Could your crisis training be setting leaders up to fail?

Most crisis exercises are designed to test decision-making, but are they truly preparing leaders for real-world uncertainty? Explore this topic with Immersive's Crisis Sim Lead JonPaulGabriele one week on from AI-pril Fools: The Return of the Puppetmaster Virtual Crisis Sim LIVE.

In a real crisis, leaders must:

• Act without having all the answers.
• Make tough decisions knowing there’s no perfect outcome.
• Adapt quickly as the situation escalates unpredictably.

Yet many crisis training exercises provide too much structure, clarity, and a clear path to success. The reality is that not every crisis can be solved; sometimes, the best outcome is simply limiting the damage.

What You’ll Learn

• Is your crisis training too predictable?: How structured exercises may be creating a false sense of preparedness.
• How to design a more realistic crisis exercise: Creating scenarios where leaders must navigate uncertainty, trade-offs, and irreversible consequences.
• Training leaders for decision-making under pressure: Why waiting for clarity can be more dangerous than acting on incomplete information.
• The hidden weakness in traditional crisis simulations: How to introduce complexity and unpredictability into your training.
• Measuring the effectiveness of your crisis training: Key questions to assess whether your exercises truly prepare teams for real crises.

Key Takeaways

• Challenge your assumptions about crisis training. Are your exercises giving teams an artificial sense of control?
• Walk away with practical insights and learn how to design exercises that truly test leadership under uncertainty.