Preparing for the Unpreparable

I'm no follower of Polish politics.  Before a few hours ago, I would have been hard-pressed to tell you that Lech Kaczynski was the country's president.  In fact, there is no way on Earth I would have guessed.


As I read a few postings on the Polish President's plane crash and the death of everyone on board, I was struck by the magnitude of the crisis now taking place in Poland.  Is this a scenario they could have planned for?  Sure, we all know there is a line of succession in the United States and anyone who's watched The West Wing can tell you why a member of the Cabinet stays behind at the White House during the State of the Union address.  But I mean, really, do these kinds of situations really happen?

Well, yeah.

Business owners have a responsibility to consider what will happen to their businesses in the event of a crisis.  Issues of safety, succession and business continuity must all be addressed.  Depending on the size of the company and the product or service offered, crisis communications planning must be part of the consideration.  Smart managers will take the time now - while they have it - to think about a variety of scenarios that could come up and how they ought to go about managing the communication around these scenarios.