In the response world, abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms (look it up!) are unavoidable. Complex titles are easier to recite and remember when reduced to a few letters, so Agencies become initialisms (DSHS, WaDOE), response systems become acronyms (NIMS), people become abbreviations (APIO). Even acronyms become acronyms (TMAtM = Too Many Acronyms to Mention). Two of the many acronyms you will hear are of particular importance: ICS (Incident Command System) and UC (Unified Command).
As we engage with our physical response planners and when we begin to plan for incident response communication, we consistently hear two abbreviatons: IC (Incident Command System) and UC (Unified Command). It is important to know a little bit about these particular response structures because, in any significant response, communicators will inevitably be operating within one or the other.
Incident Command System or Unified Command?
So what is Incident Command System? What is Unified Command? Here’s a description from the NRT ICS/UC Technical Assistance Document. (I warned you there would be acronyms!)
What is ICS? “ICS is a standardized on-scene incident management concept designed specifically to allow responders to adopt an integrated organizational structure equal to the complexity and demands of any single incident or multiple incidents without being hindered by jurisdictional boundaries.
In 1980, federal officials transitioned ICS into a national program called the National Interagency Incident Management System (NIIMS), which became the basis of a response management system for all federal agencies with wildfire management responsibilities. Since then, many federal agencies have endorsed the use of ICS, and several have mandated its use. An ICS enables integrated communication and planning by establishing a manageable span of control. An ICS divides an emergency response into five manageable functions essential for emergency response operations: Command, Operations, Planning, Logistics, and Finance and Administration.”
To sum up ICS: ICS is a formal incident response system built around specific functions in an expandable structure. It can be used by an organization, or an agency, and is expandable to include response partners. A fire department operates under ICS, as does a Police Department. An Agency can utilize ICS to respond to a spill or accident. A business can develop ICS-based response plans, often under a different acronym such as IRT (Incident Response Team), CERT (Corporate Emergency Response Team) or IMT (Incident Management Team).
It is very likely your organization has planned incident response activities within an ICS framework, and it is also likely you will respond within that ICS framework. In your role as Communicator, you will perform the specific functions of the PIO (Public Information Officer)
What is Unified Command? (From the same source) “Although a single Incident Commander normally handles the command function, an ICS organization may be expanded into a Unified Command (UC). The UC is a structure that brings together the “Incident Commanders” of all major organizations involved in the incident in order to coordinate an effective response while at the same time carrying out their own jurisdictional responsibilities. The UC links the organizations responding to the incident and provides a forum for these entities to make consensus decisions.
Under the UC, the various jurisdictions and/or agencies and non-government responders may blend together throughout the operation to create an integrated response team. The UC is responsible for overall management of the incident. The UC directs incident activities, including development and implementation of overall objectives and strategies, and approves ordering and releasing of resources. Members of the UC work together to develop a common set of incident objectives and strategies, share information, maximize the use of available resources, and enhance the efficiency of the individual response organizations.”
To sum up UC: If an incident expands past the capability of a single lead agency, Unified Command can be formed to allow multiple jurisdictions and authorities to coordinate a response across all response agencies. This preserves operational unity and common objectives. Unified Command is used in large, complex responses, and often grows out of an ICS response that has become larger or more complex.
Why does this matter?
It matters because it changes what we do, and who we do it for.
Day-to-day, we work for a our own organization. We have a boss, an address and a phone number that reflects this organization. We’re in the same employee directory. We park in the same parking lot. We all eat Costco cake at employee birthdays, and we all slog our way through our Health Plan documentation.
As communicators we answer to a specified person, or people, holding positions of authority over us. They approve our products and our plans. They assign specific communication roles to us. We’ve latitude to act within a spectrum of responsibility they have given us. If something goes ‘BOOM’ in the night, we might act unilaterally, but we will report to them. As the stakes ratchet in an incident, they are the people who will either release us to soar with the eagles, or lock us in our canary cage.
Incident Command may or may not impact this relationship. If our organization uses ICS for response planning and conduct, we’ll have access to response plans and organization charts that might codify our day-to-day relationship into response activities. This is good for rapid response communication, as we know what to do and who we are doing it for.
Sometimes, the ICS structure will expand to include one or more agencies. A Fire Department may respond to a fire at one of our facilities. Both our organization and the Fire Department will respond within ICS. We will likely begin to share information with their PIO, even collaborate on some messaging. But we’ll be free to write, approve, post and distribute information based on our own organization’s response framework.
Unified Command changes this.
As more agencies join in a response and as the stakes go up, Unified Command (UC) is formed to coordinate all response activities across multiple response organizations. This includes the Joint Information Center (JIC). In UC, the JIC includes representatives of all response partners, each a trained, professional communicator. This dynamic leads to several important changes to consider:
Staff structures change: All communication staff fit into the single JIC structure, checking their Agency/Organization hat at the door. The JIC enforces a structure of operations made up of functional Sections, each Section staffed by the MQIs (Most Qualified Individuals) for that Section’s function. You may be the VP of Communications for your Organization, but in the JIC you’ll fill the position that is the best fit of your skills, training and experience. We may not have the same role or position in UC that we have daily.
Approval processes change: In the JIC, each participating Agency’s or Organization’s approval process changes even more dramatically than personnel positions do. In our own organization we follow a specific approval process, one that we’ve likely fine-tuned for maximum effectiveness. In the JIC, it is gone. Approvals are conducted within UC. Our organization’s approvers no longer have control over the message.
Priorities change: In a non-UC response, our organization’s reputation is our top priority. We use key messaging and statement templates to provide positive information about our organization and its response efforts, aimed at preserving both reputation and right to operate. UC doesn’t share these concerns; it has its own priorities and plans. Unified Command is interested in the response, not our reputation.
Pace changes: UC determines operational periods and approves communication plans that follow these operational periods. The beast called UC supplants the desires of partners, community or media with its own response pace. For communicators, this can mean a longer time between updates, slower approval process and resources assigned differently than we would. UC doesn’t care about our desire to release volumes of information to help stakeholders understand our own organization’s efforts. UC only cares about its own information flow.
Concern changes: In UC, nobody cares about us or our organization. It’s not personal. Nobody cares about any individual response entity. This isn’t spiteful, shortsighted or arbitrary; it is necessary. There’s a new Sheriff in town, called UC. Everybody else comes out with their hands up. Unified Command only cares about Unified Command.
Is this all necessary?
Yes. The trust of the public is wrapped around Unified Command now, not our organization or one of the Agencies that responded to the incident. It’s not ‘our’ incident any more; it is UC’s incident. Our organization may be labeled as the Responsible Party (aka Wallet, Perp, Black Hat), or as one of the response partners (FOSC, SOSC, LOSC, etc.) but UC is now completely responsible for the outcome of the event. The collective Unified Command reputation is now on the line, not individual organizations’ reputations.
When Unified Command works
As Ben Franklin expressed it in another dark and dangerous time; “Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” In the worst of times, Unified Command is the bastion between all of us and the darkness of chaos. When Unified Command works, it is a beautiful and terrible thing; beautiful because everyone works together under a common banner, terrible because it is invoked in truly terrible times. At the highest level, Unified Command protects every response partner, mobilizes all responders and protects impacted stakeholders, all while bringing the best people, best tactics and best resources to accomplish the best outcome.
But it isn’t perfect! (more to come).