Who should be on your crisis response team?

Who absolutely, positively must be in the room when your organization is up against it?

This is a crucial question for every company to consider, yet as crisis communication expert Gerard Braud recently shared with Ragan, far too many wait until the firestorm hits before determining who should do what.

“There are too many corporate leaders who think they’ll just figure it out whenever the crisis happens,” Braud says. “They’ll put money into revenue-producing initiatives, but they’re in denial when it comes to things that could damage the brand long-term.”

The damage resulting from lack of preparation can certainly be severe. Eleventh-hour scrambling saps valuable response time and delays crucial communication, and it can cause a host of other disastrous corporate consequences. Take, for instance, not quite knowing how to respond to a scandalous viral video featuring one of your employees—or, perhaps, trying to keep employees informed amid a global pandemic.