Rebecca Collins, Managing Director – Chapel House Training and Consultancy

Rebecca tutored Andrew. March 2020.

“Andrew’s coaching style is precise and to the point. He will help you find a path through distractions and challenges and get to the heart of the issue”

Naomi Kent, President, North America – In Touch Networks

Andrew coached Naomi. 12 March 2021.

“Andrew Warneken was my executive coach for 6 months.

We worked on my professional goals, and also on some areas of my development that we had identified.

Andrew was skilled at asking the right questions, and providing guidance on reaching my goals.

We met on a regular basis and during that time I was given focused goals to complete to keep me on the right path. Having him encourage and motivate me to continue to progress was an essential part of my development.

While working with Andrew I made some fundamental changes and improvements that I would not have been able to make alone.

A life-changing experience”.

The recent COVID pandemic has, in some cases, highlighted certain quite significant gaps in business operation planning and “disaster” resilience.

Possible scenarios for a major disruption to a business would be an office fire / flood / or perhaps an infestation.

For the purposes of this blog it is assumed that a fire sweeps through the office and destroys the contents of the building; nothing can be salvaged. Business documentation, IT equipment, servers and backup drives have been destroyed or at least damaged in a some way that renders such equipment inoperable for a period longer than business needs demand.

After the emergency services have dealt with any casualties and extinguished the fire business operations do need to continue. How are you now going to continue to maintain contract / project commitments and deliverables? Would failing to meet such deadlines result in the income being withheld or even financial penalties because of late delivery?

Any building insurance is likely to cover structural repairs, contents losses and equipment damage would it cover a disruption of cash flow and / or penalties associated with project delivery? Even if the insurance did provide cover for such eventualities the insurance company are highly unlikely to provide a “ready-made” plan so that your business may start to begin managing the steps required for work to continue as soon as possible and begin to rebuild operations to where things were before fire.

Imagine that you are now looking at the smouldering ruins of the building that was once the office and a by-stander walks over, stands next to you and asks: “what are you going to do next and how are you going to manage to do it”?

Whilst you’re considering these questions the by-stander then turns around and begins to walk away. As a parting comment that person tells you that they can help you recover the business but also show and help you make sufficient preparations for when the next major disruption to your business take place.

Can you confidently answer these questions? Would you not at least consider calling them back to get their contact details? If no, why not? What have you got to lose? Would you not be intrigued by such an offer?

Whatever you decide you’d still be looking at the smouldering ruins of the buildings but, with the benefit of high insight, would you have now decided to accept the offer of help? If you had done so you would have already made the preparations to deal with the consequences of the fire that has just destroyed your office building. You would now be able in a position to know what you are going to do next. You will now also possess the knowledge on how to start business operations and project delivery (initially in a limited capacity) as soon as possible after the fire.

For any further information about the subject raised in this blog email me at andrew@warnekenconsulting.org