True leadership is tested in crisis, not in comfort. In this episode, Stoyan Yankov, productivity coach, speaker, and bestselling author of PERFORM in Times of Crisis, shares practical strategies for leading effectively when everything feels uncertain. Drawing from his experience working with over 300 companies across 35+ countries, Stoyan reveals how to keep teams resilient, manage emotional temperatures, and make decisive moves under pressure. He also explores how great leaders build a culture of preparedness, select the right people for high-pressure environments, and turn setbacks into strategic opportunities. Whether you’re leading a business, a team, or yourself, these insights will help you not just survive—but thrive—when things get tough.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Stoyan Yankov – PERFORM In Times Of Crisis: How To Lead When Things Get Tough

We’re diving into leadership during the crisis with the distinguished Stoyan Yankov. As a Professional Speaker, Bestselling Author and Corporate Trainer, Stoyan brings a wealth of knowledge on productivity, performance, and workplace culture and our discussion is going to be exceptional. We’re going to explore the insights of his new book, PERFORM in Times of Crisis.

I’m really excited about getting into the details here and seeing how we can be successful, even in the most challenging circumstances. With experience from delivering engaging talks in more than 30 countries and coaching over 300 companies, Stoyan has mastered the art of transforming workplaces through dynamic and effective leadership strategies. Join us as Stoyan shares his practical tips and unsexy truths about leading in tough times aimed at helping you not just survive but thrive. Get ready to be inspired and equipped with the tools to elevate your leadership during these and during times of crisis. Wherever you are in the world, Stoyan can help out.

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Stoyan, welcome.

It’s great to be here. Great to be back, guys. How are you?

I know it’s great to have you back. It’s always fun to have Stoyan because Stoyan brings energy and wonder to the conversation. It’s good to have you here, Stoyan.

I appreciate it, guys. Always good energy, always a great conversation.

From Finance To Filmmaking To Leadership Coaching

For those that are reading, Stoyan, that don’t know you, it would be great just to go through your backstory a little bit. How do you get to where you are now in helping companies develop more resilient cultures?

Do you have six hours? I’ll give you the short version.

Just take us to the most interesting points, Stoyan.

I’ll give you the short version. I was dreaming to be a Wall Street banker, so I did my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Finance. I’m originally Bulgarian. I moved to Denmark and did my Master’s degree, but somewhere along the way, I decided I wanted to be a movie producer. That’s what I did. I graduated with a Master’s in Finance, but I decided to become a movie producer. I did my Master’s thesis on film financing, and then entered the movie industry from a business perspective. That’s what I’ve been doing for 4 or 5 years.

Professionally, I have a video production agency. This is also where my passion for team management, team motivation, time management, and productivity came from. When you’re a movie producer, you’re always behind time, always behind budget, always behind people. You have to deliver high-quality results. My biggest passion is working with people, bringing people together. Since 2016, I’ve been traveling the world, consulting, putting together workshops and corporate training programs, and speaking in over 35 countries now. It’s been a fantastic journey and I’m excited to keep growing.

Stoyan, I think it’s just fascinating that you’re a movie producer and in that world. I imagine, as you mentioned, there are times where you’re on a schedule and you got a budget. You got to deliver. Tell us a story about a time when things didn’t go so well for you as a movie producer.

Lessons From Film Production: Managing Chaos On Set

It’s almost every production. Every production has a story. I think people don’t realize the job of a producer. If everything goes smoothly, nobody notices the producer. It’s like some magical hand took care of everything, but there’s so much work that’s done in order for things to go smoothly. However, the first thing that comes to mind is I remember this production we did. It was one of the first productions of newly made video production company that I was a partner at. We wanted to create a portfolio video piece, but we didn’t have a lot of money, not much of a budget.

 

We were in Denmark and we wanted to create this Harry Potter-looking magical commercial piece. My partner and I were both very convincing people. We managed to excite a lot of great people to join us, many of them not being paid for the production but for this magical Nordic mythology piece. We decided to shoot it in the middle of the winter. We shot it in these Viking huts. In the middle of nowhere, the nearest human being was living maybe five miles away from this place. Somehow, we got these Viking huts.

It’s actually a museum, but they allowed us to film there. The problem is it was the winter in Denmark, and you cannot heat up those places. We go to the location. These are tree huts. We start setting up, the team is there. I haven’t been sleeping for a week or so. We had to get some cables from 500 meters because there was no electricity. We got to put on the lights and everything.

The technical head comes to me and he says, “Stoyan, I know we planned the production to be two days, but I cannot leave my equipment, my gear, outside. What I suggest is we do it in one take. Otherwise, we have 2 to 3 hours just to pack the equipment in the morning and 2 to 3 hours to set it up again. Let’s just do it at once.”

I have to tell you, it was 24 hours of nonstop filming at minus 10 Celsius. I don’t know how’s that Fahrenheit, but it was this crazy day where, of course, we were taking breaks and I don’t know if it was legal to do that. At the time, you could see who are the people that you can rely on. Who are the people that, in these difficult times, managed to stay positive, they put off their roles and responsibilities and they’re just trying to help. “I know I’m not the sound guy, but I can keep the mic if you need that. What else do you need me to do?”

They were staying positive and it was an excellent experience. We shot throughout the whole night. I remember 9:00 in the morning, the next morning, I have no power. I’m just completely, but you got to stay with the team. I’m the leader. I can’t leave them. I’m not so helpful, but I’m there to help them out, do whatever. Everybody’s quiet. We’re just looking at each other. The technical head looks at me and says, “That was a fair stretch.” That was it.

The Power Of Mindset: How Great Leaders Stay Composed

I know but I think that’s the thing in a time of crisis, people are a big piece of mindset. You’re the leader, and you’re setting the stage for how to have the mindset in there. How did you do that without sleep? Already, you were exhausted when you were going into this process and they were putting you into a crisis and you were able to keep the tone of a positive mindset through all of this.

I guess it comes down to your principles and your values and what matters to you. In my operational system, my mindset, there’s no other way. I cannot expect anybody from my team to go out there and do their job if I’m not there to lead them. This is probably a good piece of advice to anybody who’s a leader, who’s leading a team, who has people, who’s leading a family. Everybody’s looking at you, especially in the difficult times. It’s easy to be a leader when things are going smoothly, but real leadership is defined in times of crisis. What are the actions that you take in times of crisis? How do you lead?

It's easy to be a leader when things are going smoothly but real leadership is defined in times of crisis. Share on X

Being present.

What do you prioritize? One of the amazing leaders I interviewed for our book and on our podcast. His name is Howard Behar, the former president of Starbucks, an incredible guy, author of a book called It’s Not About the Coffee. We had a special episode dedicated to crisis management. That’s what he said. The problem is, he said, “A lot of leaders when a crisis hits, they become different. They become authoritarian. They start pointing fingers and looking at people looking for the blame.They start taking over.”

What he suggested is this is the time in which you have to be the most caring person and you have to be the person who trusts your team and allows them to come up with solutions. This is the time to be vulnerable and say, “Guys, we are in this situation right now. Let me be upfront with you.”

I always say under times of pressure and crisis, that’s when you see people’s true personality and characteristics, and it can be different than how they act on a regular basis.

A true leader has got to keep it together. Keep that sense of calmness and trust, as you mentioned.

In the book, we dedicated the full chapter at the beginning. The book is about crisis management, but it’s the preparation for a crisis. How do you build up a resilient team? In the last chapter, we also talk a lot about what a leader should do to be well-prepared to build up this resilience. When a crisis hits, you’re in the best possible state of mind. You can actually respond to the crisis effectively as opposed to being reactive.

Building Resilient Teams: How To Identify Warriors

Let’s start there. How do you develop a team or select team members who are going to be resilient under pressure like that? How do you know if your team is going to survive a crisis?

Another great leader I interviewed for the book in the podcast, Momchil Kyukchiev, he suggested, “Every time I’m hiring somebody, one of the trades I’m looking for is, are they warriors?” They have to be warriors. You can test them. It’s hard to do it in an interview, but maybe they have a trial period and you can test them.

What does testing look like? You’re not coming out with a battle axe. What does it look like?

There are many ways to do that. One way to do it is you don’t help them when they turn into a problem in a crisis. You may coach them, but you’re not going to solve it for them. Put them into mini-crisis with not-so-high risk. You let them figure out things for themselves so they’re well-prepared when a real crisis hits. Another great example, I’ll give you a lot of examples because I’m inspired by that. There’s a company called MailerLite. Ilma Tiki is the founder of the company.

Many people know the company. They did an exit, actually, a 90 million euro exit. Very successful company, very focused on culture. She believes a lot in team resilience, so what she started designing for her team is creating team buildings, but not like the usual team building. Many people, when they hear team building, they think of drink building like socializing, we’re just having a little bit of fun. What they decided to do is, “What if we do team building, not the resilience building of sites?” What did they do?

For example, “Guys, we’re going to do a team-building experience. We are going to hike for 11 or 12 hours. You’re going to be into teams and it’s going to be competitive. You’ve got to win and here’s the prize.” Each team, they will allocate a psychologist to observe the process. The next day, they sit together. They have a cup of cocoa and they’re like, “What happened yesterday? Michael, why did you start shouting at Maria? What happened? Why did that happen? Are we going as a team or are we becoming more individualistic?” You can see so many things when you put people into inconvenience and inconvenience leads to growth.

Find ways to pressure test your people before the crisis begins and ways where you can make it a learning experience for the team to be more cohesive.

Often, the best way to do it is, you do such team-of-site or exercise, but the best way to do is to be people for them to get into the real business and real crisis management and problem-solving. You just get them on the field. That’s the best way. Of course, many things that depend on a leader. What kind of environment do you create? Do you consistently embrace the positive?

As you focus on the positive, you provide feedback, you provide upskilling opportunities, and you create this feedback culture where people are being supported, but they’re also given feedback when they’re not performing well. Investing in people’s well-being. The better people are in physical, mental, and emotional states, the higher their possibility to respond to a crisis. All those kinds of things.

A leader is like a gardener. You have this garden of amazing people, but it’s up to you to figure out how I am going to water and nurture this garden on a daily basis. How can I build a resilient team? How can I coach my people? Number one, of course, is choosing the right people. People that are going to fight and they’re going to be there. Another thing really important, bringing people on board who are excited about the mission of the company.

For sure, yeah. I think that’s just the step number one. They got to be excited intrinsically about being with the organization and what you stand for. Get people excited about the mission, the people you help and connecting the dots. I think that the big thing is as a leader, it doesn’t make any difference what a person does on the team, but show them, “Do you realize what you just did, this X, Y, and Z, to the client? That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.” I think making that connection has a huge impact on employee morale and keeping them engaged.

The challenge, though, as organizations get bigger, it gets harder and harder because people start getting into their little silos and boxes and it’s like, “I’m in finance, this is my job.” How do you get them to think broader that you are hired, but you’re hired to support the company, not just the function that you were brought in to do?

What I would say is it starts with the job interview. You have to set the right expectations with people. “I know you’re getting this finance job, but if you’re working for our organization, let me tell you, what else is part of your job description? When something happens, we expect everybody to step in. When this happens, we expect this attitude. Is that a company for you?” You’ve got to set the expectation from the get-go. These are our values. You talk about purpose, but what do we stand for as an organization?

Most organizations, if you ask them, have a list of values, but not all of them have real values, authentic values. Values mean what do we value when we make decisions? If you say this, “We’re punctual,” and everybody’s late all the time. That’s not a value. This is something on your website. It’s not a value. These are the behaviors connected to the values.

Most organizations, if you ask them, have a list of values, but not all of them have real, authentic values. Share on X

One of our values could be that when something happens, everybody’s there to support everybody else. You set the expectations clear from the get-go with people, and then you coach them because it requires nurturing. It’s like, “Michael, one-on-one sessions. You need to have communication and consistent feedback sessions where you can discuss those things in a safe environment. Michael, I really appreciate you as a professional. Last week, we had this situation going on and I have to share with you that when I saw you not helping your colleague Maria, it made me feel that we were not so clear communicating with you this and this. Let me share with you what happened. Let’s talk about it.”

You talk to Michael, and hopefully, Michael is on the same page. Maybe he was not clear, but he believes in the same. You can build from there. The next time there is a crisis, it happens again, a third time. At some point, you have to say no to people and say, “Sorry, but I think we’re not on the same page.” Hopefully, you can coach them. If you choose the right people, you can coach them into this type of a, “We’re a team, we work together, we support each other.”

Decision-Making Under Pressure

With some of that, I’ve heard of some leaders using some extreme techniques. I would like to run this by you to see what you think. I was told a story at one time about a leader who went into their team and somebody messed up on the team. They called up that person and they demeaned them in front of the team and so forth. He told that person to leave the room. As that person was starting to get up, he stopped the conversation and said, “I just want you to sit back down.”

He looked to the rest of the team members and he said, “Do you think the way I just behaved is appropriate? Do you think that the way I behaved is a way to have a cohesive team?” “Of course, I thought it was terrible and all this,” and then he goes, “Why didn’t any of you say anything about what I was doing at that time?” I was told that and that is intense but he took a chance to do that and put a person through a little bit of trauma through the process, but he delivered a strong message. What do you think about that, Stoyan? Is that something a leader should do in a crisis situation, a kind of pressure test?

Yes and no, I’ll explain. To me, when I hear that, I love this type of example. If that’s true to who you are as a leader, if that’s your style of leading, is through putting people out of their comfort zone with care if you do it with care. For example, if this other person is prepared, so they’re doing a little bit of acting, that can teach people a lesson.

I think you can do it safely. You don’t need to demean this person if they are not prepared, but you can tell, “Michael, I want to address that in front of everybody. We’re going to do a little scene. Is that okay with you? I wanted the team to learn a lesson.” That makes sense. If you do it the other way, I guess it could still work. Prior to joining the show, I’m rewatching this docu-series, Last Dance with Michael Jordan and the Bulls from the ‘90s. Have you guys watched it?

I haven’t.

You’ve got to watch it. It is so good. It’s so brutal and real. You can see the difference in the leadership styles of the coach of the Bulls and Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is the ultimate, “We’ve got to win,” competitor. He’s going to bully them. He’s going to harass them in practice. Many of them hated him. He was intimidating but when you watch the docu-series, they come back and they’re like, “Michael gave us the best we could every day because he was so tough on practice. He was so demanding but when we get out, we had to play other teams, we were so prepared. Nobody can touch us. Reflecting back, he was the best teammate. He was a really difficult teammate, but he was the best teammate.”

What I’m saying is, I don’t know, there’s no right and wrong. I think the way I measure it, is it coming from a place of care. Is it coming from a place of tension? I want these people to grow. I want to support them or is it coming from a place of, “I’m emotional today. I’m going to just throw it all on my people?” That’s what makes a difference.

I like what you mentioned. I think it’s best to maybe do some role-playing, but I’m not sure how it went down because it was just a story somebody told me, but yes, I think that if I was to do something like that, I think that would definitely make sure that the person is aware. I think it’s an interesting exercise to make a point.

There’s another one. There’s the two schools of thoughts, if you may. When there is a crisis, what’s the role of the leader? One school of thought is that the leader needs to be there to shield everybody, protect everybody, and make sure everybody’s fine and just take the hits. There’s the other school of thought that says, “The leader’s job is to grow their people and trust them.” The leader needs to give space for people to go out and help solve the crisis. I’m curious to hear what you guys think.

Crisis Leadership Styles: Shielding Vs. Pressure-Testing

I think there’s a time for most of that. The thing is that I know this for myself. It’s like, I get tired. As I’m getting older, it’s like, I can’t be the armor in front of the tank. You get worn down after a while and you can’t do your job. You can’t be successful as a team. You have to nurture people so that they develop and can be confident in themselves and hold the shield as well. I think that there are times, especially when maybe you’re being attacked or a team member is being attacked, when it’s important for you to be an advocate, stand up for them, and show the way. What do you think, Howard?

No. I think you’re right. I think it depends on the situation. You don’t want to be in a position where everyone always looks to you to solve problems. You want to be able to energize and encourage the team and lift them all up so that they’re all performing at their best and contributing to the general benefit of the company. There are other times when you have a major crisis where you are the focal point and you need to be out there and you need to be addressing not only the public’s concerns but your employees’ concerns. It depends on the situation.

 

What’s the real answer, Stoyan? Tell us.

I like what you guys answered. I don’t think there is right and wrong in those types. I think it’s really about an approach, but I really relate to what you guys say, which is very situational. You have different types of crises, you have emergencies. Something happens, you got to act quick, you got to be really fast. I don’t know, the house is burning. The number one priority is everybody’s safe. You might have to shout from a place of care, “Everybody, let’s go, leave it aside.”

You might have to take ownership situationally. In other situations, maybe it’s not so urgent for you to respond. There’s a problem, there’s a situation, but you can feel it, sense it, and say, “Isn’t that a great opportunity for this person to learn and grow? I can solve it for them for two minutes, but if they spend half an hour or half a day or two days, they’re actually going to grow as leaders.” It’s not that the level of danger is not so high. I think it’s very situational, for sure.

We had a couple of examples we included in the book. One of them was a founder from Ukraine. The guys just fundraised, and they got, I think, 1 to 2 million seed round. Everything is growing, and all of a sudden, their country gets invaded. They literally see bombs in front of the window. The founder that I interviewed, literally for him, said, “I need to make sure everybody’s safe, but I need to get the family to get out of Kyiv,” the capital. By the way, probably 5 or 10 leaders recommended this little tactic in this situation when everybody’s panicked and freaking out.

The same with this guy that I just mentioned, Ivan Kaunov is his name. He recommends if somebody’s freaking out or panicking, give them one specific thing to do so they can stay busy and not freak out. He said to his wife, “I need you to pack the bag. Everything’s going to be fine. I just need you to pack the bags with the clothes for three days or whatever. That’s the only thing you need to do. I have it all under control.” She’s packing now. She’s busy. She’s not freaking out.

Now he has a little bit of time. He starts calling around the team, calling his team as the managers that are in safer places. They start thinking about evacuation of everybody else. Responding fast in this emergency type of situation is extremely important. The problem is that many leaders are not used to crises. They’re too slow to respond because they want to make the perfect decision. There’s no perfect decision because you don’t have the information. With very limited information, you need to be able to say, “Guys, with this information, this is what we do. Let’s move.”

You’ve got to lead everybody. It’s really important that you do it from a place of strength because everybody’s freaking out. You have 5 minutes or 10 minutes to find your strength, to find your calm. Everybody has their own ways. Close your eyes, breathe deeply, whatever you do. Just compose yourself because everybody is waiting for you to give them strength and calm. When you speak from a place of strength and you tell people the truth without saving stuff, “Everybody, I just want to let you know that we already lost this customer and that is going to affect us in the next three months, but I want to assure you, nobody’s going to get fired.”

“We have enough resources, so don’t worry about it, but I might need you guys to be even more focused in the next couple of months. We’re working on it. I’ll give you all the information you need. If you have any questions, come talk to me, but don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay.” If you don’t do that, rumors start to spread. “Did you hear about this customer?” People start making stories. You have to be upfront.

I’ve witnessed so many times when leaders don’t step up in that situation, whether it was a pandemic or floods and so forth, some of our clients around the world, they had operations in Ukraine and hurricane in places. What I found is that the leaders that take appropriate action take a moment of self-awareness. They think, “Something’s happening here. I need to take a breath.”

They have a little bit of situational awareness. They get it under control. They realize that they have to give clear communication and take clear action. Pre-planning helps with this, in delegating authority effectively. I think what you mentioned, Stoyan, was excellent. Pointing to a person, “I need you to do this. I need you to go do that.” Giving people immediate direction to get their minds at ease and then being up with the triage, like an incident commander, which is what they call it here in the States.

Another thing is finding people who are experts in their domain that can make a difference in a certain area. You make sure that everybody’s evacuated off this floor or create a team and search the rooms. That helps organize that. Also, it’s not just that, but they have to realize that there are people in the business that are currently not affected by this tragedy or this emergency. How can they be refocused to support us? I think having that situational awareness is super important in a crisis.

It’s being aware of all the various facets and pieces. It’s like a three-dimensional chessboard. You really have to think of and beyond just what’s in front of your eyes.

The one thing that I noticed is when I used to work in a high rise, it was on what was it like the 30th floor in San Francisco. We had to go through drills on a regular basis because the earth was shaking. You see these buildings start swinging like they’re like reeds in the wind. We were looking at the window and you see the other building, and so they would have floor leaders. You put on a vest.

I think it’s important, what you talked about, pressure testing, Stoyan, earlier, going through these scenarios. “If we do lose a client we need to make sure that we’re resilient enough to be able to handle this. It also means that we need to double down and set expectations ahead of time so that we can take clear action when a crisis hits.”

By the way, there’s a great exercise. It’s a premortem exercise that many leaders I’ve been interviewing are using, some of them on a consistent basis, I’m going to tell you how, or some shape of premortem. What is a premortem? Premortem is you assume that your company, in this case, failed, like let’s say 6 months or 12 months in the future. You bring your team together and you have them brainstorm what killed the company. Is it we lost the biggest client? Is it we lost the CEO?

You brainstorm all these 40 to 50 different things that could make us go out of business. You look at them and you simple risk management. What are the expectations, and what are the impacts? You figure out what your top 5 and top 10 biggest dangers are. You’re like, “What can we do today to make sure that we’re resilient to those circumstances?” Some of those circumstances could be, I don’t know, artificial intelligence taking over our industry or our software, whatever. “What can we do so we can be resilient to this circumstance?” If it happens, this is an if-there scenario.

There’s a founder based in Chicago, Boris Krastev from RemoteMore. This guy has an open spreadsheet. Every single day, he opens his spreadsheet. He said he has around 50 or 60 risks. He’s evaluating and assessing on a daily basis. He looks at the spreadsheet and he’s like, “What are some potential dangers? How can I mitigate the risk?” Every couple of months, he’ll bring the team together and they’ll talk about them and see what they can do. Most of those super-successful founders and leaders, they’re very obsessive about risks and minimizing the risks.

I was just thinking that we have some clients that are small organizations that we’re helping them take the first steps on things, a compensation structure together. We have other organizations that have much larger. You can see the difference in leadership in small to larger organizations. In small companies, they just have a few employees, and so losing one person can be catastrophic. The amount of business interruption and so forth is devastating.

You then have leaders of large organizations. If they lose a person or two, they can weather the storm and they just want to make sure that they can get back on track as quickly as possible. I think that it’s important to understand the different mindsets leaders of different sizes of organizations can have and what they experience based on their risk profile.

I love what you just mentioned as far as each of these leaders should have a dashboard of metrics that they’re looking at of health. We all look at performance metrics, but they’re thinking of them as, “When are we in crisis yellow? DEFCON 3, when is that happening?” We need to make sure that we’re really buckling down or being cautious about things.

Many large organizations have whole crisis management departments and structures and everything, but even in that cases, let’s say if you’re a manager or if you’re executive or whatever, working in such a size organization, even within the scale of your own team, you might want to do this analysis because it will prevent a lot of headaches.

Creating A Crisis Management Plan And Finding Opportunities

When you were thinking about the first steps leadership takes and putting together a crisis management type of plan, what do you typically advise your clients to do?

I’ll say those things that we mentioned as a first step is trying your best to predict and to prevent the crisis. Not every crisis can be prevented. I had another great leader on a podcast, the founder of Vivino, the largest wine app in the world. He says, “You always want to have a plan B and plan C and plan D in a situation.” He shared this other story when the COVID pandemic happened.

He was sitting with his co-founders and the company was going great, but then he sees this virus circulating in Asia. He went to Italy. I don’t know if you guys remember, Italy was the first country that got locked down. They’re looking closely. He said, “We were so focused on doing everything we could to figure out what could affect us. What if deliveries of wine stops?” It’s a revenue thing. “What’s the worst-case scenario?” This is a question he likes to ask himself.

“What’s the worst that can happen? Can we mitigate the risk of the worst? What is the plan? If the crisis hits, what do we do?” The business continuity and crisis management, what do we do? You need some certain part of the resources of your team to solve the crisis, and then you need some part of it to take care of the customers to make sure the operations are well.

If that happens, like the COVID pandemic or inflation, there are some certain events that could be maybe predicted or they could maybe happen, “What is our response to that? We better have a plan because when things start burning, it’s easy to do the step-by-step and actually execute on the plan as opposed to coming up with a new plan.

There was a German commander. I forgot his name. There was this famous quote. I’m going to say the quote wrong, probably, but it has something to do with you need to have a plan. You need to have no plan to survive contact with the enemy. That’s the thing. Have a plan B, C, and D, and be really clear about where you’re going. If the crisis evolves, it’s probably going to evolve in directions you didn’t predict anyway, but the more certainty you can create, the better.

 

I love that, just having contingency plans. The last thing is having a bug-out plan. Make sure you’re prepared if you have to get out for everyone’s safety.

I know it’s really something that everybody knows, but when there is a crisis coming, or you’re already in a crisis, that is not the time to stop caring for your physical, emotional, and mental state. This is the time you have to double down on your well-being, what do you eat, and how much do you sleep. Even if you’re probably not feeling like sleeping, your sleep might be disturbed, but that’s the time you have to double down on your emotions or your mental, your support network, and the people around you, relying on them.

This is the time because you gotta be this stable, solid pillar for everybody else. You need to have energy. You need to have strength and creativity in problem solving, like looking for solutions. The Chinese symbol for the crisis that Kennedy was talking about back in the ‘60s, that crisis is comprised of two symbols. One is danger and the second one is opportunity. In any crisis, there will be opportunities if you survive. You have to secure survival, but then, in every crisis, there will be opportunities for a team to grow and come together, for new markets to appear, and for new products to appear.

In any crisis, there will be opportunities if you survive. Share on X

I will give you a great example from Lithuania. The general manager from Kempinski Grand Hotel, Vilnius, Kempinski. The pandemic happens. The hospitality industry was hit really hard. Nobody’s allowed to go to the hotel and they’re relying on this revenue to pay salaries and everything else. What do you do? The whole hotel chain, the whole world is in a crisis. The general manager, a few weeks sitting at home, he’s trying to figure it out.

He does a couple of brainstorming sessions with his team. He’s like, “We’re sitting at home. Nothing is happening. We might as well come up with some ideas.” Somebody says, “What if we get rid of the beds in every room in the hotel, and we make the rooms mini restaurants?” “That’s not a bad idea. Let’s give it a try. Nothing to lose.” They remove the beds. They put one table and they made it for two people only because that was the law. That was the regulations. They smashed it. The whole media is taking this.

They get booked for three months ahead and they’re generating some revenue. They’re getting a lot of PR. That keeps them afloat. Of course, they want to be a full-time hotel. They’re going to make more money, but you got to think creatively. You have to look for opportunities. How can we secure the risks? As a survivor, make sure of the survival, look at the numbers. That’s very important. Reduce all the costs, look at the numbers, make sure everybody is fine with the team, and give all the support, more communication, more support. What’s the opportunity out there?

Great, I love that story. I know we’re at the top of our time here. Are there any last few things that you want our leaders who are listening to walk away with from our discussion?

Emotional Temperature: How To Lead With Strength In Uncertain Times

There was one phrase that really stuck with me when doing all these interviews for the book. I interviewed a lady called Rita McGrath. You should have it on the podcast. She’s fantastic. She’s a professor at Columbia Business School, a prolific writer, a serial bestselling author, and an innovative thinker, everything. She’s amazing. She shared that one important thing for leaders when a crisis hits is you have to keep your team’s emotional temperature down. Your goal as a leader when a crisis hits is you have to dampen your team’s emotional temperature. I think it’s such a beautiful metaphor.

Your goal as a leader when a crisis hits is you have to dampen your team's emotional temperature. Share on X

It’s like, “What is the temperature?” There’s no reason going high superfast. Where is it going? “This Steven guy is just panicking and I need to talk to Steven.” You have to put the temperature down. How can I put the temperature down? When we’re cool, with a cool head, we can look at the situation and we can be productive. Maybe we’re not going to resolve the crisis, but we can be most productive in this situation if we focus constructively on resolving it as opposed to freaking out and when people are with such a temperature, it’s really hard to make a decision. That’s the problem.

Thanks, Stoyan. Once again, a wonderful conversation on the show. We got to have you on more often. It’s been over a year. I miss your energy and the direction that you provide the forum. Thank you so much.

It’s always great to be here, guys. You keep inviting me, I’ll keep coming.

To all those readers out there, thank you so much for joining us on this episode. We’ll see you next time. Take care, everyone.

 

Important Links

• Stoyan Yankov
• Stoyan Yankov on LinkedIn
• Stoyan Yankov on YouTube
• Stoyan Yankov on Instagram
• Stoyan Yankov on Facebook
• Stoyan Yankov on X
• PERFORM in Times of Crisis
• It’s Not About the Coffee

 

About Stoyan Yankov

Stoyan Yankov
Professional Speaker | Corporate Trainer | Productivity & Culture Expert

Stoyan Yankov is a globally recognized speaker, corporate trainer, and performance strategist dedicated to helping business leaders accelerate personal and team performance, shape strong organizational cultures, and live more mindful, fulfilling lives.

With a track record of presenting at over 550 companies and events across 35+ countries, Stoyan has worked with industry leaders such as Hewlett Packard, Ramboll, DraftKings, and Unicredit Bulbank. He has also coached startups through top accelerators, including Startup Wise Guys and Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency, and delivered keynotes at major conferences like Web Summit, TNW, and PODIM.

Stoyan stands out for his engaging, high-energy approach, combining simplicity, structure, and actionable insights. He brings real-world-tested tools, a deep understanding of entrepreneurship, and an innovation-driven mindset to every workshop, seminar, and keynote. As the host of the Productivity Mastery Podcast, he continuously explores best practices with top thought leaders, fueling his mission to empower individuals and teams to perform at their best.