Charlie counts down his top 10 Business Continuity and Crisis Management books, as recommended by you.
Thanks to all those who replied to my bulletin request, LinkedIn post and tweets. Here is my list of book recommendations, which you may want to give to those who don’t know what to buy you for Christmas!
1. Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World by Melissa Agnes – A good accessible read on crisis management. This book was mentioned by several people, so it has made TOP of the list!
2. Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach by David Lindstedt and Mark Armour – I’m not totally convinced by the underpinning theory, but it does provide a different way of thinking about the BIA and business continuity. Read my full review and critique here. Again, this was mentioned by several people.
3. Corporate Smokejumper: Crisis Management: Tools, Tales and Techniques by Gil Meyer – This was published in 2017 and has received some good reviews. It is a personal view of crisis management from 30 years in the profession.
4. The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes – and why by Amanda Ripley – A little old, but the book focuses on the psychology of the human mind in stressful situations, and why it sometimes reacts in one way and sometimes in another, by looking at a series of case studies.
5. Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies by Charles Perrow – A classic argument that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety – building in more warnings and safeguards – fails because system complexity makes failures inevitable. Written in 1999, but still just as relevant today.
6. Crisis Management in a Complex World by Dawn Gilpin and Priscilla Murphy – If you are looking for a crisis management text book covering academic theory and want to read something worthy, this is a good start.
7. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink – I haven’t read it, but we can all learn from other people’s experience of incidents. It is about a hospital in New Orleans dealing with the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I have asked Santa for this one!
8. The Lessons Learned Handbook: Practical Approaches to Learning from Experience by Nick Milton – This is something we should all be better at. We all like taking part or delivering exercises, but are we any good at identifying the lessons learned and then implementing the recommendations? This book has good reviews on Amazon.
9. Crisis, Issues and Reputation Management by Andrew Griffin – A classic, quite easy read on crisis communications, with lots of good examples and case studies. A good beginner level look at crisis communications.
10. The Siege: Trapped Inside the Taj Hotel. Run or Hide? by Adrian Levy – It was the ten year anniversary of this incident quite recently and this book covers the 53 hours of the siege. It is a good easy read – I read it in an afternoon and evening.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Charlie
Here is the full list of books suggested:
1. Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World by Melissa Agnes
2. Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach by David Lindstedt and Mark Armour
3. Corporate Smokejumper: Crisis Management: Tools, Tales and Techniques by Gil Meyer
4. The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes – and why by Amanda Ripley
5. Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed
6. The Chimp Paradox by Prof Steve Peters
7. Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies by Charles Perrow
8. Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
9. Crisis Management in a Complex World – Dawn Gilpin and Priscilla Murphy
10. Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business by Chet Richards
11. The Resilient Organization: How Adaptive Cultures Thrive Even When Strategy Fails by Liisa Valikangas
12. The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations by Dietrich Dorner
13. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
14. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-ravaged Hospital Sheri Fink
15. The Crisis Manager: Facing Disasters, Conflicts, and Failures (2nd edition) by Otto Lerbinger
16. The Power of Resilience: How the Best Companies Manage the Unexpected by Yossi Sheffi
17. Crisis, Issues and Reputation Management (PR In Practice) by Andrew Griffin
18. Glass Jaw: A Manifesto for Defending Fragile Reputations in an Age of Instant Scandal by Eric Dezenhall
19. Protecting Your Business in a Pandemic: Plans, Tools, and Advice for Maintaining Business Continuity by Geary W. Sikich
20. Emergency Management Planning Handbook by Geary Sikich
21. Integrated Business Continuity: Maintaining Resilience In Uncertain Times by Geary Sikich
22. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
23. The Siege: Trapped Inside the Taj Hotel. Run or Hide? Adrian Levy
24. Issues and Crisis Management: Exploring Issues, Crises, Risk and Reputation by Tony Jaques
25. The Lessons Learned Handbook: Practical Approaches to Learning from Experience by Nick Milton
