Crisis Preparedness
Every battle is won or lost before it is fought
Introduction
The time to decide how to respond to a crisis is not when one hits. Organisations that perform best aren’t lucky, they’re prepared.
Today’s crises are fast, emotional and interconnected. Viral rumours can spread before facts are known. Outrage can travel globally in minutes. Kingsford Strategy helps leaders prepare for this new reality - drawing on deep experience in the UK’s national crisis response system. We help you anticipate risks, build trust before you need it, strengthen resilience, and prepare your people to lead under pressure.
Identifying risks
We help you focus on the scenarios that could genuinely threaten your organisation’s objectives, operations or reputation. That means identifying high-impact risks, from operational failures and geopolitical shocks to cyber attacks and cultural flashpoints, and prioritising where preparation matters most.
Practical response frameworks
Crisis plans should bring clarity. We develop easy-to-use frameworks that set out roles, responsibilities, escalation routes and decision-making structures that work in real life, not just on paper. These frameworks reflect how crises now unfold - fast, distributed, emotional - and give leaders clear playbooks to draw on under pressure.
Scenario planning and stress-testing
The most effective responses are rehearsed. We run scenario exercises using techniques such as pre-mortems, which help teams to identify worst-case scenarios and take action now to avoid them. This approach exposes weak points early and builds the muscle memory needed to act decisively when the stakes are highest.
Building trust before a crisis
The organisations that recover fastest are those that are most trusted before the crisis hits. We help you identify how to build trust now with the partners whose support will be most critical in a crisis. In a low-trust, fragmented world, this preparation is as important as any operational plan.
Preparing leaders and spokespeople
In a crisis, leadership communication sets the tone. We coach senior leaders and spokespeople to operate effectively under pressure: delivering clear messages, demonstrating empathy, and managing their own resilience. This includes preparing for hostile media environments and social media scrutiny.
Building resilience to information threats
Traditional rebuttal is no longer enough. Disinformation spreads faster than it can be disproven. We help organisations adopt proactive strategies such as “pre-bunking” - building your audience’s resilience to manipulation techniques before they encounter them.