Leading People Through Disasters

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Foreword

As professionals, we often have to deal with challenging events, people, and scenarios. For the most part, we try to make the best of these situations and do what’s right for our organizations, our people, and ourselves. And over the years, many of us have learned valuable lessons: Planning is less painful than procrastination, prevention generally requires less time and resource outlay than intervention, and action is more effective and less costly than reaction.

The extraordinary number of catastrophic events during the first half of this decade has created a more intense focus on disaster planning/preparation and crisis management. We’ve discovered—some of us the hard way—that getting involved in disaster preparedness is one of ...