It’s early spring and football fans are turned to the NFL Combine. Held annually, the Combine is an event that allows assembled NFL teams to look at players potentially turning ‘pro’. It’s where players are weighed and measured in every conceivable way; height, weight, hand size, arm length, bench press, vertical jump and other values important to the gathered multitude of coaches, offensive coordinators and draft analysts. Different measurements hold different importance depending on the position to be played, but each is important.
There is one universal measurement that captures everyone’s attention: The 40-yard dash. From quarterback to linebacker, receiver, offensive or defensive lineman, virtually every player runs ‘the 40’. Turns out speed is a universal measure of potential. Different positions have different speed expectations, but players in each position know their chances of playing professional football are contingent on their performance at the combine, and that their 40-yard dash time will be one key measurement.
Given the importance of this measurement, most draft prospects participate, and their times are listed in comparison with the other participants’. Then the ‘nattering nabobs’ – reporters, commentators, bloggers, fantasy football players – digest the numbers and pontificate on the performance and capability of each player. Reputations are polished or tarnished, draft potential rises and falls. Rumors spread and are quashed, all from the same information.
Years of effort, victories or losses, countless hours of training, injuries and rehab, the cumulative effort to excel – and it all comes down to 40 yards, less than 6 seconds. Who among us wants our life to be measured in seconds, or in 120 feet?
Yet scores of players submit to this measurement machine in hopes of impressing their most important stakeholders; the people who will pay them to play a game for a living. There are occasional ‘outliers’, players whose reputation is so established that they don’t have to participate. But if there is any doubt or controversy about a player’s capability, you’ll find that player crouched at the starting line, ready to invest their life’s work into the next 120 feet.
Why do players subject themselves to this? Because the payoff is enormous. A first round draft pick in the NFL can earn tens of millions of dollars; an undrafted player receives less than half a million. The payoff for performance is huge. So they run.
What is the worst thing a potential player can do?
- Run too slow? Slow times can be compensated for with other measurements.
- Not run at all? A likely issue, but not running is an option usually selected for a specific reason – and not running sometimes increases the hype for a future run.
The worst thing a player can do is start but not finish.
Not finishing means you’re injured, you quit, you don’t finish, you’re weak, you’re not focused. And you’re out. Your draft standing is tarnished at best, perhaps erased.
So it’s safe to say the nobody ever won the 39-yard dash. So why do so many organizations run it?
When it comes to crisis preparation, resiliency, whatever today’s key word is for readiness, your organization is also in a race, one with far greater implications than one person’s career or income. Your organization is preparing for existence-altering crises, events that put your revenue, resources and reputation at risk. You’ve put together your Crisis Management Team (CMT), maybe even your Incident Management Team (IMT). You’ve filled out your Facility Response Plans (FRPs), your Emergency Action Plans (EAPs) – all the planning to ensure your organization is ready to respond to any incident. Physically, you’re ready. Regulatorily, you’re compliant. All your physical plans are in place, all your people and processes identified. Looking over your kingdom of commerce, you’re confident in your capabilities.
What about your plans to communicate with your public stakeholders?
Are you ready to talk to fence-line neighbors, vendors, customers, shareholders, elected officials, activists, community members? What about traditional media? What about engaging with social media? If you’re not ready to engage externally, you just pulled up at the 39-yard mark. You quit. You didn’t finish. People will wonder about your commitment – you must be weak, or unfocused.
So many organizations invest in response capability but miss out on communication capability. You’ve invested days and dollars and dedication, but you’re not finished. Yet.
Here’s a rule for aspiring athletes as well as aspiring organizations: If people don’t see and understand your results, they won’t know what you have done, or what you are capable of. If your organization invests in response planning and preparation, you must also invest in response communications. If you’re ready to resolve incidents or issues operationally, you must prepare to effectively share your actions and successes with your stakeholders.
Don’t let your organization ‘pull up’ short of the finish line. Insist that equivalent plans and efforts are made for external communication. What are good measurements for this? Here are a few:
- Have communications staff reviewed all FRPs or ERPs? These plans identify risks, proscribe response actions and list notification requirements. Communicators can use this information to craft initial statements and key messaging and to identify contacts
- Are communicators notified in the initial incident call-out? They need initial information to know what will be important to communicate, and they NEED the time from an early notification.
- Has a Communicators’ Quick Guide been prepared for immediate use, so communicators have immediate actions and product mapped out? Does your organization’s response leadership know this product will be coming, quickly?
- Have facility-specific public concerns been mapped, so communicators know what to say first? Have communicators mapped response activity against local concerns to spot contentious or misunderstood issues?
- Have communicators exercised their Quick Guide alongside a facility exercise, drill or TTX? Have processes been tested in peace-time?
- Have all communication resources been identified and trained? Do you know who you will have available, when they can start and where they will work from?
- Have you coordinated your organizations communication actions for effective escalation into Unified Command? Does your organization’s leadership understand what changes in Unified Command?
All of this takes time and money, but not as much time and money as your organization’s physical preparation and investment has. That’s 39 yards worth of effort, stakeholder communication preparation is the last yard.