Is it easy or difficult to disrupt a normal routine? Ask a mother who sends her kids to school in the school bus (need to maintain time) and then rush to office to be on time! Yes.. one day waking up few minutes late can cause a huge disruption in itself for a single family.. what about organizations and countries? When my son asked me about it.. I started thinking about how disruptions can grow in size pretty quickly and especially for areas that are really unpredictable.

This quote from an International Management class articulates the scale of disruption and how it can escalate disproportionately!

Now a family with dependents where everyone has a different set of responsibilities everyday and have overlaps and joint responsibilities for some activities. Now think of the disruptions if one person falls sick 🙂

Look at an organization – Sales, Development, Testing, Recruitment, Finance, Leaders, Team members and all layers of management have to come together to work towards a common goal. Now imagine if one team in a specific location loses internet connectivity and no cell phone coverage 🙂 It would be a chaotic situation for many layers of the organization! Organizations do plan for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery – in simple terms, who does what and when, when the organization is facing a crisis.

Now, look at a country level, when things go wrong in a complex system, it is difficult to predict the disproportionate snow-ball effect on all other areas. Think about any recent natural disasters like floods, hurricane, tsunami, and health hazards that have happened. How did they start, how did the local authorities and people react initially, few weeks into it? How did the preparation levels change? Who called for action? How were resolutions sought? How long did it take to get back to normalcy in that area? How many industries and businesses were impacted?

Now, read this with the current global health hazard in mind..? When would we know how prepared we are?