‘But I don’t know what might happen! How can I prepare for a crisis?’

Well, we agree that you can’t predict what might happen. However, with a degree of preparation you can create the capability within your organisation to handle any crisis.

First, all crises have certain characteristics. By understanding these characteristics you can begin to plan for the pressures caused by a crisis.

A resilient organisation is likely to have:

• Tools and mechanisms to spot an emerging crisis
• A crisis plan which enables the organisation’s crisis response to be activated quickly
• A trained crisis team of people who understand their roles
• A communications team trained to support the crisis response by providing a clear and consistent message