What Thanksgiving Teaches Us About Continuity Planning

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I find myself reflecting on two things I’m deeply grateful for this year:

• The Resiliency Initiative being named one of Cyber Defense Magazine’s Most Innovative Business Continuity Companies for our resiliency training academies, and

• My dad, who turns 89 on Thanksgiving Day, still embodies the grit, humor, and optimism that shaped the way I approach crisis and continuity work.

Many of you know that my dad owned a small mom-and-pop diner for nearly twenty years in our hometown of Redding, California. “Andy’s Cow Patty Palace” wasn’t fancy, but it was loved. People came for the best biscuits and gravy and pancakes in town, but they stayed because my dad made them feel like family.

Running a small business isn’t for the faint of heart. Equipment failed, supply deliveries were missed, employees got sick, and storms knocked out power. Yet the diner stayed open, day after day, because my dad understood—long before I had the words for it—that continuity isn’t paperwork.

Continuity is love.
It’s responsibility.
It’s showing up for your community no matter what.

And that, at its core, is what I feel Thanksgiving is all about.

The Thanksgiving Table as a Continuity Plan

Every Thanksgiving, families around the country pull off something remarkable:
A coordinated, time-sensitive, multi-stakeholder operation with high expectations, limited resources, and inevitable last-minute surprises.

Sound familiar?

Here’s what Thanksgiving teaches us about continuity planning:

1. Everyone has a role (even the kids).

A good Thanksgiving meal survives because tasks are clearly assigned—someone handles the turkey, someone manages sides, someone entertains the kids, someone picks up the rolls they forgot to buy.

Continuity Tool:
Create a simple Responsibility Map. Identify who owns what if something goes wrong:

• Communications

• Decision-making

• IT recovery

• Safety and security

• Vendor coordination

• Customer support

If grandma can manage a kitchen with six helpers and one oven, your organization can too.

2. Something will go wrong — and you can still create a great outcome.

Turkey dries out? Power blinks? The pie burns?
Yet somehow, everyone still ends up fed, connected, and grateful.

Continuity Tool:
Adopt the “Good Enough to Continue” mindset.
Define your Minimum Viable Operations — the simplest version of your service that you can maintain during a disruption.

You don’t need perfection to serve your community. You just need a plan that keeps you motivated and moving forward.

3. You prepare weeks in advance, not the night before.

Even the most last-minute families buy ingredients, plan seating, and prep dishes ahead of time.

Continuity Tool:
Run a 30-minute pre-holiday continuity check:

• Are your employee contacts up to date?

• Do you have backups for your backups?

• Are your critical vendors still viable?

• Does your team know who makes decisions during an emergency?

• Are your communication templates ready?

If you’d stress about forgetting cranberries, you should definitely stress about outdated phone trees.

4. The gathering itself is a reminder of why continuity matters.

We plan because people rely on us.
We prepare because our communities are counting on us.
We build continuity not for the good days, but for the days when everything feels uncertain.

This year, as I prepare to celebrate my dad’s 89th birthday at our Thanksgiving table, I’m reminded of the legacy he passed down:
Serve people well. Show up when others don’t. Build something that lasts.

That’s the heart of continuity planning — and the reason I’m so proud of the work TRI is doing.

A Final Note of Thanks

Being recognized by Cyber Defense Magazine as a top innovator in business continuity is an incredible honor — but it’s also a responsibility. We promise to keep pushing the field forward, to continue building practical tools, and to empower you — business owners, security professionals, crisis leaders, and community champions — with the skills you need to stay resilient.

From my family to yours, thank you for trusting us, working alongside us, and building stronger communities with us.

I wish you a safe, warm, laughter-filled, and wonderfully continuous Thanksgiving.

— Andrea