Friend,

I'm feeling pretty sketchy about my super and the world's future, and having some serious regrets. For one, I regret not acting on instinct to sell off all investments that might be contributing to the world's chaos and division.

Anyway, my minimal capital won't change the planet's future but I can double down here and be even more useful to you, our clients and supporters.

Here is (maybe) the single most useful consulting tool in my kit. If I die or disappear tomorrow, keep this.

Side bar: Our family are fond of talking about death. Our mother, well organised and practical, has a folder under "D" which is an operations manual in case she expires unexpectedly. I'm not that organised, and you don't want my banking passwords so I'm just sharing one thing I reckon is a keeper for you. Lucky you're not family or you'd be "gifted" love letters from the 80s, kids' preschool art and 50 years of birthday cards.

What's the #1 crisis leadership hack?

Not a plan, not a stakeholder matrix, and definitely not the blandised holding statement your lawyers sign off an hour too late. IMO the real killer in a crisis isn’t the headline.

It’s the combined impact of:

• Your (or my) amygdala hijack PLUS
• The story we tell ourselves (based on our feelings, not just the facts)
• The resulting c0ck ups in our leadership and communication.

Adrenaline is fine, normal and often helpful. But when it's combined with magical thinking or catastrophising our crisis judgment collapses. As your adviser and an observer, I watch some of you alternately narrate facts wrongly, underplay risk or opportunity, and distort the shape of issues.

Then you make mistakes. One is simply to lose perspective. Easy to see in others, harder to realise when it's happening to us.

So here’s a formula to fix that: POP. 

Problem × Opposite = Positive Outcome Potential

Three steps.

Step 1 - Problem

Dump the story. Get everything out of your head and onto paper: facts, assumptions, fear, ego, blame. The worst-case script, without ANY editing or spin. Here's why: until you can see the narrative running you, it’s running you. The script and audio running in the background is more influential than we think. This step starts to separate fact from feeling. It de-fuses unconscious thought from conscious, and it's freeing.

Step 2 - Opposite

Now force the exact opposite narrative. Hard. Not mild reframing. Not “let’s stay positive”.

I mean wildly, stupidly, unicorns, rainbows, and fairy godmothers. Impossibly positive is the brief e.g:

• From "we're screwed" to "this is great"
• From "I or s/he made a disastrous mistake" to "what if this is a gift?"
• From "we caused this" to "we're going to lift the standard for our business and the industry as we fix this"
• From "I'm gone" to "this is going to define me as a leader, and others will see that"

From worst, to best. Push it further than feels comfortable. We're talking crazy, deluded. Why?

Because this exercise, among other things, widens our frame and helps us see other outcomes and possibilities. It's a drill, like freestyle breathing bilaterally on dry land. It ain't reality but it is practice and skill-building.

Weirdly, when I do this, and when I do it with you, or a Chair in a crisis, new perspectives and options appear. ALMOST like having a fairy godmother.

Step 3 - Positive Outcome Potential

The last step is to convert the problem and its opposite into something maybe useful - positive outcomes, potentials or new possibilities. This is where we work with you to generate things like:

• A different frame
• New decision choices, messages and outcomes
• Sometimes, reputation lift (vs doom)

The problem becomes raw material. The opposite gives you cognitive free range. The result, when landed, is NEW positive outcome potential.

I reckon most crisis dumpster fires aren’t strategy failures. They're more often leadership or leadership thinking failures.

This is, by a long margin, the most useful tool I’ve ever developed. I didn’t intend to teach you this. I genuinely thought it might be the #1 hack for crisis leadership in our practice.

But if I teach you this, we all get better, together.

If you keep one tool for the worst week of your career, it’s this.

If you want to learn the full framework, reply JOIN and I'll run a masterclass.

Best,

Carden | she/her (here’s why that matters @work)

On our radar:

Trump's proposed 15pc tariffs place ASX on standby

President Trump's 15pc universal tariff in defiance of the US Supreme Court looks to send shockwaves across global markets. Previously positioned with a rising dollar for five consecutive weeks, Australia expected a small gain of 16 points on the S&P/ASX, before Trump imposed Section 122 of the Trade Act. Global markets – including Australia's – now brace for volatility.

Banks fall short of big super for corporate funding

ASFA has reported that SMSF funding share has risen from 23% to 39% in two decades, representing a significant growth in the industry. Lending allocation from superannuation to Australian businesses exceeds similar industrial figures globally, and further reports from ASFA find that APRA-regulated funds and SMSFs are now providing 44 cents out of every dollar of funding to Australian companies, surpassing the banks’ 36 cents

AI is reporting season's big buzzword

Amidst ongoing discussions of data centres and an Australian industry boom, AI appears to have been the sentiment winner of the February reporting season, according to analysis by Evans & Partners CIO, Timothy Rocks – done using AI, of course. In a list of 19 companies that have integrated the technology in some way, 14 reported themselves as self-described winners this season, while the remaining five reported sliding valuations. The long-term impact of “AI washing” is yet to be seen. 

Get to know your journo

This week's market movers

Big plays, bold bets, and (occasional) unconfirmed speculation

Commonwealth Bank promotes AI in lieu of 300 jobs - last night's 7:30 Report interview with Matt Comyn didn't dispel our fears of AI job apocalypse, but it did show the CEO is working hard to reassure staff and investors. Worth a watch.

Bunnings boss says Australia at ‘tipping point’ due to high inflation and productivity woes - Wesfarmers CEO Bob Scott warns Australia’s high inflation and low productivity puts the country at a “tipping point”. The warning comes alongside the company’s reported earnings beat.

Unemployment rate remains at 4.1pc in January, leading to talk of another rate rise - economists predict that a reported consistent unemployment rate of 4.1pc keeps the possibility of another rate rise as early as March, as opposed to prior forecasts of a late-2026 increase.