When Chaos Hits, What’s Your Plan B?

The Business Emergency Room: For Leaders Facing Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity & Ambiguity (VUCA)

Most businesses won’t survive their next big disruption. Not because the crisis is too big, but because their business continuity plan (BCP) was either half-baked or never tested.

Maartje van Krieken makes the case for recovery planning that actually works. What would happen if your leadership team was unreachable? If your systems went down? If your staff didn’t know who had authority to make decisions?

The stats are rough. Nearly 95% of companies without a recovery plan after a major data breach go out of business within a year. And yet, most organizations either don’t have a documented BCP, or haven’t updated it in years.

Maartje walks through what a good BCP needs to cover: not just cybersecurity or data recovery, but business-wide disruptions, everything from crisis communication and staffing protocols to vendor continuity and decision-making chains. She shares the story of Southwest Airlines’ infamous collapse in December 2022 as a clear example of what happens when those systems aren’t in place.

What kind of support would your team need in the first 24 hours of a crisis? Have you ever talked through worst-case scenarios with every department in the room? Maartje doesn’t just focus on what belongs in the plan. She explains why the process of building it, the conversations, the scenario planning, the connections made across teams, is where so much of the real value lives.

This episode is part practical breakdown, part wake-up call. If your current plan lives in a drawer or hasn’t been updated since before hybrid work was a thing, now’s the time to rethink it.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Why Most Businesses Fail Without a Continuity Plan

02:55 Southwest Airlines Case Study: A Failure to Plan for Failure

05:06 What Every Business Continuity Plan Should Include

08:40 Crisis Communication and Emergency Response Protocols

11:09 Vendor Risk and Supply Chain Continuity

13:38 Overlooked Elements That Make or Break a BCP

18:03 Building an Agile Crisis Response Team

20:00 Scenario Gamification for Better Recovery Planning

22:17 Pre-Investments That Accelerate Crisis Response

Links

Connect with Maartje van Krieken:

https://www.thechaosgamesconsulting.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maartje/

https://maartjeturnschaosaround.substack.com/

Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction.

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm