Disaster Recovery Plan – Do You Have One? | FocalPoint Business Coaching

Disaster Recovery Plan – Do You Have One?

July 7, 2010 — Steve Thompson

I was in conversation with FocalPoint New York Business Coach Margaret Maclay the other day.

“Successful people are not people without problems. They are people who respond quickly and positively to their problems. They think them through in advance; they anticipate them.”

- Brian Tracy

If you’re a small business owner you’re the guy who has to hold the reins when disaster strikes. If you’re a manager in a big corporation, you’re the guy who has to hold the reins when disaster strikes.

I mentioned last week that BP hasn’t really impressed the world with how they deal with disaster. Actually it seems like the world is pretty hard on someone when they screw up. The thing is, when things go wrong, there is a tendency to look for the responsible party. If things keep going wrong, then the responsible party can continue to receive the blame.

Brian Tracy is a firm believer in Murphy’s Law, but he also doesn’t take it as an excuse to let things get out of control.

If your company experiences a disaster, you need to be able to take the helm and drive through it.

The best way to be able to react quickly to disaster is to have plan in place.

What kind of disasters might happen in your business?

Physical disaster – this could include anything from a breakdown of processing equipment to the whole factory burning down.

Financial disaster – a big investment loss, a sudden increase in expenses (I’m specifically thinking of flying helicopters and the price of gas here, but there could be so many other things), legal action/taxes.

Personal disaster – a situation can arise where you aren’t able to work, be it physically or mentally.

Any of these events can be obviously debilitating to a business. But if you have a plan in place then at least you can maintain some decorum while you scramble to get back on board.

At the very minimum, you can deliver your disaster plan to customers and staff to let them know you’ve already figured out what to do. Even if they don’t approve, at least you still look like you’re in control.

How do you create a disaster plan?

First off: Apply Murphy’s Law to all your systems and processes – to every aspect of your business. Consider every possible disaster and then some.

Next: Determine safe stop points. Like Toyota’s Kaizen – when someone on the production line sees something go wrong they can stop the system right away. Where are your safe shut down points?

Finally: Have alternatives at the ready. If your best o-ring supplier suddenly closes shop (yeah – that’s another Toyota story) you’d best know where else to get them. If your delivery van suddenly dies – know a dependable and affordable courier to take over.

A Brian Tracy trained FocalPoint Business Coach can help you plan for disaster – or, if you’re already knee deep, a Business Coach can give you the guidance and support you need to get back on track.

If you take the time now to be prepared for what could go wrong – then you can maintain some amount of grace when the poop hits the prop.

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”

-Thomas Paine.

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Comments

Great post Steve, You're

July 9, 2010 — Greg DeSimone (not verified)

Great post Steve,

You're absolutely correct that a Brian Tracy trained and certified coach can help a business put contingency plans in place in case of a "disaster" or in many cases put actions items in place to prevent the disaster.

In fact we all preach about getting clarity in your business. By taking a client through our "clarity" materials, we help them define their:

1) Vision

2) Mission and values

3) Goals

4) Ideal client (and not so ideal clients)

5) Competition

6) Constraints, and

7) Position in the business life cycle

As business owner and executive works through this proactive coaching process with their professional coach they achieve a double benefit. First, they position their company to take advantage of the existing marketplace which allows them to become more productive and profitable. Second, they can identify their potential weaknesses and can put action items in place to improve or fix them as well as put in contingency plans just in case “Murphy’s Law” does strike.

Ancillary benefits of this process are that you can improve your communication process with your employees, customers and vendors. With a clarified business model in place, it becomes easier to craft their corporate messages. They have a clear framework of how to make their decisions and communicate them.

It can also improve your ability to delegate, which improves the business’ overall productivity and the owner’s quality life. Think about it, if you have a clearly defined vision, mission and goals tied to performance, your employees have a clear framework which to base their day-to-day decisions. They can act with confidence that they are moving the business towards it goals and creating a shared vision.

Greg De Simone

Greater Boston, MA and Providence, RI area

http://www.gregdesimone.com

Great response Greg! Just one

July 12, 2010 — Margaret Maclay (not verified)

Great response Greg! Just one small addition...As a coach in northern New Jersey, one of the things that seems to come up continuously is business leaders forgetting to get the associates involved in the process of identifying Vision, Mission, Values, Goals, Ideal client (and not so ideal clients), Competition, Constraints, and Position in the business life cycle. Having the team involved from the beginning encourages accountability, trust, commitment, focus on results and the mastering of conflict. In his book, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni makes a case for effective, sustainable teamwork based on these 5 criteria. So putting a contingency plan in place really starts by getting everyone on board and headed in the same direction.

Thanks Steve for a great post!!

Margaret Maclay-Edgewater, NJ

http://margaretmaclay.focalpointcoaching.com

As a Certified Business

July 12, 2010 — Chris Allen (not verified)

As a Certified Business Performance Coach, I've experienced disaster recovery planning on the other side while I worked at Procter & Gamble. The good news is for years, our company had done the due diligence to plan for a disaster and at least had executed numerous tests with our critical computer systems and knew we'd be okay. Over a decade ago, we also realized we needed to plan for the human side of things at our corporate offices ... a chemical truck wrecked just outside of one of our buildings and we evacuated and shut down for a day. What if it had been much worse? What if a local disaster hit in Cincinnati, Ohio or at another key center somewhere else in the globe and shutdown entire facilities for days/weeks/??? We did extensive planning for that as well and had plans in place to at least manage through key work processes needed to keep the business running while getting the primary facilities back up and running.

The ability to recover from a disaster is paramount in today's environment. We are increasingly dependent on new technologies which help us to be more productive and at the same time also make us more vulnerable to both major and minor disasters. Computer hackers, viruses, terrorists, economy, weather, etc. are all potential threats. As a business coach, I like to not only plan for disaster, but also look for the positive things that can be addressed too!

An example tool I've used at P&G and also now as a FocalPoint Business Coach is a SWOT analysis. Evaluating Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats is something every business owner can do and allows them to not only plan for disasters, but also look for ways to take advantage of positives too!

By it's very nature, the analysis includes understanding:

Strengths - What is it the business does better than anyone else? How can we leverage it better to drive our ideal client to our products & services and keep them?

Weaknesses - What is it the business really needs to work on to ensure it isn't a negative in the clients' eyes?

Opportunities - Where are the big wins out there? Key trends in demographics, market dynamics, technology advances, partnerships, etc.

Threats - What could derail the business? What are upcoming trends or products and services that change how people think about our business? And yes, this is where the business owner can address all of the potential disasters we've already mentioned. It's hard to address everything at once so it's a good idea to prioritize (that was a trick comment - we do this in the other categories too!) what to work on based on the likelihood of outcome and the impact to the business.

Good planning is important to ensure the business takes advantage of the good and minimizes the risks of the bad.

Chris Allen, Owner & Professional Business Coach, The Business Spotlight, Inc.

"Lighting the Way to Your Success!"

Cincinnati, Ohio

www.TheBusinessSpotlightInc.com

513-272-6224 [513 27COACH]

http://www.linkedin.com/in/christophershawnallen

One of the disasters that can

July 12, 2010 — Bill Banner (not verified)

One of the disasters that can face a business and its' owner's family is when something suddenly happens to the owner. Too many small businesses rely on the owner to be there and hold everything together on a day to day basis. We've probably all known owners that can't even take a two week vacation from their business let alone an extended absence due to ilness or worse.

One of the areas we excel at as FocalPoint Coaches is helping our clients develop and implement exit strategies - usually to help the owner sell the business at a fair price and with a smooth transition process. I encourage all of my clients to have an exit strategy in place regardless of whether they intend to sell in the near term or not. By having the business in "saleable form" they, their family and the business are in much better shape should personal disater strike or, should a really lucrative offer come along that "you just can't refuse".

The keys to an exit strategy are two fold. First, the financials of the business must be in good presentable form. Businesses are usually sold at a multiple of the last number of years earnings plus fair market value for assets, which any buyer will need to substatiate through the due diligence process. Having these figures in a readily available format makes this part of the process much easier.

The second and perhaps more involved step is to have systems and proceedures in place that someone can step in and follow in order to reproduce the results the business owner is now achieving. This is certainly not an overnight exercise but when when done and in place, allows the owner a significant amount of flexibility.

With a solid exit strategy in place, the business owner will have the freedom to extricate him or herself form the day to day operations and do more entrepreneurial things. It will enable them to comfortably take a vacation knowing that their employees willl know what to do in their absence. It will also enable them to take advantage of a great offer for their business should it come along. But should disater strike the business owner, they can at least know that they have left their business in the best possible shape for their family.

There couldn't be a better example of the expression "Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail". Havng a contingency plan in place for any potential disaster can only make a business stronger by finding solutions to its potential weak spots and having them in place before they are needed.

Bill Banner, Hamilton Ontario

bbanner@focalpointcoaching.com

www.billbanner.ca