Don’t look in the wrong direction!
Responders easily look in the wrong direction for planning. They tend to focus on past responses and ask past-tense questions: What happened last time? What could we have done better? As a result, Command strategy is built on best practices, policy and process – but all from past experiences. Truly effective response strategy includes both looking backward, to be sure we’re incorporated lessons from the past, and looking forward to be sure we’re ready for future events.
The danger of looking backward instead of looking forward
A major university narrowly escaped impact from a hurricane that decimated major portions of their city. University leadership determined that the campus was intact and utilities were working, so they announced a resumption of classes only three days after the hurricane.
When the reopening announcement was made, campus communicators were flooded with irate comments protesting the insensitivity of the leaders in expecting students back so quickly. Students’ homes had been destroyed, streets were still flooded, vehicles and busses remained inoperable and many students were still dealing with trauma. Still, the campus reopening decision was announced resulting in great detriment to their reputation as well as poor attendance by returning students.
Why was this decision made? Partly due to a previous major storm, when campus leadership waited more than a week to reopen. In that instance, they were criticized for slow recovery and reopening. In the true spirit of looking backward, lessons learned from the previous storm, along with the university’s resolve to portray stronger leadership, combined to forge a wrong decision.
Past performance is important and learning from past experiences is critically important, but the world moves on. Events themselves are unique, so rote decisions based on past data can be damaging. In this example, communicators had to deal with their university’s self-induced stakeholder relations crisis on the heels of a natural disaster. The natural disaster was unavoidable; the self-induced crisis was completely avoidable.
Looking forward
Communicators are uniquely positioned to influence Command decisions because our core ethos is different. Communicators are always looking forward. In a sense, we’re pseudo-marketers: As marketers create a need for consumption, communicators identify a need for information. Our product is not widgets, but words. We want to identify information needs and respond to them with communication products. We are by profession looking forward, not behind. Our work is always in front of us, always new and always changing.
We are the people in the room who can help focus Command on the importance of NOW to counter the influence of THEN. In the case of the university, the issue should have been on current realities and sensitivity to current conditions, not the rote reflex to prevent what had happened before. The university had been blessed with minor damage, mostly free of the storm impacts. They even had water and power. But a look up from their past practice and out their windows would have revealed the real, current issues to be addressed before their decision was made. Communicators’ input would have captured this current reality, not the past one.
We need to perform debriefs of past responses, create lessons-learned and apply them to our planning and practice. But our discipline should not be insular. Our plans and strategies should reinforce right thinking as well as right actions. Every event will have its own dynamics and we need to practice the discipline of avoiding fixed strategies in fluid situations. Fortunately this is a trait of communicators. We just need to remember to do it! Every response should start with a real-time reality check: What just happened, who is being affected and what are their current concerns?
Share your knowledge from looking forward
As a communicator, you need to help responders make more informed decisions:
- Who is being impacted by the event?
- What concerns will these impacted stakeholders have?
In this incident, students were impacted by the hurricane in every way. Some were flooded out of their homes, some were stranded in flooded neighborhoods, some had to drive through damaged and dangerous areas, some had lost their source of transportation. All had greater issues to deal with than attending class. Parents were concerned for their students. Students were afraid to drive to campus, trying to dry out their homes, replace lost items, find missing loved ones.
A careful reflection on these external influences would have impacted the school’s reopening decision. In fact, after the fact, the resultant outrage led to additional decisions not to require attendance for the entire week. To repair their self-inflicted issue, they actually ended up allowing the same level of student absence as experienced in the prior storm!
In every response, it will be the communicator’s role to focus the response outward to affected stakeholders, and to make decisions from this proper perspective. Of all the seats at the Command table, the PIO’s is the most externally focused, hence the most sensitive to the real-time, real-people issues facing the stakeholders who hold your reputation in their hands. Don’t expect other responders to see this, in fact expect resistance to your vision. But persevere. You are unique and your perspective is powerful to protect your organization.
How does a communicator share the process of looking forward?
When you’re at the Command table, help Command Staff recognize the current realities that you can identify from your position. Share the sensitivities you have as a communicator:
- What are the current physical realities or response actions – What is the stakeholder impact?
- Who is being impacted by these realities or actions – Who are the stakeholders?
- What will affected stakeholders be concerned about – What are the issues?
- Will planned actions placate or provoke our stakeholders?
- How can we modify our plans for the best outcome?
Responders focus on actions without necessarily regarding their non-operational impact. You as a communicator will have the greatest, or the only, understanding of non-operational impact. In the case of the university, they were focused on reopening an unaffected campus, not on their already affected students.
Communicators alone keep track of non-response stakeholders. Responders job assignment includes working with other responders, not the people outside the room. You alone have the greatest awareness of event stakeholders (people who are interested in your actions). University responders in the room were focused on physical capacity, not individuals’ fears or emotions. They saw the unaffected buildings but didn’t see the affected people.
Without knowing stakeholders, responders can’t possibly identify stakeholder concerns. Communicators deal with issue identification every day, so share your expertise. Every concern on the university responders’ lists had been checked off. They knew campus grounds and buildings were safe – but they weren’t thinking about roads, buses or neighborhoods around the campus
Separated from stakeholder awareness, the best physical response decision can cause more disruption than it prevents. Only communicators can share likely impact or outrage from an operational decision. An understanding of stakeholders (students) realities would likely have led to a longer campus closure, at least more flexibility in attendance requirements.
Looking forward is important
When you’ve fully shared the non-operational impact of Command decisions, highlighted stakeholders and their sensitivities and shared likely conflict or outrage, Command staff can make a better decision about the best action. In this case, instead of being inadvertently tone-deaf, campus leadership could have been seen as sympathetic and compassionate. Strong leadership would have been portrayed with a heart.