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Key Takeaways In a crisis, every voice gets louder — but not every voice matters.
Most leaders don’t realize their mistake until they’ve already lost control of the moment.
Chaos has a sound: the Slack thread that won’t stop, reporters asking for comment, the board demanding answers for a headline that appeared overnight.
In that moment, everyone wants your attention — and everyone thinks they matter. Your job isn’t to respond to everything. It’s to decide what counts.
Without a system, you react. You give equal weight to voices that don’t shape the outcome, while the ones who do are left waiting. People say leaders need thick skin. What they actually need is clarity — clarity on who they’re accountable to, and the discipline to treat everyone else accordingly. That discipline is what holds under pressure.
When Microsoft moved to acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, opposition was loud — competitors, politicians, media. They ignored most of it and focused on the only stakeholders who could stop the deal: regulators in the US, UK and EU. They didn’t chase every narrative. The deal closed. The noise was real. It just wasn’t relevant.
The current environment makes this harder. AI can generate a credible CEO statement before legal picks up the phone. Internal emails can reach reporters in minutes. Social platforms can turn a trivial moment into a full-blown story before you’ve decided if it matters.
Earlier this year, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski posted a video tasting the new Big Arch burger. The internet piled on. Rivals and comedians amplified it to tens of millions of views. McDonald’s didn’t panic. They recognized it wasn’t a stakeholder crisis.
Their brand account posted a single winking Instagram image: “Take a bite of our new product. Can’t believe this got approved.” Then they moved on. A spokesperson noted they were glad the Big Arch had everyone’s attention. Early sales beat expectations. The reaction was loud. It just didn’t matter.
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