A failure of the imagination

The Irish banking crisis – a crisis management perspective

The final 9/11 report on why the US was so ill prepared for the attack on the Twin Towers said: ‘We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat’ and that the most important failure was ‘one of imagination.’

In July of this year all Irish banks passed the so-called stress tests and were given a clean bill of health. We now know the banks are utterly broken and have brought Ireland to its knees.

The stress tests were worthless with the wrong questions being asked, but why? Was it simply so benign answers, the world wanted to hear, would be forthcoming?

Dennis Flynn, Crisis Solutions CEO, says, ‘The difference between business continuity and crisis management is that the former prepares for the expected while the latter focuses on the unexpected. One is mechanistic and quantitative, the other freewheeling and qualitative.

He believes that effective crisis handling only occurs when the two work in lock step, ‘Those involved in business continuity must take risk assessment seriously, be brutally honest about potential crises and not pose questions that provide comfort blanket answers.’

Reflecting on the stress tests and the Irish banking crisis Flynn says, ‘Yes again, poor crisis readiness is shown to be a failure of the imagination’.