Shocks rarely match the plan on your shelf. A supplier slips, customers churn, phones light up. Teams feel the heat and scramble. In moments like this, Gregory Hold, CEO and founder of Hold Brothers Capital, highlights a simple shift that works across teams. Move from reaction to activation. Build a few playbooks that turn unknown crises into known steps. When a trigger appears, the plan starts without debate, and the right people step in fast.
Activation beats reaction because it protects energy and keeps attention on the work that matters. You are not guessing in the dark. You are running a short set of plays that hold your promises while you learn what is really going on. The goal is not a binder no one opens. The goal is a handful of visible moves any manager can make in minutes. Done this way, small firms manage surprises with less noise and fewer misses.
Name the Triggers
Start by writing two or three clear signals that mean to start the playbook. Think in plain terms: Order failure rate jumps, a cloud provider outage hits, a top supplier goes offline. Add a people trigger, such as two unplanned absences in a key role. Tie each trigger to one metric or event so you do not argue about when to act. If the trigger fires, you start. You can adjust it later once the facts arrive.
Keep triggers where the work lives. Put them next to the dashboard tile or the floor board you already use. When someone sees a trigger, they call it, and the play begins. No extra meeting. No permission chase. Early start is the edge. Teams that spot and act on weak signals avoid the whiplash of late alarms because the first steps are already clear and already practiced.
Make Activation Easy
Activation should fit inside one minute. Write a short launch step anyone can run. Open a shared note, pick the incident type, tag the channel, list the owner and time. That one move creates a place for facts, roles and updates. Keep the template light so it helps under pressure. The point is to move fast without creating a maze.
Create two simple lanes that cover most events: a continuity lane for outages and errors, and a reputation lane for customer or public issues. Each lane has a start checklist, a first message and a default owner. This split keeps early choices simple and reduces the urge to overthink. You can always branch later. In the first ten minutes, clear lanes beat clever plans because people can follow them while the room is loud.
Talk Clean and Often
Silence scares people more than unwelcome news. Set a steady cadence so everyone knows when to look. Inside the team, post every fifteen or thirty minutes with what changed and what stays the same. For customers, say what happened in one line, what you are doing now and when the next update will land. Do not promise an end time unless you control every part.
Keep language simple. Avoid hedges that hide the truth and jargon that adds fog. Put the most useful detail first. If a form is down, say which path still works. If shipping is late, say how you will make it right. Your notes should read like tools on a workbench. Short, honest, useful. When people know what to do next, stress drops and focus returns.
Practice and Improve
You cannot script every crisis, so train the habit, not the case. Run one-hour drills that start with a fresh scenario and a real trigger. Rotate who wears each hat. Use your real tools and your real templates. The goal is comfort with starting, not perfection with guessing. After each drill, do a ten-minute debrief. One thing to keep, one thing to change, one small update to the template while the memory is hot. Hold Brothers Capital has demonstrated that these quick debrief cycles build confidence and make playbooks usable in real-world pressure, not just theory.
Pair drills with two light rituals that make learning stick. Before major launches, run a short pre-mortem. Assume failure and write three conditions that would cause it. Add a tripwire for each and name the owner. After real events, capture an after-action note. What happened, what helped, what to change. Save these in one folder by problem type so future teams can scan fast. Over time, your playbooks get leaner and closer to the work.
Keep it Lightweight
You do not need a heavy platform to get value. Use the apps you already own: a shared doc for the log, a chat channel for updates, and a calendar reminder for drills. Print the one-page activation sheet and tape it near the stations that matter. If the Wi-Fi dies, you still have the basics. The best plan is the one you can run with the power out and the room loud.
Protect energy so people can think. Rotate hats during long events. Set a break rule for anyone past ninety minutes. Feed the team and schedule a handoff even if the fix is not done. Tired crews make slow choices and miss effortless steps. Reaction drains. Activation protects. When you see people share the load and follow the loop, you know the system is working.
Ready for the Unknown
Unfamiliar crises evaluate more than tools. They evaluate how you start, how you talk and how you learn. Triggers keep you from waiting. Lanes keep the first steps simple. Hats keep ownership clear. Practice turns activation into a reflex instead of an argument. Customers feel the benefit when updates are honest and service returns in a steady line, not a jagged one. Staff feel the benefit when the path is visible, and the load is shared.
Many teams run more calmly when they treat activation as a skill anyone can learn, and the example of Gregory Hold often serves as an example that clear standards with patient craft turn chaos into steps people can follow. Keep the playbooks short. Keep the checks on the calendar. When the next odd shock lands, you will start sooner, waste less motion and carry trust through the storm.
Hold Brothers Capital is a group of affiliated companies, founded by Gregory Hold.