What a Crisis Reveals About Company Culture

You do not learn what a team is made of during an ordinary workday. You learn when everything suddenly stops being ordinary.

I recently spent two weeks with our teams in the Philippines. On July 14, while I was in Davao, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck offshore of Davao Occidental.

If you have never experienced an earthquake, it is difficult to describe. For a split second, your brain tries to understand what your body already knows. Then the ground is moving, and everything else becomes secondary.

In that moment, I did not see panic from our team. I saw preparation, concern for one another, and people instinctively stepping up.

This was not an isolated event

The Philippines has endured an exceptionally difficult period.

On June 8, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck offshore of Sarangani in southern Mindanao. It damaged homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, roads, and other essential infrastructure. By June 23, government figures reported approximately 1.6 million people affected across several regions.

The earthquake was followed by thousands of aftershocks, including the magnitude 6.5 event I experienced in July. At the same time, severe weather and heavy rainfall triggered deadly landslides in parts of Mindanao.

These are not distant headlines for us. Our people, their families, and their communities live with these risks.

The Philippines ranked first in the 2025 WorldRiskIndex for disaster risk. Approximately 20 tropical cyclones enter or develop within the Philippine Area of Responsibility each year, with eight or nine typically crossing the country. Earthquakes, flooding, typhoons, landslides, and power interruptions are realities that businesses operating in the country must prepare for.

But statistics cannot capture what it feels like when your family is frightened, your home may be damaged, or you are waiting to learn whether everyone you care about is safe.

That human reality must always come first.

Culture is what people do before anyone tells them what to do

Companies talk about culture constantly. The real test is what happens when the playbook is interrupted.

At Snapscale, our culture is built around a simple belief: take care of people first, and they will take care of each other, our clients, and the work entrusted to them.

When the earthquake struck, the first priority was not productivity. It was people.

Team leaders began checking on employees and their families. People accounted for teammates and shared information. Where coverage was needed, colleagues in unaffected locations stepped in. Leadership stayed connected so decisions could be made quickly and clients could be kept informed when necessary.

Nobody needed to be reminded that people came first. That instinct was already part of the culture.

That is what made me proud.

Resilience must be designed before it is needed

Culture drove the response, but preparation made continuity possible.

Our operating model includes several layers of protection:

Geographic redundancy. Our delivery capabilities extend across the Philippines, India, and Mexico. A disruption in one location does not have to become a disruption everywhere.

Secure work-from-home capability. Eligible team members can work through company-controlled equipment and systems within our HIPAA-compliant operating environment.

Planned coverage. Backup coverage and escalation paths are established before an emergency, not invented during one.

Clear communication. Leaders know whom to contact, what information must be collected, and when a situation needs to be escalated.

Technology that creates visibility. Our systems help us understand employee availability, operational capacity, client priorities, and where support is needed.

Technology cannot eliminate a disaster. It can, however, give good people the visibility and tools they need to respond intelligently.

The lesson I brought home

You cannot take the human out of healthcare. You cannot take the human out of business continuity either.

Systems matter. Redundancy matters. Technology matters. But none of them replace a culture in which people genuinely care about one another.

The Philippines faces natural hazards at a scale most Americans rarely experience. Yet I continue to be struck by the strength, composure, generosity, and resilience of our people.

To our team members and their families across the Philippines: thank you. Thank you for looking after one another, for stepping forward when it mattered, and for showing what Snapscale’s culture looks like when it is tested.

You made me proud in a way no spreadsheet or performance report ever could.

Leadership is easier when you’re learning from leaders.
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