Bear Essentials: Last Week's Crisis Shouldn't Affect This Week’s Work
Perception
You're just being "responsive", "collaborative", and "flexible" when you approve and your team spins up content for whomever shouts the loudest or has HIPPO status. It's because of these and emergency requests the content team never seems to have time to finish the content they already planned. And you're telling yourself that is just the way it has to be.
Reality
You're running a content/marketing team, not an emergency department. Being in "always-on" crisis and accommodation mode is ineffective, inefficient, and exhausting ... not responsive.
If your content plan for the week gets torched by noon every Monday, then you are kidding yourself if you think you have a content strategy or process. You don't. If you did, genuine crises would be rare and your team would be happier.
Why It Matters
- Always-on leads to team burnout.
- Strategy and process are never given the chance to gain the traction needed for adoption and evolution.
- Results are reactive, not planned.
What Most Teams Get Wrong
- Using “urgent” as the default mode.
- Prioritising visible work over aligned work.
- Failing to create buffer capacity.
- Not setting up, communicating, and adhering to process guardrails like single intake form for all content requests; maintaining a visible, share content calendar; educating stakeholders on the content supply chain process and what's in it for them; and learning it's okay to say "no".
What to Do Instead
- Allocate time each week for “strategic/maintenance/urgent” work.
- Create criteria for different levels of content requests: planned, urgent, SOS.
- Review "crises" of the past year and ask: were they true "stop everything" emergencies? Are they predictable? etc. Then act - adapt (create criteria, schedule those that are predictable, update process as needed, ...) based on the review findings.
Seventh Bear Take
If your weeks begin with panic, you’ll never end with progress.
Deep Dive
Want more on this topic? Check out Relearning the Fundamentals: Marketing’s 2026 Reset.
