The ability to recover from a crisis is just as important as efforts to prepare for a variety of crisis situations. The latest example is the response to last week’s collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that spanned the Baltimore harbor.
The worst-case scenario of a cargo ship taking down the bridge was never considered by government officials, according to the Washington Post. That lack of imagination has made the initial efforts to recover from the deadly tragedy especially noteworthy.
When President Joe Biden toured the site of the bridge collapse today, he and others underscored the collaboration and teamwork of federal, state, and local agencies and officials to help clear the blocked shipping channel and rebuild the bridge as soon as possible.
In the corporate world, the longer that companies wait to address the impact of a crisis, the longer it will take to recover from emergencies, disasters, or scandals.. Indeed, delays could make matters worse, adding new challenges, difficulties, and costs to recovery efforts.
There are several steps business leaders can take to help ensure their organizations are not taken by surprise by a crisis — and are fully prepared when nightmare scenarios become a jarring reality.
Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security just because a crisis did not strike a business yesterday,that it won’t strike next week, month, or year.
There are some crises that could happen to any company, such as lawsuits. There are others that leaders think — or hope — will never strike, such as nature-related events including earthquakes, flooding, and wildfires.
Work with staff and colleagues to come up with a list of the least-possible crisis, and how they’d respond to it. In Baltimore, it’s a safe bet that no company or organization accounted for the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in their crisis management plans.
Just as organizations should not wait to appoint crisis management teams, they should take steps now to appoint qualified people who would oversee recovery efforts.
Most companies may not have the skills, expertise, or resources they need to respond to every conceivable crisis. But at least they should draw up a list of sources they can go to when different emergencies occur.
Having crisis management and recovery plans without testing them is like having no plans at all. That’s because there’s no guarantee that they will work they way they should when needed.
Conduct a regular series of practice sessions and simulations to identify areas that should be strengthened or revised.
Pay close attention to the latest crisis in the news, and consider how your organization would respond to it.
For example, if your company had been impacted by the Baltimore bridge collapse, how would it have reacted to it? And if it was located in the area that was hit by the 4.8 earthquake today, what would it have done had the earthquake been much stronger and destroyed buildings and the infrastructure?
Why wait until a crisis strikes your company to find out how it would respond and recover from it?
