The latest tornado swarm to hit the South East reminds us of how quickly a storm can become unstable and cause destruction across states. The Tornado that hit Kentucky traveled about 220 miles (maybe more). The tornadoes tore through six states parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. Thousands are without power, and without homes. Today we are going to discuss why planning for your team is critical. The Business Continuity Show Twitter - https://bit.ly/3ojEIO...
Dec 14, 2021•13 min
Shane Parrish Twitter that Writing is often the process you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Turing that statement around, you do not feel confident in what you know about subject research and write about it. Even if it is just for yourself, now you may be thinking that we just did a series of shows on knowing your strengths and working within them. However, I did not say not to shapen you saw. You need to have a growth mindset, and writing helps you with that. The ...
Nov 30, 2021•12 min
We have a problem right now in the United States and it is a lack of trust in experts. And in this environment, when you have political factions that play fast and loose with facts. I have been spending my time looking at issues that we are facing and how to plan for them. However, we have people that do not trust the Expert in the room. Tom Nichols’ book The Death of Expertise the campaign against established knowledge and why it matters explores the question of why do people not trust experts....
Nov 23, 2021•9 min
When we are interviewing people we ask them what their strengths are. We ask them what skills they excel at. We never ask them about what they are bad at. In fact, the collective we, ask people to hide their weaknesses and not accept that we all have limitations. Today, let’s explore why having an understanding of your limitations are, is as powerful as knowing your strengths. The Business Continuity Show Twitter - https://bit.ly/3ojEIO2 Facebook - https://bit.ly/2Tjqv5H LinkedIn - https://bit.l...
Nov 16, 2021•11 min
The Idea that we can have it all, take on all tasks, and still have the time to lead a team is a fantasy. This myth of take it all has been sold to us for way to long. We see it sold in ads, it is in job descriptions across the spectrum and it is championed by the media, and individuals that talk about productivity as humans are robots. As emergency and business continuity and crisis managers, we have to look at what is out core mission and capabilities. We may have to say no to our leadership, ...
Nov 09, 2021•13 min
In the field of emergency and business continuity management, we talk about lessons learned, only to repeat the same mistakes and missteps at the people before us. Why are we so bad at learning? Together we explore what learning is, how we do it, and why we do not listen to the past. The Business Continuity Show Twitter - https://bit.ly/3ojEIO2 Facebook - https://bit.ly/2Tjqv5H LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/34mXyfz YouTube - https://bit.ly/3mePJyG Awards:https://blog.feedspot.com/business_continuity...
Nov 02, 2021•10 min
Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, you need to be flexible when you travel. The weekend when I was trying to get home from the IAEM conference I have some airplane issues. I ended up staying at the Airport in Grand Rapids Michigan for 14 hours. So let’s chat about making the best out of the situation. The Business Continuity Show Twitter - https://bit.ly/3ojEIO2 Facebook - https://bit.ly/2Tjqv5H LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/34mXyfz YouTube - https://bit.ly/3mePJyG Awards:https://blog.feedspot.com/bus...
Oct 26, 2021•15 min
Crisis management fundamentals can help leaders navigate the many challenges. As a leader at times, you must take a risk when making a decision. At times, leaders and teams are punished when things do not turn out positive. This practice of punishing the risk-taker kills innovation and decision-making. Today as we move out of the current pandemic crisis to an endemic new normal. Build upon the five core elements of crisis leadership and pave the road to recovery. The Business Continuity Show Twi...
Oct 19, 2021•11 min
You may have heard me talk about leaning forward, and now a new term is hitting the journals Crisis Aware. What does that mean? Leaning forward can start with Big data. Using Big Data patterns to predict potential crises that can impact your organization, such as severe weather, pandemics, power outages not only is a beneficial practice within businesses, it can also improve the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency and disaster management organizations. With the use of smartphones, communic...
Oct 12, 2021•12 min
Recognizing areas of leadership development and prioritizing your growth may help you become a stronger leader. While self-reflection and a conscious change in behavior can address these areas, there also are productive and fun leadership-building activities that also promote better leaders. These leadership-building activities target certain areas of development to improve them. Whether achieved by hands-on activities or critical thought, understanding the definition and importance of leadershi...
Oct 05, 2021•15 min
Anything that you do well is because of the hours you put into practice. Malcolm Gladwell writes to become an expert in a field you must put in 10,000 hours of work. The same goes for leadership. Being a leader in a Crisis, is more than writing a plan and holding a drill, it is putting your time and energy into practice. We learn from our mistakes, we make models and break them and make them again. We need to dig deep into who we are, where we want to go and who we want to be. Then we implement ...
Sep 28, 2021•13 min
I have talked about mental models over the years for decision-making. In this episode of BCT, we are exploring what models we can use for leadership. A great leadership style can make people appear more competent than they truly are, and a poor style can drag down a superior skill set. So how can aspiring emergency management and business continuity professionals improve their leadership style? The Business Continuity Show Twitter - https://bit.ly/3ojEIO2 Facebook - https://bit.ly/2Tjqv5H Linked...
Sep 21, 2021•14 min
Your leadership Beliefs are defined by your experiences good bad or indifferent. You may have had a great coach, or teacher and you use leadership lessens learned from them. Or you had a bad boss, that micro managed you, and you said you would never be that person. We take those lessens and apply them to our work today. As crisis management leaders, business continuity or emergency managers, people look to us to lead during difficult times. You have to develop your leadership style this is step ...
Sep 14, 2021•16 min
I can recall the exact location I was on September 11, 2001 when I learned of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center in New York City. I was listing to the radio on my way to work in the West Adams District of Los Angeles. I knew we were under attack. The next few weeks for the United States was a mix of anger, fear, and sadness. You see the WTC was more than an office building, it was a symbol of prosperity, a destination for school children on field trips, a location for business, and ...
Sep 07, 2021•13 min
What is your leadership style? What is your leadership plan? They sound like similar questions, however, they are not. If you are a leader, by title or by your actions, I bet you wing it. I bet you could not tell me how you plan to use your skills, in a way that helps your team, and your organization moves forward. Your style is not a plan, it is like saying, well, I am putting on this suit, it looks good so I will make good decisions. What you need is a mental model that helps you on a daily ba...
Aug 31, 2021•18 min
Over the last year and a half, we have seen how COVID-19 has impacted our daily lives. We have had to make a shift in how we conduct business, how our supply chain has been affected and how we communicate with our employees, stakeholders, and clients. A Study published in 2012 warned it was prudent to expect climate surprises in the coming decades, including unexpected and potentially disruptive single events, and for them to become progressively more severe. We have seen this come to the fore w...
Aug 24, 2021•13 min
Greg McKeown’s Essentialism got me thinking about how we can apply the principles of less is more to the field of Business Continuity and Emergency Management. I think that it is worth discussing. We end up doing a lot of things that is not a core service that our disiplin ought to be doing, Working in a small or even a large organization, business continuity or emergency management becomes that department that gets projects that other departments do not know how to, or want to handle. We have t...
Aug 17, 2021•10 min
The C-suite by definition, are the chief officer of their organization. Doing great work, running your team and making sure the organization is ready for any crisis is what we’re all here for. But as anyone who’s worked at an agency knows, that’s a constant challenge. So keeping the C-Suite happy can be demanding. The C-Suite has high standards. They have complex organisations behind them. And they have their own pressures to respond to. Making this more complicated for all of us is the fact tha...
Aug 10, 2021•14 min
If we as a collective learned anything in 2020, it is that we cannot assume that our year will turn out as planned. One thing that we can count on is change. In fact, we need change to do our jobs. The trick is, how do we manage change, and how to we plan for the pivot. As business continuity, emergency, and crisis managers, it is our job to plan for and expect the need for our organization to pivot. To make a great transition when the time is needed, you have to have a strong base. Like in medi...
Aug 03, 2021•11 min
I read "Crisis Management is People Management" in this month's Crisis Response Journal by Thomas Lahnthaler. He argues that over the last year, we were not managing tactics to combat the global threat of COVID-19. We needed to focus on the people affected by the pandemic. In my class the Social Impacts of disaster, I discuss the idea that disasters are not disasters until it impacts humans. Yes, we can discuss the ecological impacts of an event. However, if it did not kill humans, or have direc...
Jul 27, 2021•14 min
Over the last two weeks, there have been two shooting events that impacted a large venue. One was at Knott's Berry Farm, an amusement park located in Orange County California, and a shooting outside of the Washington Nationals Stadium in Washington DC. Both events did not directly involve the venue, however, miss information, lack of communications, and general confusion inside the venue occurred. Today, we are going to discuss how to why it is critical to have a communications plan, and why you...
Jul 20, 2021•13 min
COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we work, we need to be strategic, we need to be efficient and as organized as possible, and learning as possible. COVID-19 has taught us the challenges of planning under uncertainty. We learned to deal with the constantly changing guidance from the Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, we no longer have a final plan, because it's constantly changing to keep pace with the newest guidance and regulations from every level of government. The ...
Jul 13, 2021•15 min
Tens of millions of people globally are experiencing a seismic shift in work. Many have been forced into their homes and asked to not only make do, but maintain or increase their productivity. For many, this is their first extended experience with work-from-home. Globally, the narrative has neglected nuance, referencing the phenomenon as a global "remote work experiment." It is neither remote work nor an experiment. Particularly for leaders who survey their workforce to understand their perspect...
Jul 06, 2021•17 min
One of the most common complaints that I have heard over the years from emergency and business continuity managers is they cannot get their executives to participate in emergency drills and exercises. We hear lip service all the time from City Managers, CEOs, and Presidents of Higher Education Institutions on how Emergency Management and safety are important to them...Until they do not lead from the top and show up for the training. It is hard for EM and BC managers to get the buy-in from the mi...
Jun 29, 2021•12 min
Like many people, I've sorely missed going to sporting events last year there were games, however, cardboard cutouts (that were kind of strange) and piped-in crowd noises were the norms in light of the world's COVID-19 pandemic. And also like many —while I understand the need for and support precautions to protect ourselves and others from the virus and mitigate its spread, I've been longing to enjoy the electric feel of a live sporting event. For Father's Day Weekend, I attended two baseball ga...
Jun 22, 2021•11 min
What is the difference between chaos and a plan? Having a plan is the difference between world-shaking impact and dreaded obscurity. Teams that achieve great things share one key habit–they are committed to clarity. Clarity is their hidden, often unspoken advantage. With clarity, teams and individuals know exactly what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and who’s responsible. Those without it spin in circles, waste time, and lose steam The Business Continuity Show Twitter - https://bit.ly/3ojE...
Jun 15, 2021•16 min
We must have the courage to bring our true selves to our interactions. Sometimes, that means being a less-rehearsed, less-polished version of ourselves. Being more transparent and vulnerable in this crucial way helps us to earn trust; we become more relatable by allowing stakeholders to really see us and connect with us. As we strive to be better leaders, we must learn to evolve to be our best selves. Leadership is an art and with any art it is practice that makes us better. What worked today ma...
Jun 08, 2021•15 min
It is critical to integrate supply chain resilience into your business continuity plan. Supply chain dependency is a critical issue for retail and manufacturing. With just in-time supply, do you have the right connections to ensure that your company can still run its daily business? The Business Continuity Show Twitter - https://bit.ly/3ojEIO2 Facebook - https://bit.ly/2Tjqv5H LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/34mXyfz YouTube - https://bit.ly/3mePJyG Awards:https://blog.feedspot.com/business_continuity_...
Jun 01, 2021•12 min
We often think of courage in its most valorous incarnations — on the battlefield, in the grips of war, when the stakes are unspeakably high. Matters of life and death require boundless courage and we are forever joined in our awe and gratitude towards those that gave us their life to preserve our liberty. Their heroism inspires us to give valor and bravery a closer look. We honor their contribution by reflecting on what courage means for all of us in the less grave matters of life, work, and lea...
May 25, 2021•11 min
While we are currently facing unprecedented levels of chaos in business, chaos itself is not a new phenomenon. In fact, chaos is inherent in running a business. That's because running a team comes with complex dynamics driven by a multitude of stressors, goals and personalities. Add to this the personality, challenge, and triggers of the leaders making the big decisions, and you have created the perfect environment for chaos to flourish. To better understand how to think about chaos and eventual...
May 18, 2021•13 min
