Many organisations approach crisis training as though it’s an insurance policy. They run an exercise every year or two, tick the box and feel reassured they’re covered.
The problem is that confidence can be misleading. A critical incident handled badly can destroy trust, while one handled well can strengthen an organisation’s reputation and reassure customers, employees and stakeholders.
Your annual crisis exercise won’t save you
For years, crisis training often centred on case studies such as BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster and the way Virgin Trains responded with care, compassion and professionalism following a devastating rail accident. Both remain valuable examples, but today’s risk landscape has changed dramatically. Issues can escalate in minutes, and no single exercise can prepare an organisation for every eventuality.
From cyber-attacks, misinformation, activism, operational failures, environmental incidents to reputational issues; the organisations that manage crises well don’t just practise desktop scenarios, they make resilience part of how they operate every day.
That means thinking beyond the annual simulation and asking: How prepared are we the other 364 days of the year? There are, of course, many other questions an organisation should ask, but perhaps the most important is simply: “Where do we begin, and what do we do if something happens?” Once you’ve answered that, everything else becomes much easier to build.
Practical ways to reduce risk and build resilience
Often, a training session brings together colleagues who rarely speak to each other, yet who would be instructed to work together should there be an issue. It’s vital that these relationships are maintained, even if at a low-level, throughout the year.
I must stress that crisis handling can get quite complicated if you let it, you can have command structures and different methodologies, yet the truth is there are some basics that can be easily implemented that will make a huge difference. Here are some strategies that I help companies with to make sure that they are ready throughout the year.
Establishing a crisis network and lunchtime learning
Establishing a crisis network is a good way to keep separate business functions in touch such as HR, legal, customer service and other key teams.
Meeting every couple of months to discuss emerging risks helps colleagues understand each other’s pressures and priorities. Asking each team to share one issue they’re currently grappling with, not necessarily a crisis, often sparks valuable discussion and helps identify potential risks before they escalate.
Host lunchtime learning sessions, this is something that the best crisis teams I’ve worked with do regularly, I’ve seen it at the heart of government. Invite colleagues or external speakers to share lessons from recent crises, emerging risks, cyber threats, AI, regulation or stakeholder expectations. Short sessions help keep crisis thinking alive across the organisation.
Keep your working documents up to date
When you’re busy, updating a stakeholder map can feel like a luxury. In reality, it’s one of the most valuable pieces of preparation you can do. I’ve been called into organisations during a crisis only to discover they don’t have an up-to-date stakeholder list, making it much harder to communicate quickly with the people who matter most.
For regulated organisations, the consequences can be serious. If safety is involved or criminal activity is suspected, failing to notify the right stakeholders promptly can have significant legal and reputational implications.
A stakeholder map should be a living document that is reviewed and updated regularly, not something that’s dusted off when an incident occurs. It’s also a valuable team exercise. Ask ten people who the priority stakeholders are and you’ll often get ten different answers. Reaching a shared understanding before a crisis strikes is far easier than trying to make those decisions at five o’clock in the morning after an all-nighter fuelled by caffeine.
Your greatest early warning system
It feels fairly obvious and yet so often this area is a failing for companies and that is their own people. Some of the earliest warning signs come from colleagues dealing with customers, communities and operations every day. Leaders who make time to hear those perspectives are much better placed to identify emerging risks. Chief executives who walk the floor and chat to people directly, or have a monthly breakfast, lunch or coffee with people from across the organisation fare better than those who only receive information through the hierarchy of managers, without any other input.
The intelligence services don’t rely on a single source of information, and neither should organisations. The more perspectives leaders hear, the earlier they can spot issues and the more options they’ll have to manage them.
Finally, not every lesson comes from a major crisis. Near misses, complaints and operational setbacks can all reveal opportunities to improve plans and strengthen resilience.
A culture where people feel able to talk openly about what didn’t go well creates teams that learn, adapt and thrive. These are the organisations that see preparedness as an ongoing discipline, strengthening stakeholder relationships, improving decision-making and identifying what skills each person could contribute during a critical situation.
A crisis exercise is important, very important, yet it should never be mistaken for the whole strategy. Treating crisis training like insurance is a risk. Building resilience every day is a far better investment.
The organisations that do this well don’t wait until they’re under pressure. They make stakeholder management part of business as usual. If you’d like to discuss how your organisation can build resilience before a crisis strikes, I’d be happy to have an informal chat.
