Friday 31 January 2014

A nice cup of tea

I do like a nice cup of tea. In fact tea is pretty near the top of my all time favourite drinks list. Five or six cups a day is the norm when I’m at home or in the office. And I have to say that Mrs Oz does make a cracking cuppa.

When I’m out and about, though, I tend to drink coffee. That’s because generally other people’s tea isn’t anywhere near as good as Mrs Oz’s. In fact, in my humble opinion, a surprisingly large number of people don’t have the faintest idea of how to make a decent cup of tea.

My brother thinks there’s no such thing as a bad cup of tea (perhaps that’s because his tea making capability is distinctly average – don’t tell him I said so though!) but I beg to differ. In fact, I’m sat drinking one right now in a hotel with my breakfast and wondering why I didn’t order coffee instead.

A bad cup of tea is, in my view, worse than no cup of tea at all. It might have all the ingredients (not that there are many) but if it’s not done right it can be awful.

In a similar(ish) vein, my view is that a bad business continuity plan is as bad as – and possibly worse than – no plan at all. A bad plan might seem to have all the right ingredients but, as with a cup of tea, if they’re not put together properly, the results can be somewhat disappointing. And, as with a bad cup of tea, the only time you really find out how unpalatable the results are is when you come to try it.

So, at the risk of being contentious, my advice would be the same in both cases – if you can’t make a decent one (or find someone who can), it’s probably not worth bothering at all!

Andy Osborne is the Consultancy Director at Acumen, and author of Practical Business Continuity Management.
You can follow him on Twitter and his blog or link up with him on Linked In.

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