In my last post, I identified ‘dynamic dozen of dysfunctions’ that challenge an effective Unified Command. There are likely many more such dysfunctions that seasoned responders can recognize and react to. In this post, we’ll look at solutions to save us from the dynamic dozen of dysfunction and return us to the wonder and glory of our one brief shining moment known as Camelot – in this case Unified Command, specifically the JIC.
First, a baker’s bonus; another common dynamic, to bring us to a baker’s dozen of dysfunction:
The Hoarder (My precious, my precious…)
There’s one in every crowd; the person who knows more than they say. They are the keeper of secrets, the collaborator, the hoarder. More than anything else, they like to know something nobody else knows, holding information as leverage. This can be benign, simply meeting the holder’s need for superiority or safety, or it can be malignant, used as leverage to control someone’s actions by threat of revelation. In a response, the purpose is almost always benign as the Hoarder withholds one more fact to use in case they need it, like a last bullet. But in performance it is almost always malignant, a deliberate withholding of important response information from stakeholders who could really use it.
What do you do with a Hoarder?
Remind the Hoarder of the response reputation equation:
Up-to-date information x Accurate information = Reputation.
Hoarding information breaks this equation, by turning ‘up-to-date’ to zero, which then turns the reputation sum into zero as well. If the JIC (the entity responsible for stakeholder information) doesn’t share information it has with stakeholders, where do they find a trusted source? Erosion of trust leads directly to erosion of reputation. Withholding information only hurts response communication.
Furthermore, old facts lose their currency rapidly. The residual value of withheld information is always lower, as facts in a fluid situation depreciate faster than a Yugo. If you’re a PIO or an APIO, reinforce rapid sharing of information as both process, practice and ideal. If you are a Hoarder and you can’t stop, best to step aside. You can’t cast vision you don’t have. Don’t damage public trust for the small gain of privileged knowledge.
Now, what about the rest of the dynamic dozen of dysfunction? Below find brief descriptions of each, with accompanying suggestions to over come it. For full descriptions, refer to my original post ‘Camelot is a Myth’.
The habitual lair
The trap we all fall into when we bring old habits into a new structure. Our habits are our reality. Particularly in stress, everybody does what she or he was doing yesterday. This happens across Unified Command, not just the JIC. So our response decisions are often made based on yesterday’s realities, not today’s.
What do you do with the habitual lair?
It takes conscious awareness and effort to change habitual behavior. Start by reminding yourself and others that we don’t DO Unified Command every day, and that Unified Command is NOT our day job. Unified Command is a different structure that requires different thought and action.
NEWS FLASH: Any crisis response requires different actions. Even if you’re responding alone to an issue or incident, you still need to perform differently than you did yesterday. You need to understand this, then you need to define the differences:
- Response communication is unplanned, so you can’t use ‘prep time’ like you can with a planned release; doing so will only exacerbate stakeholders’ impatience.
- Response communication is eagerly anticipated by stakeholders hungry for information. You don’t need to find them, they’ve already found you.
- Response information is specific to the response, you can’t clutter it up with self-serving content.
- Response communication is proactive; you have to identify stakeholder information needs and actively provide content that meets them.
- Stakeholders are impatient and they are already tired of waiting for content. They’re likely leaning negative and won’t appreciate any delay in providing key facts.
In sum, the pace is different, the product is different and expectations are different; performance had better be different too.
Help yourself adapt by developing the discipline of creating a Response Communication Plan, a process of identifying specific stakeholders, issues, products and processes needed to communicate effectively in the specific incident/issue you’re facing. This is NOT a Crisis Communication Plan – it is a specific plan for a specific response. Creating and using this plan should break you out of your habitual lair, as you identify, propose and implement incident-specific product and actions needed.
Paralysis of analysis
There is never enough information. This symptom dramatically affects the Joint Information Center. While we all accept the fact that truth comes after the incident is over, we still have a hard time deciding when we have enough information to share. So we delay our decisions until the information train has left the station.
What do you do with paralysis of analysis?
Change your definition of facts: In any response, the facts constantly change. We never have a concrete, final, unchangeable number. We never have exact identification of every event.
We do have actions taken by Unified Command. As an example, a report of an oiled bird may or may not be accurate, but assigning Wildlife Section to send a team out to verify the report. Our fact is not an oiled bird, it is the disposition of a team to determine if a bird is oiled. After they check, you might have a fact that an oiled bird has been spotted and recovered, so you can communicate that, then. Right now you can report on the team actions.
Unified Command takes many actions based on reports of actual status. Response assets are ordered, products are staged and resources are deployed. By the time they get where they were deployed, they may not be necessary – the reports or projections may have been wrong. Or they may be inadequate because the situation has worsened. Neither negates the truth that they were deployed on the basis of changing information. The information changes, the actions remain. Communicate actions with the provision response figures change constantly. Use (and mean) the magic phrase ‘as of this time’, and add the proviso that ‘information changes constantly; we will provide updated information as quickly as we can confirm it.
Then remember that the Response Truth is: Anything Unified Command dedicates response assets or actions to is truth.
Fog of war – Confusion in conflict.
The fog of war isn’t just lack of clear information, it’s also lack of coordinated effort. In the early stages of a response everything is in flux. Facts are flexible, both in existence and in duration; what is accurate right now may be completely wrong in a few minutes.
What to do with the fog of war?
See ‘Paralysis of analysis’, above. Remember that ‘what’ doesn’t just refer to ‘what happened’ or ‘what is the volume’ or ‘how many birds?’. It is also and most importantly ‘what we are doing’. This is the only truth you really know. External information will ebb and flow in its accuracy. Response activities are concrete, prescribed and monitored. Resources are assigned, deployed and used as directed. And it is all visible and quantifiable. And it is all justified under the Unified Command mantra of ‘the best people making the best decisions for the best outcome’. So report on what Unified Command is doing and why you are doing it.
The devil we know
We all want to work with people we’re familiar with, regardless of their relative competency. So an Incident Commander makes ‘their’ PIO the response PIO, even if there are more qualified people in the room. APIOs place responders they know in key positions because they have worked with them before, not because they’re the best person.
What do we do with the devil we know?
Remember the MQI doctrine. Enforce it. In the short, medium and long run, the JIC will be best served with the best person in each position. You may not know each other today, but in a few days you’ll know each other very well. Familiarity grows, competency doesn’t.
Beyond competency, placing familiar people in related positions can reduce the quality of decision making. When everyone works the same they often think the same, missing out on better decisions or more varied content simply because in their sameness, they just don’t think from different perspectives. Welcome a variety of personalities and experiences to the JIC; decisions and product will be better for it.
The devil we don’t know
Assimilation of multiple persons from multiple organizations into a single response structure is a challenge. We have to figure out how to share information, what level of expertise each person has. We have to learn how to talk to each other. We have to merge multiple personalities, practices and preferences into a cohesive team.
What to do with the devil we don’t know
Get familiar with the people you’ll be working with BEFORE a response. This isn’t globally possible, but it is locally and regionally achievable. Want to be familiar with the people you’ll work with in a response? Attend exercises regularly and you’ll get to know many of the key players from other response organizations. Participate in available regional conferences. Become a member of the appropriate RRTs and join any applicable task forces. Spread these assignments across your entire comms team.
At a response, be transparent about your capabilities. Share them in the position selection process. Introduce yourself around. Spend break time with other JIC members. Cooperate. Trust that the MQI doctrine is working and that people you’re serving with are competent. Assume that your will learn from them.
Be flexible; people may do things differently than you would. They may think and write differently. They might even use a Mac! Remember that your own lizard brain is running and making you less tolerant of differences. Recall that all differences are threats when you’re under stress. Counter this tendency with rational thought.
More to come…
That’s six out of 13 dynamics of disfunction, and more than enough words for one post. Feel free to digest these, then whet your appetite for the rest in my next post.
Questions? Did you see ideas in this post that you’ve never heard of before? Contact me!
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