Easy solutions to improve your preparation in work, and life

Logic makes people think. Emotions make people act.

You’ve probably heard somewhere at some time that September is National Preparedness Month. It’s an annual reminder to ready ourselves in business and life for the unexpected. That might be a natural disaster like an earthquake; or maybe it’s as simple as losing your car keys.

Nobody will argue about the logic. It makes sense, right? If we invest money, time, and resources into readiness and preparedness, we will either prevent a calamity or respond and recover much more quickly.

But most of us aren’t wired that way.

Logically, it makes all the sense in the world. So does eating better and getting more exercise. So does reconciling our bank account monthly. And so does flossing daily.

But we don’t really do any of those unless somewhere our personal scar tissue or fear hits a point where we move from logic to emotion.

That transfer rarely happens in a column like this one. While I will try to offer easy solutions to help improve your readiness and preparedness, you will most likely have to be in a mood to move that forward. But that won’t stop me. I hope you’ll finish through to the end for my best emotional appeal.

Consider this your annual “checklist” to help ignite that readiness in your business and personal life. If you do only one of each, you’ll massively improve your ability to respond and recover from a crisis, and even better, prevent it from happening in the first place.

Solutions in your career

Create an ICE list. ICE stands for “In Case of Emergency.” Who gets called when the water pipes breaks overnight and the office floor is flooded up to your knees? Is there name and number easily accessible?

Who gets called when you have a ransomware attack that shuts down all the computers, or when the alarm accidentally gets triggered? Your “first responder” might be anyone who happens to be in the office or building that day. Do they know what to do?

Does everyone know how to contact the insurance agent or landlord?

It’s not overwhelming to simply create a list of key contacts that would need to be called or emailed in an emergency. It doesn’t have to be done all at once. Start a list, keep it where everyone can access it either physically or digitally, and then let everyone know where it is. Encourage people to add to the list as needed. The ability to contact the right person at the right time might save tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Practice once a year. Yes, practice does make better (not perfect) and this should be more frequent. But if you invested the time to just once a year practice a crisis response, your team will be better prepared to tackle any crisis.

You can have fun with it. Make it a company event with food; do an afternoon tabletop exercise; heck gamify the darn thing so people have fun and are engaged.

The simple process of creating a chance to practice a response pays dividends when the real crisis hits and demands immediate action.

Save a life. Everyone on your employ should be trained for CPR/First Aid and Defibrillators. Make it a priority to pay for the training and get everyone ready to respond to health or medical emergency.

This is where we can get emotional if you allow it. I once did a training for this with a client. We all knew it was a “fake” medical emergency. When I asked someone to retrieve the defibrillator and nobody knew where that was, we had to rule their co-worker “deceased.”

This became emotional for people. Just the thought of a cherished co-worker dying in the office because they didn’t know what to do was overwhelming. Emotion made that company act to train everyone and get a defibrillator nearby.

Solutions in your personal life

Keep your gas tank filled. While this might sound odd, we never know when we need to get somewhere fast. I remember being during an appendicitis attack that would ultimately require an emergency surgery. I didn’t know that at the time, but what I didn’t know was that I needed to get to the hospital. My daughter was home from college at the time and drove me. My first thought was, “I hope we aren’t out of gas!”

I have several similar situations when stopping for gas would have been a problem. I’ve tried to keep that in mind every time I get down to a quarter of a tank. You should do the same.

If you work somewhere outside the home, keep meds available. I’ve done many shelter-in-place scenarios for clients. We never know if we are going to get stuck away from home due to weather or some other event. Keeping spare medication that is important for you will give you both peace of mind and the help you need if you can’t leave where you are for a long period of time.

Save a Life. See above. We may be more likely to need these skills in our personal life. And it’s unlikely a defibrillator will be available unless we are in a public space.

I will never forget that Sunday afternoon in May of 2008. I was having a nice dinner with my parents at their house. My mom started choking on some food. Although I’d never actually performed a Heimlich Maneuver (abdominal thrust), I’d practiced it countless times in the 30 years of first aid classes that had been taken. I was able to dislodge the food and my mom got to live another seven years of life.

Has that happened in your life? Could it happen today? Are you prepared to save a life?

Maybe we guard against being overly emotional to these scenarios. Maybe we get too busy, or maybe we just think they happen to everyone else.

My sincere hope for each of you reading this is that you take a step by implementing just one of these into your life to help prepare to prevent, respond to, and recover from a crisis.

Dan Weedin is a strategist, speaker, author and executive coach and regular contributor to the Kitsap Sun. He helps small business and middle market business leaders and entrepreneurs to grow more profitably and create a better life. He was inducted into the Million Dollar Consultant? Hall of Fame in 2012. You can reach Dan at 360-271-1592; e-mail at [email protected] or visit his web site at www.DanWeedin.com.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Six personal and business solutions to improve readiness