Arming Your Firm Against Crises

A business owner I met several years ago told me about a “fire drill” he holds at his company. Once a year this man walks into corporate headquarters and says to the first person he sees, “O.K., I'm dead.” Then he goes and sits in the corner and watches what happens.

It is the responsibility of the person who receives this news to contact this owner's son, who runs one of the family's six retail stores, and all of the non-family general managers. The managers have code phrases for announcing the drill to the rest of the staff: “We've just had horrible news. The owner had a heart attack early this morning. He didn't survive.”

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