THE POWER OF A CRISIS
Chapter summary from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
A crisis breaks routines, which makes it dangerous—and useful. This chapter argues that when habits collapse, new ones can be installed quickly, sometimes by accident and sometimes by design.
In organizations, the temptation is to treat a crisis as a one-time event. The book treats it as a window: people are paying attention, rules are being rewritten, and leaders can choose what the new default will be.
The chapter shows how “unspoken” habits—who has authority, what gets escalated, what gets ignored—often cause disasters. After the damage, the rebuilding isn’t only technical. It’s behavioral.
The uncomfortable lesson is that habits don’t wait for permission. They form in the vacuum. If you don’t define the new routines after a crisis, the organization will—often in the worst possible way.
A 30-second summary — and that's the point. Read Stacks chapters are deliberately short. The full The Power of Habit edition has the examples, the longer argument, and the moments worth re-reading. If this resonated, the Bookshop link below supports the author and an indie bookstore.
The Power of Habit is part of this curated reading path — each pairing it with 3 other books that sharpen the same idea: