The Value of the Crisis That Never Happened
If you stopped the crisis before it started, there’s nothing to clean up. No headlines. No hero moment. So how do you prove what you did was valuable? This is a guide for how to tell the story of what never occurred - and why it matters more than anyone realizes.
The Invisible Victory
We throw parties for the ones who save the day in the middle of a fire. But we rarely pause to thank the person who made sure the fire never started.
When things stay smooth, no one asks why.
There’s no blip in the graph. No outage. No churn spike.
Just quiet continuity… because someone fixed the root issue before it surfaced.
But unless there’s a Bokuden in the room - a leader who sees the whole game - no one celebrates the invisible win.
That’s the paradox of prevention:
If you succeed, it looks like nothing ever needed you.
Telling the Story of the Trap You Disarmed
You don’t need to make yourself the hero.
But you do need to make the story legible - especially to people who didn’t see what you saw.
That means:
Explain how it would’ve unfolded
Estimate its impact
Translate your foresight into executive currency
Even if it’s rough. Even if it’s hypothetical.
You don’t need to be exact. But you do need to speak in their language.
The Executive Currency Framework
Don’t say “trust me.”
Say “here’s the problem I saw coming. Here’s what it would’ve cost. Here’s why it never did.”
Metric | Description | Estimated Impact |
|---|---|---|
FTEs | Full-Time Employees | Productivity saved, burnout avoided, headcount not required |
Dollars | Financial Impact | Revenue preserved, costs avoided, pricing leaks closed |
Timeline | Project Schedule | Delays prevented, roadmap acceleration unlocked |
Team Morale | Cohesion & Engagement | Retention, trust, and performance ripple effects |
Reputation | External Perception | Crisis PR avoided, trust maintained, regulatory scrutiny avoided |
Optionality | Strategic Flexibility | Kept doors open for scaling, partnerships, pivots |
Estimating Ethically
Here’s the trap to avoid: pretending no one else ever would’ve caught it.
The better framing is:
“Someone might’ve caught it. But when? And what would the damage have been by then?”
Root your estimate in:
Time: “$50k per month in leakage”
Trajectory: “Compound impact across quarters”
Comparables: “This is how long similar issues took to get noticed in the past”
Credibility doesn’t come from certainty.
It comes from reasoned plausibility.
Answering the Pushback: “What Did You Give Up?”
Someone may ask: “While you were focused on preventing this, what didn’t get done?”
Here’s the answer:
“Eldest Son Archetypes often move early - before the crisis is visible.
That gives us room to act without derailing everything else.”
You don’t drop the roadmap. You adjust the angle.
You don’t abandon your priorities. You make space for a quieter urgency.
“I changed the flat tire in the driveway - not when it blew on the highway.”
The Quiet Power of Prevention
You stopped the dragon before it left the cave.
But no one saw the smoke.
Now tell them what would’ve burned.
This is how we honour foresight.
This is how we make the invisible visible.
This is how we help our orgs see the value of those who quietly change the future.
Written for the ones who fixed the future while everyone else was still watching the present.
Explore the Full Series
The Value of the Crisis That Never Happened
Living Systems Foresight: How to Draw the Line to the Future
Published on:
Jun 3, 2025