There’s no glory in prevention. That’s why disaster preparation is often overlooked. No praise for the crisis that didn’t happen. No applause for “nothing has gone wrong”. Understandable, somehow.
But: Hope is not a strategy, either!
The mindset behind phrases like “It will not happen to us…” or “We have been through so many crises; we will manage somehow…” puts a company’s reputation at unnecessary risk, because it may calm minds, but these beliefs don’t hold up to reality.
Before a crisis – this is the time to develop scenarios and test the right responses. Not because you want them to happen, but because you want to have the best strategy and procedures at hand when something goes wrong, and the pressure rises.
In December, I had a photo shoot with Christoph Kniel (great guy, by the way) — and while we were chatting about what I do for a living, we came up with the analogy of a fire extinguisher: You don’t go and buy one when smoke fills the room. You don’t start comparing models when flames spread. You don’t pull the user manual from the drawer when the house is on fire.
Crisis preparedness works the same way. Plans, training, and drills may feel unnecessary—until they are not.
And by the way–it’s never about glory, it’s just about doing what is right.
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