The huge crisis: When things go very wrong . . .

Although I think this book Crisis Management: Planning and Media Relations for the Design and Construction Industry is designed for external, rather than internal, crisis situations, it has rather good Amazon reviews and I think is worthy for your bookshelf.

Today, I received this email (I am of course not disclosing the sender's name or anything that would give a clue about the business's identity):

Mark – Saw an article you wrote online called Seven Tips for Construction Marketing….
I have just taken over as the Marketing Director for my dad’s 25 year old construction company, and thought I would shoot you an email just out of curiosity.

We have recently lost our President to a competitor, so Marketing for us now is CRUICIAL. Are there any other articles by you that I can look at for my information?

Thanks so much.

Wow. What a mess! Of course, the questions not answered in this inquiry are crucial, and I cannot pretend to know exactly the best solution to this mess. But I post it here to open the doors of dialogue and thought.

What would you do if something like this happened to your business? And what would you do to prevent something like this happening to your business?