The Presidential Debate and Being Prepared

I just read an interesting article that compared the first presidential debate to the process of being prepared for an emergency.  To quickly recap, everyone with eyes could see that Hillary was much more prepared for the debate than Donald – and because of this, she clearly won the debate.  This is a perfect example of how being prepared trumps winging it (pardon the pun?).

The article points out that Clinton exhibited the guiding directives of being prepared – anticipate, prepare and practice.  She anticipated what Trump might say (both proactively and reactively), prepared a variety of appropriate responses (or courses of action), and then practiced and rehearsed until she was blue in the face.

Utilities and the ?Be Prepared? Mantra

Utility and energy companies should follow Hillary’s example when it comes to emergency preparedness.  Challenges, including worst-case scenarios and “non-utility” issues that keep external stakeholders up at night, should be anticipated (to the extent possible) so that proper courses of action can be fleshed out and documented.  This should also include communication strategies and message content.  And these proper courses of action, i.e., processes and protocols, should be practiced via emergency management training and emergency drills and exercises.

It’s a good comparison and I agree with the article about the similarities between the debate and utility emergency planning.  The debate was a nice case study about being prepared, and highlighted how preparedness can mean the difference between winning and loosing.  Check out the article for more information.