Where the rubber meets the road

Not long ago, I ran an exercise for a major organisation's Crisis Management Team, primarily comprised their senior executives.

It was designed to stress test their response capability - nothing more dramatic than what could plausibly happen on any ordinary Tuesday.

Within 30 minutes, the exercise had uncovered something nobody expected - the Board had never agreed on what authority the CEO had to make decisions independently during a crisis. There was no documented escalation protocol. As a result, there were conflicting assumptions in the room about who owned what.

The organisation had a business continuity plan. It was thorough, well-structured, genuinely impressive.

Nobody had tested it against governance reality.

That day I realised something I now return to constantly: resilience isn't just operational. It's about governance and clear decision-making frameworks.

During BAU conditions, it is extremely valuable to have the Board and the SLT discuss and agree on paying ransom, legal privilege, who fronts the media and the right balance between good crisis comms and legal discretion.

After many years of working in business resilience, my consistent observation is this: the organisations that recover fastest from disruption are the ones whose Boards had honest conversations with management before the crisis arrived.

Not after.

Has your Board ever actually tested what happens when the plan meets reality?