Do You Need A Crisis Team? Yes! Managers have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the people, financial condition and reputation of the organization that employs them. This special obligation can be enhanced when a thoughtfully trained Crisis Team is ready to help any major organizational challenge, from industrial accident to an employee threat. The literature on crisis teams is rich in lessons: a typical team includes representatives of senior management, human resources, legal, communications and the security department, for example. This team typically is trained in organizational response by employing a series of proven educational tools that include scenario-based planning, simulations and benchmarking of comparable companies. The best time to mobilize your crisis team is before a threat or incident occurs. This allows senior management to determine what skill sets are missing (such as environmental specialists, IT recovery or threat assessment) and which ones could be supplemented by local law enforcement or reputable consultants. When a crisis team is gathered during or after an accident, it's often too late: the news media immobilizes your switchboard and lobby, families are grieving and demanding answers, and litigators are already identifying where your company ignored the warning signs of crisis. Learn and benchmark what is expected of you and your team before an incident strikes your company. The decision to invest time and energy in training your team before an incident is one of the most sound foundations for risk management that you can undertake.