“A sense of crisis will provide a company with a springboard to change and revitalization. Crisis gives rise to new ideas, revolutionary products and systems for organizational renewal.”
“Instead of just saying that everything is fine and dandy, you have to get them to realize that there might be other things they should be doing” (Katsuaki Watanabe, former head of Business Planning at Toyota).
Example: Toyota (after the bubble) and East Japan Railways (after privatisation) both used a sense of crisis to instill a sense of the need for change in their organizations.
Source: Katayama, O. (1996). Japanese business into the 21st Century: strategies for success.