Edited by Robert A Clark
In Hindsight reflects on a series of disasters from a BCM perspective. Some organizations have scored good, others did not. Five organizations were not prepared and did not make it. A sixth has made it thanks to an extraordinary portion of luck. Some disasters had extraordinary proportions and global consequences. Others stayed local. The causes vary, from brutal bad luck like acts of God and accompanying volcanic eruptions, to things that could be prevented like the Herald of Free Enterprise, in which somebody is clearly to blame.
Other causes of human nature are lack of insight or poor management, profiteering, stupidity, terror, … All these things have in common that they are in the environment of many organizations.
The consequences can be equally diverse: environmental damage, death, safety and health problems, global economic crisis, legal prosecutions …
This diversity of topics makes the book very suitable as an eye-opener for managers and boards of directors.
The penultimate chapter also emphasizes the importance of small sparks: fraud, cyber attacks, employee dissatisfaction, the media, small and large fires, including those of the neighbors, poor planning of major projects, breaches of information security such as data theft, floods, diseases, etc.
But the final message, perhaps the most important, is in a quote from Vince Lombardi, a former American football player, who said: “It is not whether you get knocked down; it’s wheter you get up “. And that requires preparation.