Communicators’ Corner - Marc Mullen

These posts are written to encourage thoughtful consideration of the entire range of communication strategy, plans and effectiveness. They’re based on my experiences in actual responses, as well as drills, exercises, tabletops and crisis communication plan reviews.

Running the 39-yard Dash

Marc Mullen | March 5, 2019

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.

Don’t jeopardize the effort and investment of the first 39 yards by pulling up before completing the last yard. Finish!

Interested in more information? Contact me!

Are You Ready for Response Communication?

Marc Mullen | March 4, 2019

Probably not.

Despite our best intentions, our response communication competency often atrophies due to disuse and lack of awareness. Why? Because most organizations are safely and effectively managed. Day-to-day competitive pressure, regulations and industry standards effectively reduce the probability of accidents to the point where many communicators can expect to finish their career without having to respond to an actual crisis.

Response communication can seem an esoteric discipline, known or seen to only a select few people within an organization for the vast majority of the time. Why should more people be aware of it when it isn’t ‘real’ very often? The problem with this approach is that when response communications is really needed, it is REALLY NEEDED! In the worst of times this esoteric discipline suddenly must be rapidly deployed and widely used. And you’re not ready to do this.

How do I know you’re not ready?

I’ve seen organizations and individuals practice response communication in exercises and I’ve seen them perform in actual events. You’re not ready.

Here’s what is going to happen in an incident. You will get ‘the call’, scribble down a few notes and promise an initial statement within, say, 30 minutes (this is too long, but it’s what you’re trained for). Next, you will open a folder that contains your statement templates. And you’ll freeze; too many blanks, old information, dated language, wrong contact information, outdated pictures, bad maps, old graphics – any or all of these will confront you. You will try to take the few facts you have and determine which of the possible statements will fit best. And time ticks by…

Next, you’ll try to get your revised statement approved, but the people to approve it will have changed, the content will be too different, each person will suggest revisions to your wording, facts will change even as you’re editing, and about the time you get approval someone will suggest you start over with the latest information. And time ticks by…

If you manage to avoid this approval/update loop and actually get permission to post and distribute, you’ll try to find the list of people it should go to only to find outdated contact information for key recipients, or to discover that many people are no longer in the same position. You’ll suddenly realize that your community and media stakeholder lists are out of date and you’ll try to merge the ones you know are correct with your own email contacts. After another 30 minutes you’ll have the most serviceable list you can create under pressure, and you’ll either distribute the statement then or send the statement and list of contacts back up the approval chain, where it will wait for frantic people to notice, review, revise and return (good luck!). And time ticks by…

By now, you’re hopelessly past your original (already too late) deadline.

Some of you are cringing right now, because you’ve been in this loop in previous exercises or events. You know that this loop of bad templates, changing facts, moving approval targets and constant revisions can literally stop response communications. And you know the impact this has on reputation and trust.

At best, you might send your first release out without final approval, and immediately get a phone call from a superior asking why they didn’t get to look it over again, or a call from someone wanting to know why they got it, or a call telling you the information was outdated, hence wrong – and you’d better correct it right now! This is the moment you realize its going to be a long day.

All of this is as preventable as it is predictable. It is also regrettable, because this is what happens AFTER you’ve prepared, practiced, exercised and ‘lessons-learned’. Why?

Because when we measure readiness, we don’t use the right yardsticks. We don’t practice like we’ll play. We err on the side of safety, status and self-esteem when we prepare:

No one wants to be too demanding
Nobody wants to be too hard on their peers when they practice
Nobody wants to fail, or cause someone else to feel like they failed.

We end up assuming competence instead of testing to failure. But actual events are the RESULT of failure. They occur because someone did something wrong, they incur high demand on participants, and they incite judgment. We need to be more demanding on ourselves when we practice so we’re ready to perform at the level we need to.

If you haven’t been in an actual incident, or carefully reviewed and implemented improvement plans drawn from actual incidents, by definition you are not ready. If you haven’t taken a hard look at communicators’ response communication performance in an actual event and exercised a disciplined lessons-learned and retraining process, you aren’t ready.

You need to be better prepared for effective response communication

Here are some questions you can ask to determine your readiness:

What is the risk?

Do you know the risks your organization’s operations incur on a daily basis? Do you know what is going to go wrong? Where do you get this? Ask your Business Continuity people, your planners or your insurance adjuster. If you can’t find some form of risk assessment, you’ve got a bigger problem!

What is the impact?

When one of your risks comes true, who is going to feel it? Do you know who and what will be impacted when something goes wrong? This should be a part of any quality risk assessment, but it will need fine-tuning through your communication filters. Risk assessment sometimes stops at your fence line, as operators tend to stop at security. You need to bring your sensitivities to this table.

Who are the affected stakeholders?

If you know who is going to be impacted, do you know how they are going to react? Different stakeholders will react differently to your incident, affected both by proximity and by priority. Have you gone beyond a stakeholder list to map their likely concerns? Is your risk map current? Would you trust your personal reputation to it?

What is the initial statement?

If your initial statement template consists of more than one paragraph with 3 key facts, you won’t have it ready in time. Does it contain only the most critical information, with a promise for immediate updates? Do you have additional key messages prepared? Are they defensive, apologetic, obtuse or extensively long? Do you have follow-up statements templates prepared that incorporate key messaging? Would you use your statement templates to tell your mother what happened?

Is my initial statement current?

When did you create the statement templates? Are they current? Will you have to edit them for accuracy before you can use them? Most statement templates are dated. We tend create them, approve them and then forget them. If your statement templates are more than a year old, they should be updated. NOW.

What is my response communication strategy?

Incidents don’t just have a starting point; they have a beginning, middle and end. Then they have anniversaries. As you plan your response communications, you need to plan past the initial response. The sooner you can provide a strategy for the duration, the sooner your approval process and resource availability will improve.

Am I ready?

What was the last time you practiced under pressure? Attending exercises doesn’t qualify. Unless you’ve participated in an unannounced high-demand exercise, you haven’t been adequately tested. Do you have a practice regime that regularly subjects yourself and your approval chain to real-time response communication demands?

If you aren’t regularly selecting a known risk, applying an impact scale and identifying affected stakeholders, pulling up a statement template and editing it to address the selected risk, running it through the approval process and distributing it to a test list of key individuals – you aren’t ready for response communication.

Here’s the ultimate test for response communication

If the worst possible event occurred, would you be able to tell your family what they needed to protect their safety and your reputation? How long would it take? What if they were at risk?

Personalize your preparedness; picture the most important person in your life being impacted, then decide if your communication process is fast enough to help them.

Interested in more information? Contact me!

Get Over It

Marc Mullen | January 31, 2019

As if life isn’t hard enough, misfortune seems to lurk in the shadows, waiting for opportunity to strike. Crisis seems to bring that opportunity. It goes like this: A crisis occurs, but you’re beginning to rise to the occasion. You’re getting your feet under you and making progress towards a resolution. The goal line is in sight, hope is dawning and your future is looking brighter.

Then it happens; the egregious foul you didn’t see coming. Unfair, disruptive and damaging, sometimes fatally so. And nobody seems to recognize the sheer unfairness of it. You wait for a flag to fly, a penalty to be called and… nothing.

What happens next is what defines your character. There are three optional reactions: Shock, sourness or staying the course. You could go into shock, unable to perform as planned. You could go sour, complaining, rebutting or retaliating. Or you could move on, continuing your path to success.

All are justifiable responses and you will find supporters or comforters for each. But only staying the course will lead you to success. This applies to life as much as it does to football, and it particularly applies to response communications.

Response communications places all of us at 3^rd and long. By definition, we’re already playing from behind, our reputation sacked and the opposition lined up to stop our efforts. We’re already having to work harder, from a worse position than our opponents. The reputation game is already tilted against us.

But we persevere and through extra effort and strategy we begin to gain. Then the foul is committed: A leaked memo, a compromising photo, another accident, overzealous security, even a tone-deaf CEO (“I want my life back”). We’re trying so hard! It seems so unfair that we keep getting hit!

Here’s the problem. Life isn’t fair. People pile on. And nobody cares. In fact, people sometimes cheer the slings and arrows of our misfortune. So what can we do?

Let’s consider each option. We could go into shock, abandoning our plan of action and losing our ability to react positively. This is a natural response, both mentally and physiologically, to an unanticipated attack. Our bodies actually do this on their own, as a defense mechanism. But it leads to failure in the arena. In a world where reputations are defined by instant information, we can’t afford to go into shock. Our opponents will speak for us, act for us and overwhelm us in our silence.

We could go sour, attacking the messenger, complaining at the unfairness of our situation or trying to get someone, anyone to enforce ‘the rules’. We do this at our peril. Remember that in response communication we’re already ‘the bad guy’, and nobody likes the bad guy who complains about the rules. We broke them, that’s what our stakeholders suspect. So we look all whiny when we complain about others – and the reputation we’re trying to rebuild takes a credibility hit.

Or we could succeed. Don’t get distracted. Keep to the plan. Keep sharing truth. Keep anticipating stakeholder information needs. Keep being inclusive, available, gracious. Let the meanness of an unprovoked attack stand in contrast with your decency. Be polite and respectful. In other words, don’t forget your goal; successful restoration of reputation and public trust.

Unfairness is an acid that corrodes its author when it can’t corrode its victim. Your response to unfairness will determine your success. By definition, bad things happen. You wouldn’t be in your current situation if they didn’t. But as an individual you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution. Resist the temptation to succumb to shock or sourness. Instead weld yourself to the solution. Attacks will come. Unfairness will occur. Challenges will arise. Stay the course! Those who persevere will succeed.

A personal note: If you’ve been the victim of an unprovoked, unresolved attack, you’ll have a strong temptation to bitterness and revenge. You can even be gracious, perseverant and successful in meeting the original challenge, but still harbor bitterness and a desire for revenge. Let it go. Get over it. Revenge is not a dish best served cold, it is a dish best not served at all. Remember that your success in stakeholder communication depends on the good will of your stakeholders. Your entire effort is one to rebuild trust and reputation. Both come only with forgiveness.

Please, practice what you preach. Your willingness to forgive unfair attacks against you is a powerful example to your stakeholders. People recognize unfairness, and they recognize and respect grace. Practice it for your professional good, and practice it for your personal good. Any other response wastes time and effort. Heal, and offer healing.

Questions? Did you see ideas in this post that you’ve never heard of before? Contact me!

Comments? Leave them below.

We ARE Home!

Marc Mullen | October 28, 2018

The importance of recovery communication

Every successful response ends with two competing realities: Responders are happy to leave for home, and affected stakeholders are afraid they’re being abandoned. Communicators need to acknowledge both by providing effective recovery communication.

The effectiveness of a response is best proven by it’s demobilization. Much should be made of this effectiveness. There is every reason to proclaim success and the reasons for success. This lays the seeds of confidence in future operations. Command staff recognize their triumph and are justifiably proud of it. Communicators should certainly assist in ensuring that stakeholders recognize this too.

However, the sunshine of success can be overshadowed by the darkness of doubt. Regardless of response communication effectiveness, stakeholders will often wonder if they’re really ready to go it alone.

The truth is, any major response will always include an extended recovery process. Responders know this and they assume that it is obvious to all. Why would it be obvious? If you’ve had to work hard to communicate response actions effectively, why would you assume that recovery actions will be obvious?

Recovery Communication bridge building

Communicators must provide stakeholders with a ‘bridge’ from response to recovery. This usually entails another round of ‘advisement’ to Command by the communicator. Remember, this is your role! Building this bridge starts early, during the response, not at the last minutes, when ‘response’ declares victory, and ‘recovery’ takes over.

Remember the response ‘whys’? They all point to the halcyon day when the response is finished and everyone gets their life back. Responders get their lives back because they get to go home! The response has been declared a success, or at least as good as it will get.

Now responders head for home: Hotels empty out, equipment is packed up and sent home, the detritus of the response is removed. Response-related access restrictions, safety zones, traffic and bodies all disappear.

Stakeholders get their lives back, and life begins to return to normal. But do they recognize this? Do they see success, or do they see abandonment? Stakeholders don’t know this unless they’re told this.

Response communicators need to set the stage for recovery early in the process. Recovery activity should be positioned much the same way as the response activity has been:

Response Activity	Recovery Activity
Started with the incident	Starts with hand off from response
Was deliberate and purposeful	Follows prescribed and purposeful plans
Used the best people and the best strategies for the best result	Will use the best resources for the most effective outcome
Has ended, as determined by the responders	Will also have an end point, one determined by all affected stakeholders
Always includes a handoff to recovery efforts	Always includes a sign-off from affected stakeholder groups
Initiates some activities that will continue into the recovery phase: Claims process initiated Cleanup and decontamination initiated Employment or vending opportunities Remediation, waste disposal initiated Habitat restoration initiated Investigation commences	Continues activities until stakeholders release them: Claims process continues Cleanup and decontamination continue until recovery process is completed Remediation, waste disposal continue Habitat restoration plan signed off Investigation is ongoing
And the response is declared over!	And the recovery is over! Investigation completed, results shared Final cause of incident determined Fines and judgements levied Resumption of pre-incident activities Final sign-off by all affected stakeholders

Response communicators can set the stage for this process by clearly communicating known recovery activities as they are initiated or planned during the response. Apply the same ‘future’ considerations to recovery planning as you do to response communication.

Note that Unified Command may resist recovery communications during the response. ‘It’s not part of the response’ will be their mantra. Remind them that Unified Command can only be de-mobilized when all response parties sign off on it.

Stakeholder concerns can prevent agencies from signing off.
Stakeholder doubts about ongoing pollution can keep a County or city from signing off.
Activist concerns can leverage an Agency to not sign off.

Helping affected stakeholders understand and accept the coming recovery process can help Unified Command and all its related costs demobilize sooner!

Who provides recovery communication?

It’s easy to assign recovery communication to the RP, but its more complicated than that. While recovery rolls on without Unified Command, it may be wise to retain a semblance of the Joint Information Center. Recovery activities can positively or negatively affect every participant, whether agency, municipality or company.

The same basic issues and functions remain, usually without the element of time pressure. One fundamental difference between response and recovery is that while the response is usually driven by a need for speed (stop the incident as fast as possible), recovery is usually driven by deliberation (are you sure we’re done with that?).

Issue identification and management remains a necessary element of recovery communication: rumors, observations, new accidents or key dates all bring the original angst back into play.

Remember the date!

There are key communication considerations post-response for all parties, particularly for the Responsible Party. Communicators must be prepared to spring back into action with any of the following triggers:

Anniversary of the incident – especially if a large incident
Similar incidents occurring at the same facility – always bring the previous response back to light
Similar incidents occurring at any other location – usually in comparison of severity or to ‘prove’ an industry issue
Completion of investigations or litigation, announcement of fines
Conclusion of Claims process
Sale of involved assets

Each event brings specific mention of some element of the incident. Be prepared with key messaging for these times.

The more stakeholders understand the objectives and effectiveness of the recovery process, the sooner they will accept its conclusion. So commit to effectively communicating throughout the recovery process!

Questions? Did you see ideas in this post that you’ve never heard of before? Contact me!

Comments? Leave them below.

I Want to Go Home!

Marc Mullen | October 13, 2018

What is the mission of Unified Command? Simple to define, right? Or is it as simple as ‘go home’?

Here’s how USDA describes the purpose of Unified Command:

“Unified Command is a team effort process, allowing all agencies with geographical or functional responsibility for an incident, to assign an Incident Commander to a Unified Command organization. The Unified Command then establishes a common set of incident objectives and strategies that all can subscribe to. This is accomplished without losing or giving up agency authority, responsibility or accountability. Unified Command represents an important element in increasing the effectiveness of multi-jurisdictional or multi-agency incidents. As incidents become more complex and involve more agencies, the need for Unified Command is increased.”

How about Incident Command itself?

Here’s what FEMA says: “The Incident Command System (ICS) is a management system designed to enable effective and efficient domestic incident management by integrating a combination of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures, and communications operating within a common organizational structure. ICS is normally structured to facilitate activities in five major functional areas: command, operations, planning, logistics, Intelligence & Investigations, finance and administration. It is a fundamental form of management, with the purpose of enabling incident managers to identify the key concerns associated with the incident—often under urgent conditions—without sacrificing attention to any component of the command system.”

Go home!

So, the mission of Unified Command is to ‘establish a common set of incident objectives and strategies’, or is it ‘to enable effective and efficient domestic incident management’?

So much for simplicity! Here’s a shorter mission statement: Go home!

Every response structure or system is designed to accomplish the same goals with differing levels of involvement, expenditure and outcome. Each response has its own response objectives, but they generally fall around the same key points:

Protect people – safety of public and responders is always paramount
Stop the incident! No matter what happened, stop it!
Secure the assets – whether boats, buildings or bridges
Protect wildlife and environment – no matter what spilled, released, burned or erupted, keep it away from animals and plants
Restore damages – whether things or beings, make them whole!
And then, go home.

Any response that escalates to Unified Command is expensive in damage, impact, time and cost. Virtually all responses are ‘extra duty’, not part of our normal schedules or to-do lists. All responders put their ‘day jobs’ on hold, and their lives on hold. So ‘go home’ is actually a valid and valuable objective.

‘Go home’ focuses the ‘response mind’ on maximizing both effort and impact for the greatest (and quickest) good. It ensures the Unified Command mantra of ‘the best people making the best decisions for the best outcome’.

What it does NOT do is assure impacted stakeholders.

Unified Command participants say; ‘We want to go home!’ Impacted stakeholders say; ‘We ARE home! Our lives have been turned upside down, we’ve incurred harm! We need help!”

For stakeholders, the Unified Command decision of ‘over’ is most definitely NOT ‘over’. In many cases, the conclusion of response efforts is only the beginning of recovery efforts.

The conundrum is that Unified Command works best when focused on the short term, while stakeholder relations works best when focused on the long term. Hence the challenge for the JIC and all communicators: How do we practice long-term thinking in a short-term environment? Short-term focus leads to good response actions, but bad communication actions.

From the very start of a response to the end of all activities, how does a communicator craft an effective communication process?

First, stakeholder communication is only effective if it meets stakeholder information needs. Providing information about response actions may meet the expectations of responders, but it only begins to meet the needs of affected stakeholders.

Stakeholders need much more information than response facts. Let’s look at the following issues that surround this basic truth:

Responder expectations and why they are wrong

First, response leaders expect communicators to share information about response actions. Whether internal to a single response organization or at the Unified Command table, people responsible for directing response efforts want to be sure their actions are accurately portrayed to a watching world. They pore over facts to ensure accuracy. They wrestle with changing numbers and worry about inaccuracy. They check grammar and look for typos. They remove subjective information in favor of objective facts.

And they completely miss the point: Responders know facts, but they don’t know feelings. Effective response communication isn’t just factual, it is emotional. Only communicators major in this point. Responders strip the soul out of communication because they don’t recognize the need for it. When dealing with an affected public, facts are an important element of effective communication, but so is honesty, empathy and sympathy. Responders need to turn loose of their hold on the communication product, and trust the communicators to do what we do best.

Approval processes and why they are wrong

Every communicator deals with an approval process of some type, typically one that is longer and more draconian than it should be. Typically, one communicator submits their product to multiple approvers for review. Pre-Unified Command, content goes to Legal, HR, Investor Relations and/or Corporate leaders for review and revision. Each holds veto power over every word, thought or fact. The same holds with Unified Command, where one individual, the PIO, brings JIC product to the Unified Command table, where every member holds the same veto power.

In any setting, the result of this is delay, obfuscation or elimination of key messages. Subjective statements are summarily excised. Facts are revised or questioned, grammar and context are vandalized. The all too typical process returns a marked up, dumbed down, stripped out tossed salad of word to the JIC or the communicator for revision and resubmission. None of this should happen; this process does violence to timeliness and effectiveness of communication products.

How to make them right

Reverse the process. Give professional communicators full sway over the product. Trust their professionalism to generate effective, well-written and accurate material. To ensure accuracy, put a fact-checker next to the communicator or in the JIC. Their job is to screen the facts for accuracy. Let the communicators decide what needs to be said, what key nuggets to pull out of the avalanche of facts available. Instead of one communicator subjecting their work to multiple reviewers put one fact checker in with multiple communicators. This fact-checker can work with information gathering, to sign off on all information coming to the communicator or JIC.

What should Command do with communication products?

Listen to them! Read them! The communicators’/PIO’s role is to inform Command of public sensitivities and risks that need to be considered. The communicator/PIO is the communication expert at the command table. Communicators need to seize this role, and responders need to give it to them. Responders, don’t edit out what communicators have put in. Instead, ask them why it is important so you understand the response impact better!

Why all this talk about communicators’ roles? Because until this is settled, communicators can’t bring long-term stakeholder acceptance to short-term response actions. Once it is settled, communicators can begin to deliver better information for better understanding, to both responders and stakeholders. They can use strategies that ensure long-term understanding and acceptance of short-term response activities.

When does long-term thinking sync with short term thinking?

Immediately. Let’s look again at typical response objectives, and list some long-term concerns next to each short-term objective.

Response Objective (short-term)	Stakeholder concern (long term)
Stop the incident! No matter what happened, stop it!	Can you stop it before it does too much damage?
Protect people – safety of public and responders is always paramount	Am I safe now? Will I be safe later? Will I be reimbursed for damages? Will I be able to return to normal?
Secure the assets – whether boats, buildings or bridges	What will you do with the damaged property? Will it be replaced? Will it ever be safe again? How long will it take before it is back to normal?
Protect wildlife and environment – no matter what spilled, released, burned or erupted, keep it away from animals and plants	What are you doing to rehabilitate wildlife or remediate environmental damage? Will they affected animals survive? Will the species survive?Will the environment ever be back to normal? Have I lost what made me love this place? What if my property is affected?
Restore damages – whether things or beings, make them whole!	Can you fix this? Can I trust you? Can I trust it? What about my losses? Will I still have a job? Can I stay in business?
And then, go home.	Why are you leaving? They’re leaving again! Why are you ducking out? Why are you abandoning us?

And the list goes on. And on. Who knows these concerns? Communicators do.

Communicators know that the simple, straightforward response statement; ‘We’re doing everything we can to stop this incident right now’, and the facts associated with the statement (that responders think prove their commitment) don’t answer stakeholders’ heart concerns. In addition to hearing about boats, boom and bodies, they need to hear; ‘We know how important this it to people who live here. We live here too, and we are working as fast as we can. We will do everything we can to stop it, as quickly as possible. Use emotional statements to connect with emotion, use facts to connect with logic. Neglecting one injures the other. Communicators know this. It’s our passion, to be heard and understood.

Planning ahead: the ‘why’

Once we’ve built heart into initial communications, we need to go to work on what we know is coming. It is very common to focus on key initial facts and actions at first, as communication has to catch up with response plans and actions. But very quickly communicators need to segue into more important matters. Yes, there are more important things to do than share facts. Facts are answers or proof to ‘what’. More important is ‘why’ and ‘what’s coming?’.

Facts demonstrate response actions, but response actions are selected for specific reasons. These reasons are the ‘why’. Here are some samples:

What	Why
We’ve staged 10,000 feet of boom in four locations	We are following a careful plan to focus our resources where they will have the greatest benefit. To do this we are staging boom at four sensitive areas so we can immediately deploy it to protect each area.
Four skimmers and two barges are deployed	We want to pick up the spilled oil before it gets anywhere near the shore or sensitive areas. To do this we are aggressively deploying skimmers to pick it off the water and barges to store the recovered oil and water. We’ll do this as long as it is effective.
200 personnel are in Unified Command and 1,400 are in the field	The only way to stop this incident is to put the right people in the right places. We’re putting people where they can be most effective. We deploy people into the field as quickly as possible and we ensure they’re effectively deployed by staffing an effective Unified Command. We will deploy as many people as we need to.
Four air monitoring stations have been activated	Safety of responders and the public is our top priority, so we’re putting air monitoring stations in several locations. These stations will tell us if responders and the public are safe from fumes.

Seem like a lot of work? It is extra work to create the ‘why’ statements, while the ‘what’ is easier to find. But here’s a secret: Facts always change, so the ‘what’ always changes. The ‘why’ doesn’t change, so it can be used again and again to support the ever-changing ‘what’.

‘Why’ is also recyclable: Each ‘why’ statement can be used to meet later stakeholder concerns.

What about the facts?

What about the facts themselves? How do I keep them flowing?

Develop a facts flow that doesn’t require ongoing approval. Use your fact-checker to verify response actions for incorporation into a standing Response Facts sheet.
Select the key measurements you know stakeholders need for assurance of activity; boats, boom, bodies, birds – any information that becomes measurable evidence of progress and actions.
Establish protocols for verification and use; typically, information is factual if it is associated directly with a response activity. If boom is being deployed, the number of feet deployed is a fact. If oiled birds have been reported and a team is responding, the report is a fact. If an injury has been reported, it is a fact. Each fact should have a corresponding action that renders the fact to be true.
Publish facts as they ebb and flow. Remember and reinforce the universal response truth: All facts change with time and absolute truth will only be known long after the response is over. Use the best facts available and change them when they change. Remind everyone that facts are fungible.

Plan for the future

While most response facts reflect the past, some impact the future.

Reports of oiled birds will result in oiled birds and all the concern and attention they bring.
Spill trajectories showing oil is coming ashore usually result in oil coming ashore and the attendant stakeholder concerns.

Effective communicators note the key facts that lead to future communication needs and prepare for them. Very quickly in a response, communicators should identify these ‘hot buttons’ as key issues and track them diligently. Don’t settle for ‘what is’ from information gatherers, require them to always ask ‘what’s coming?’ If the Wildlife branch says there are no impacted birds, ask them if there are reports of impacted birds, or if they’re planning on opening rehab centers. If the Environment section is planning booming strategies, ask them where and when. Is dispersant use being planned? Has a permit been submitted? Are they being staged somewhere?

As soon as any ‘hot button’ issue is touched by response plans, communicators need to prepare for it. This is not just preparing materials, it is informing Command of needed ‘lead time’ to prepare stakeholders for the eventuality. The time to talk about bird rehabilitation centers is before oiled birds are reported. The time to talk about shoreline protection strategies is before they’re implemented. Want to see trouble? Start using dispersants or burning oil before you tell stakeholders you’re going to!

This rule applies to more response action than a responder may think.

In one response involving a spill of bunker fuel during refueling, responders decided to move the involved vessel without informing the public. Unfortunately, viewers from the shore didn’t know the ship was being moved for decon, they thought it was leaving the ‘scene of the crime’.
In the same response, communicators had to override Command’s resistance to conducting a media briefing on a beach. Communicators knew the public needed to see the negligible impact on the beach instead of looking at a white board.

Advise and Consent:

Note the critical ingredient for success: Communicators who know what the real issues are, and have a plan to address them. This goes back to the communicator’s role with Command: To advise. Don’t let good response decisions be wasted by bad communications.

Only effective communications balances the competing demands of ‘I want to go home’ with ‘I don’t want you to go home’. Be prepared to lead Unified Command through a graceful departure!

Questions? Did you see ideas in this post that you’ve never heard of before? Contact me!

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