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Business Rule #24:
Prepare for Disaster
April 8, 2005
by Caroline Pfouts
This week’s show was a case study in disasters as both teams were confronted with major setbacks. But as any insurance salesperson will tell you, accidents happen—and that’s exactly why you need to be prepared.
There are all kinds of disasters. Hurricanes, for instance, are predicted days in advance; everybody knows when a storm is coming. People have a chance to put up storm windows and lay in supplies. Some people even make the best of being trapped indoors by mixing hard “hurricane” punch and throwing a hurricane party.
Angie McKnight relying on the late-arriving fashion models to bring the clothing samples was like a hurricane: a foreseeable disaster. Since they didn’t make it to the job on time, the models had already demonstrated that they weren’t all that concerned about the success of the Net Worth project. The crisis of the forgotten sample jeans jacket could have prevented with minimal effort. All Angie had to do was grab up all the sample clothing as she headed out the door. It’s as though she just didn’t think to put up storm windows.
Then there are earthquakes. Unlike hurricanes, quakes attack without warning. There are no earthquake parties. Only emergency kits to be grabbed while running from crumbling buildings.
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Just like an earthquake, Chris Shelton losing a $5,000 credit card while buying electronics was pretty unpredictable. If you send an adult out to shop, you honestly don’t expect him to lose the money. It had to be demoralizing and embarrassing for the Net Worth team to have marshaled its assets so poorly. After all, in business, accumulating and conserving capital is the name of the game. By instructing Chris to return to Best Buy the next day and stay there until the credit card was found, Alex effectively reduced Net Worth’s team force from three to two people. Since Magna had four, the lost card dealt a serious blow to Net Worth’s ability to compete.
Not to be outdone in the disaster department, Magna suffered its own brand of calamity. After carefully designing a logo to identify their new line of clothing as “Wearable Tech,” the Magna team brought their only samples to a silkscreen shop to be customized. Unfortunately, the shop printed one item with the lettering backwards and dribbled ink on another.
Craig Williams and Bren Olswenger had the
thankless chore of delivering these sorry-looking samples to their Project Manager, Tana Goertz. Of course, the silkscreen artists apologized for their shoddy workmanship. They even forgave the fees on the marred pieces. But that was hardly much help to Magna.
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Accidents happen—and that’s exactly why you need to be prepared.
