Disaster management and crisis recovery are ugly topics, but in the
post-9/11 world, not-dealing with them is not an option. 

[Full
disclosure, as they say in journalism circles, before they typically
disclose something utterly trivial and profoundly beside the point:  I
was a securities lawyer with a large investment bank/broker-dealer
for nearly 10 years whose offices were primarily in the South Tower
of the WTC; although I had left the firm before 9/11, on that day I
lost one abnormally courageous and far-sighted friend, who had predicted
another attack (I was there for the first one in 1993), the firm’s
head of security, an Aussie and a Vietnam Vet, and a "bloody-hell"
down to earth fellow.  His fatal mistake?  He stayed behind
to make sure everyone was getting out.  For the record, the firm
lost only two other people.]

On to the topic at hand, then:  We have moved from the era of
"disaster recovery" to the era of "business continuity."  In
other words, it’s not whether your critical files are backed up, it’s
whether your firm can continue to function and serve its clients.  This
is a more complex endeavor.  Why is this important?  The
obvious reasons are:

  • Moral:  You have a duty to your partners, employees, and clients;
  • Physical:  Your firm is entrusted not just with data but with
    confidences, with plans, with, if you’re good, dreams–safeguard
    these; and
  • Conceptual:  Senior management has, as part of their mandate,
    an obligation to undertake a serious examination of "risk management,"
    and today that includes, alas, terrorism.

Perhaps the most astute insight from this
article
about these issues
is this question:  How will senior management think on their feet
in the face of a huge, and by hypothesis unforeseen, disruption to
the business?  If the instinct is to adopt "business as usual"
mind-sets, patterns of behavior, and methods of communication, the
disaster will be amplified.  The more unfamiliar and threatening
the reality, the more our instincts drive us to take comfort in the
familiar.

Resist the impulse.

Related Articles

Email Delivery

Get Our Latest Articles Delivered to your inbox +
X

Sign-up for email

Be the first to learn of Adam Smith, Esq. invitation-only events, surveys, and reports.





Get Our Latest Articles Delivered to Your Inbox

Like having coffee with Adam Smith, Esq. in the morning (coffee not included).

Oops, we need this information
Oops, we need this information
Oops, we need this information

Thanks and a hearty virtual handshake from the team at Adam Smith, Esq.; we’re glad you opted to hear from us.

What you can expect from us:

  • an email whenever we publish a new article;
  • respect and affection for our loyal readers. This means we’ll exercise the strictest discretion with your contact info; we will never release it outside our firm under any circumstances, not for love and not for money. And we ourselves will email you about a new article and only about a new article.

Welcome onboard! If you like what you read, tell your friends, and if you don’t, tell us.

PS: You know where to find us so we invite you to make this a two-way conversation; if you have an idea or suggestion for something you’d like us to discuss, drop it in our inbox. No promises that we’ll write about it, but we will faithfully promise to read your thoughts carefully.