The Crisis Management Memo

Why weren't they better prepared?

If we have learned nothing from recent crises such as the West Virginia mine disaster, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the Toyota recall, it is that the American public has absolutely no patience with organizations that even appear to be dragging their feet.

Another lesson learned is that both consumers and the news media are in awe that organizations aren’t better prepared to deal with crisis situations. “Why didn’t they have a plan to deal with that?” Americans seem to be asking in the wake of recent crises.

And thus far, it doesn’t seem like any of the corporations involved seem to have a good answer. Why weren’t they better prepared? Were they prepared, but just weren’t able to communicate that point effectively? Or, was the crisis just larger than any plan or amount of preparation could cope with?

While investigations continue and speculation increases, we may not know for a long time why these organizations and the many others that have been involved in news-making disasters recently seemed to be slow out of the starting gate.

As a crisis management specialist, I have tried to avoid the role of second-guessing the actions of corporations in a crisis. If you weren’t there at the time with the information that was available at that time, it’s difficult to say if they did the right thing or not.

But after more than two decades in the crisis management business, I can say that organizations that take crisis planning and disaster drills seriously seem to cope much better when things go wrong.

A crisis is the absolutely worst time to discover that you aren’t as prepared as you thought you were. Or, as a chemical plant manager in Louisiana once told me, “The more prepared I am, the luckier I get.”

That’s why our firm writes crisis plans, but has never totally tried to depend on them during a crisis. Along with the plans, we put an extreme amount of effort, money and resources into mock disasters and training. We’d rather have our clients prepared for something that never happens rather than the other way around.

Would a better response plan or additional training have helped speed the crisis management program along in the rash of recent disasters? We may never know for sure. But for those of us sitting on the sidelines, it sure gives us something to think about.

Do we have a good response plan? Are we prepared to deal with a disaster? Would we actually have done any better than BP or Toyota?

Don’t wait for a crisis to find out.

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