Anniversary acknowledgements of past crises tend to enhance awareness that the next event is most likely just lurking in the shadows.  Is it going to be another terrorist attack or will Mother Nature wreak havoc on us again? Trying to be prepared, we pull our crisis management notebooks off the shelf that thankfully some of us haven’t had to use and dust off the cobwebs.  Even if we did use them, we might have found they didn’t actually hold up that well under the duress of a crisis.  So what’s the problem?  Where do we go wrong?  We have the book, we have the plan, some of us had the crisis . . . but maybe we didn’t have quite the outcome we anticipated.  Let’s look at a few flawed assumptions that contribute to the “not so perfect” management of a crisis.

Flawed assumption #1:  We have the crisis plan, what more do we need?
The flaw in this assumption is two-fold.  The first is that a crisis management plan is a task to complete on the to-do list and then put away for safe keeping.   The second is that crisis management is viewed as a static rather than a dynamic process.  In reality we have to breathe life into our plan prior to a crisis in order to manage the many challenges we will face at that time.

Flawed assumption #2:  How many times do we have to practice this plan, it’s costly!!!!!
The old adage “practice makes perfect” applies to sports as well as crisis management planning.  The ideal for your crisis management plan is for it to become as integrated into everyday work-life as gathering around the coffee pot in the morning.  This is labor intensive up front, but the payoff in the long run is priceless.  The key to practicing a crisis management plan is to keep it fresh, include challenges that will help to identify gaps, but not so difficult that it becomes an exercise in futility.  The more varied your simulations and practice exercises, the more expansive your skill repertoire will become.
    
Flawed assumption #3:  If it “ain’t broke”, don’t fix it . . .
Although there may be truth to this, advances in technology and the wide array of crises that are being thrown our way will challenge this overly simplistic view of your plan.   When we become overconfident in our ability to manage a crisis, we stand a chance of being “corrected” at a very inopportune time.

Flawed assumption #4:  As long as the people in charge know what to do . . .
Sometimes when we develop plans and teams, we forget that the planners (us) are also vulnerable to the catastrophic events.  The plan may only be as good as the depth of each team (and backup team) you have identified to manage the crisis.  

Flawed assumption #5:  It’s not in my job description . . .
Crisis management is in everyone’s job description – whether as a part of the team or a possible participant in a crisis event.  Companies need to establish a norm that crisis management simulations and plans are part of everyone’s work-life.  You just never know when you might be called upon to execute a vital procedure in your company’s plan!