If Your Only Plan Is Luck, Prepare to Fail

Today, while preparing for a cybersecurity tabletop exercise, I realized: we rehearse crisis response methodically but most business leaders don't.

How many executive teams in B2B manufacturing and distribution actually practice for major disruptions: economic downturns, supply chain failures, or sudden customer losses?

Not every cybersecurity team runs these drills, but those who do understand the brutal difference between a documented plan and decisive execution under pressure.

For Manufacturers

• •Could your leadership respond decisively if your primary distributor dropped your product line tomorrow?
• •Have you practiced handling a sudden 30% surge in raw material costs?
• •Is your team ready if your largest customers abruptly extend payment terms by 120 days?

For Distributors

• •What's your immediate move if top suppliers raise prices 20% overnight?
• •How would your team react if you lost exclusive distribution rights for your top-selling products?
• •Have you rehearsed competing against a new entrant undercutting you by 30% across major accounts?

For Both

• •Has your leadership team ever practiced making tough, time-sensitive decisions with incomplete, messy information?

Untested plans amplify real-world failures.

Leadership without practice leads directly to chaos: financial losses, reputational damage, prolonged downtime, and organizational breakdown.

Stop confusing having a plan with being prepared.

The leaders who survive aren't the ones with the thickest crisis binders. They're the ones who've practiced executing under pressure.

We expect cybersecurity teams to rehearse relentlessly.

Why don't we demand the same of business leaders?

Don't be the executive whose only response is: "We never saw it coming."

Next week, carve out two hours with your leadership team.

Simulate losing your largest customer.

Watch how decisions unfold.

Then fix the gaps before reality exploits them.

Because in business, just like in cybersecurity, hope isn't a strategy. Practice is.