Muscle memory for incident stress

Introduction A SOC alert does not knock politely. It arrives like a crowd of people shouting different instructions in a language only half understood. One alert maybe says “ransomware detected,” another could flag “unusual login,” and the logs you trust most are blank. Analysts glance at dashboards, shrug, and whisper to each other over Teams while the CISO insists on updates every five minutes. Virginia Satir’s work gives us a lens for understanding this chaos. She mapped how people respond to stress, communicate under pressure, and shape collective outcomes. Her stances, emotional congruence, and relational awareness offer a way to train teams not just to follow procedures, but to survive pressure without fracturing. ...

October 21, 2025 · 4 min