of disaster is human. It is the main and immediate emotion people feel at the receiving end of any really bad news. That doesn't excuse what happened in New Orleans. In fact, one of the marks of good leadership is the ability to dispense with denial quickly and face into hard stuff with eyes open and fists raised. With particularly bad crises facing them, good leaders also define reality, set direction and inspire people to move forward. Just think of Giuliani after 9/11 or Churchill during World War II. Denial doesn't exactly come to mind -- a forthright, calm, fierce boldness does.

All that was in short supply during the disaster in New Orleans. But it might be argued that denial in and about New Orleans started long ago. New Orleans was a city with more than 20% living below the poverty line, a homicide rate almost 10 times higher than New York, and an intractable tradition of political corruption.

New Orleans was also well aware that its levee system was inadequate for a major storm and that the economic plight of its citizenry, with their lack of cars and cash, rendered evacuation plans meaningless.

Why did it take a hurricane to prove those points?

In both cases, the only answer is denial, that predictable first phase of crisis, which in Katrina's case, happened before, during, and after the actual storm.

Re the third stage, the one that has the Bush Lied, People Died™ community hyperventilating:

Katrina's shame-mongering had blasted into overdrive by Tuesday, about 48 hours after landfall. I would wager that never before has a storm become so politicized. Very quickly, Katrina wasn't a hurricane -- it was a test of George Bush's leadership, it was a reflection of race and poverty in America, it was a metaphor for Iraq. The Democrats used the event to define George Bush for their own purposes; the Republicans -- after a delay and with markedly less gusto -- used it to define them back. The key word here is delay. Because in any crisis, effective leaders get their message out strongly, clearly -- and early. George Bush and his team in Washington didn't do that, and they are paying for it.

Hurricane Katrina has the potential to do that in New Orleans -- to compel leaders in government and business to find ways to break the city's cycle of poverty and corruption. The opportunities are huge because the losses were. There is a blank slate for change to begin, and it most likely will. Just watch the entrepreneurs rush in with ideas and energy, revitalizing old and creating new businesses with the help of the money politicians will be outbidding one another to throw at the problem. Just watch the residents of New Orleans flock to the jobs that are created with a new spirit of optimism. Crises like Katrina have a way of galvanizing people toward a better future. That's the fifth and final part of the pattern -- the best part.

Business is still the business of America, and now let's get back to business.

Comments

[Teresa]

Yes, I think Welsh nailed it. Every step of the way - guess that's why he was such an effective CEO.

As for the Bush administration and communication - that has been the very worst part of his Presidency. He goes about his business and gets things done - but never takes the time to communicate it as well as he should. You would think that the Republicans would have learned SOMETHING about how to communicate from Reagan... but they didn't. *sigh*