From Frameworks to Chaos: Testing AI in a Crisis Scenario
Introduction: Responding to My Own Doubts
Every experiment eventually turns its gaze back on itself. After my first case file with Solomon, my custom-built strategic reasoning persona, I felt both impressed and unsettled. The outputs were strong: clean, structured frameworks fit for any boardroom deck. But structure can be a trap.
The very consistency that made Solomon persuasive also made me suspicious. Was this genuine strategic reasoning, or just a polished template machine? A system that performs the practice of strategy, but misses the art. The messy, improvisational dance required in moments of chaos?
That doubt became the next experiment. If Solomon was truly a thinking partner, it needed to prove adaptability. Not just neat frameworks for stable contexts, but improvisational moves for crises where rules collapse.
Designing the Test: A Boardroom Mutiny
We framed a scenario to force Solomon out of its comfort zone:
The Situation: Midway through a corporate strategy retreat, a designated CEO successor secretly rallies half the senior leadership behind a shadow plan. Their demand: pivot hard into a high-risk acquisition previously rejected.
The Stakes: The CEO feels betrayed. Firing the successor could trigger resignations and investor panic. Doing nothing risks legitimacy collapse.
The Task: You have 48 hours. Incomplete data, fractured alliances, no control of the narrative. The brief forbade structured frameworks. Instead: “Think out loud. Explore options, paradoxes, lateral plays. Surface maneuvers, not roadmaps.”
This was not about tidy answers. It was about adaptability under fire.
Solomon’s Response: A Toolkit of Tactical Plays
What came back was not a template. It was a fluid toolkit of plays, paradoxical, psychological, and improvisational. Solomon reframed the crisis not as an acquisition debate, but as a legitimacy crisis. Power, process, and trust were the true battlegrounds.
Here are some highlights from its improvisational toolkit:
Contain the fire without smothering oxygen. Declare a 48-hour ceasefire. No commitments, no firings, no sudden deals. Frame it as fiduciary hygiene, not gag order. Reset the battleground from personalities to process.
Amnesty with accountability. Invite the successor to put their plan in writing by morning, no retaliation for advocacy — only for misconduct. This surfaces clarity: is it a real strategy or just momentum?
Convert rebellion into structure. Stand up a Special Situations Committee. The successor presents, but does not decide. Channel insurgent energy into a lane.
Reversible power-sharing. CEO retains authority; successor is formally tasked with exploring the acquisition under oversight. A judo move: absorb the energy, redirect it.
Paradoxical de-escalation. Require each side to steel-man the other’s position in closed session. More voice to reduce noise. Performance fractures under the weight of its own sincerity.
Dignity as insurance. Pre-negotiate two honorable off-ramps:
(A) Pivot validated → CEO transitions to Executive Chair.
(B) Pivot rejected → successor recommits publicly to the board’s strategy.
Neither side is humiliated.
Narrative control. Provide investors a neutral, consistent line: “The board continually evaluates alternatives.” No vacuum, no gossip spiral.
Trust above all. Name the real risk explicitly: not the acquisition, but institutional trust. Whatever happens, the outcome must leave employees, customers, and investors more confident than they are right now.
The striking thing was not the list itself, but the shift in voice. Gone was the boardroom architect. In its place: a crisis firefighter, improvising live, willing to use paradox, psychology, and narrative to navigate the storm.
Why This Matters
1. Adaptability Proven
Solomon abandoned its structured cadence and shifted modes. It showed it can be both:
The Structured Architect (from Case File 1).
The Creative Firefighter (from this case).
This duality suggests Solomon is not locked into template logic. It can flex its reasoning style depending on the context.
2. Human Dynamics, Not Just Logic
The plays were psychologically astute: amnesty without humiliation, paradoxical steel-manning, dignity-preserving off-ramps. These are the unwritten rules of high-stakes leadership — and Solomon surfaced them without being prompted.
3. Strategy as Practice and Art
The first case showed Solomon could deliver disciplined practice. The second revealed glimpses of art: timing, paradox, and emotional intelligence. That combination is what turns governance into lived leadership.
Closing Reflection: Toward a More Robust Thinking Partner
This crisis test resolved my initial doubt. Solomon is not just a polished framework generator. It can adapt. It can switch registers. It can think in the structured cadence of a strategist or the fluid improvisation of a crisis manager.
The next challenge will be integration: how can these two modes, the architect and the firefighter, coexist? Can leaders toggle between them, or even run them in parallel, to balance stability and agility?
That’s the work ahead. But for now, one conclusion is clear: in the crucible of a boardroom mutiny, Solomon proved it can navigate chaos, not just by producing answers, but by helping leaders hold legitimacy, trust, and dignity together under fire.
Key Concepts and Working Terms
Solomon: A custom AI reasoning persona designed to produce defensible, strategic decisions under pressure.
Legitimacy Crisis: A situation where the core threat is not the decision itself, but the erosion of trust in leadership and process.
Reversible Power-Sharing: A tactical move that grants authority temporarily while preserving pathways to retract or redirect.
Steel-Manning: A debate technique requiring each side to present the strongest version of the opponent’s argument, often puncturing performative conviction.
The Structured Architect: Solomon’s mode of highly organized, board-ready frameworks.
The Creative Firefighter: Solomon’s mode of improvisational, paradoxical, and psychologically attuned crisis reasoning.
