Communicators’ Corner

Where do you fit in the Joint Information Center?

You’ve taken all the NIMS training for PIOs. You know Unified Command, you know the Joint Information Center (JIC). You’ve even taken Liaison Officer courses to be sure you’re aware of all the public communication channels that will be used by Unified Command. Your certificates are on your wall, and you keep them digitally on your laptop to be sure you can demonstrate your qualifications.

And you’re a pretty good communicator too! You’ve honed your skills to be good at your profession.

Congratulations, you’re ready to bring your knowledge, skills and experience to bear in the JIC. Based on a moderate-sized JIC, you may be ready to step into any of 15 + JIC positions.

But which position? Where do you fit best? Where will your unique set of skills and experience help response communications the most?

Consider the MQI Doctrine:

In Unified Command, the Most Qualified Individual Doctrine (MQI) should be followed: Each Unified Command position should be held by the most qualified and experienced individual available. The purpose for this is clear: The mission of Unified Command will be best met when the best people occupy each position.

In the National Response Team Publication: ‘UC Technical Assistance Document‘ the following statement reinforces the MQI concept: “Agency capabilities and resources, including agency personnel trained and available to fill key ICS positions, such as Command, Command Staff, and General Staff positions, should be identified.”

Translated, this means that each position within Unified Command should be filled with the most qualified and experienced individual.

Does MQI always rule?

No. I’ve covered this topic in another post: ‘What if Unified Command Doesn’t Work?’. Past practice, policy and politics can impact MQI, usually negatively.

• Past practice: Incident Commanders, themselves often selected for non-MQI reasons, often expect ‘their’ PIO to serve as the response PIO. They’re used to the working relationship, are confident of their PIO’s capability and are comfortable with their judgement. This can be beneficial, but it can also bite the response’s backside. Past practice isn’t an accurate determinant of performance.
• Policy: Some State or regional Area Contingency plans may specify which organizations can supply a PIO, often restricted from the Responsible Party. These considerations are usually practical; the State agency charged with response actions doesn’t want the added public opprobrium associated with the Responsible Party. So they require Agency staff to serve as PIO, relegating the Responsible Party to a less public position. Again, this arrangement can be beneficial when the named PIO is capable ands qualified, but sometimes the result is a lack of leadership that would have been available from the more experienced person from the RP.
• Politics: Some responses ‘go political’ from the very beginning; a powerful political voice takes over the response and forces appointment of their favorite, selected individuals in leadership positions. In today’s instant-news environment, this can seem a reasonable response to protect the reputation of the political denizens. It virtually always results with the leadership role not being filled as well as it would be via MQI. It also almost guarantees that some response decisions will be made for political reasons, reflecting neither best practices nor scientifically based logic. The end result is a lower quality response, often loss of trust: Unified Command’s mission is broken from the start.

The good news: Misapplied MQI isn’t pervasive, and usually doesn’t extend into the JIC structure. Even if you’re restricted from one position you may be manifestly qualified for, there are plenty of other positions where your capabilities can be fully utilized.

How do you practice MQI?

How do you rise to the level you belong in the Joint Information Center (JIC)? You’e already taken the most important step; you’ve learned about all the positions in the JIC. Your ICS courses have given you an overview and understanding of the varied positions needed in an effective JIC. They, with your skills and experience, should be enough to get you placed where you’ll be most valuable. But where?

There is a hierarchy of JIC positions that can help you make a good decision about where to serve. Remember that Unified Command is built on the span-of-control dictum: Regardless of response complexity, the JIC organization chart features at least three levels of leadership you can fit into: PIO, APIO-JIC Manager and APIO-Section Chief. Which level is for you?

• PIO: The Public Information Officer occupies a Command position, so they will spend the bulk of their time with Unified Command, overseeing a two way information flow of facts TO the JIC and product FROM the JIC. This is the dominant responsibility, but not the most important one: Above all else, the PIO should be providing communication counsel to Unified Command. Other Unified Command staff are experts in their field; they know boom, birds and bodies. The PIO is the expert in stakeholder communication; the only person in the room to weigh command decisions in light of public opinion. The PIO’s primary role is to ensure that Unified Command understands the ramifications of their actions on public perception, just as much as the Environmental Unit will inform Unified Command on the safest and best protection strategy.The PIO must be a strategist, able to engage Unified Command in high-level thinking about how to inform an affected public. This ensures that the affected public both supports Unified Command objectives and obeys Unified Command decisions. As an example, the PIO will help Unified Command understand why notifying the public about dispersant use beforehand is a good policy.If the PIO position is held by a sycophant of the Incident Commander, strategy is one of the first things to go. And Unified Command will pay a price for this.If you’re an industry-recognized communication strategist, you may be able to promote or preserve MQI, but practice, politics or policy may simply take the opportunity off the table. Focus on ‘strategist’ if you want this role. Your job will be to influence leadership to make good response decisions.
• APIO-JIC Manager: The JIC Manager is the most critical position in response communications. An effective JIC Manager can actually compensate for an ineffective PIO, by managing the JIC well. This is a tactical position that may shade into strategy if the PIO isn’t doing their job.The JIC Manager plans all response communication, identifies product, sets a schedule, provides quality control and maintains performance. They may influence strategy by building it into the JIC’s Public Information Plan (PIP), by including known stakeholder concerns and weight of each concern into the PIP.If you’ve managed teams, overseen complex projects with tight deadlines, and maintained long term staff commitment and performance in high stress environments, you’re qualified to serve as JIC Manager. You will ensure a focused, output oriented, high performing team of individuals drawn from multiple organizations. This is your spot!How do you demonstrate your qualification beyond training? If you’ve produced a corporate sustainability report or written and implemented a crisis communication plan, you’re probably going to be great at this role. If you’ve overseen complex agency initiatives or managed your agency’s public outreach programs, you’re probably going to be great at this role.My counsel here: If you only have one management superstar, put them in the APIO-JIC manager position. Oh, and most policy restrictions on RP staff to NOT specify APIOs – usually only the PIO. So in the JIC, MQI has a solid shot!
• APIO-Section Chief: In the JIC structure, functional roles are often separated; information production may be separated from dissemination, which may also be separate from information gathering. Inquiry management may be broken out, as may Media management from Community Outreach. While the JIC organization chart will be adjusted to match response communication needs, leadership of each Section will be universally enforced. Unified Command’s span-of-control genesis ensures this.This translates to ‘Section Chiefs Wanted‘. Each Section Chief function has two leadership requirements; knowledge of the specific function, and management capability. If you’ve created content and overseen content creation for your organization, you’ll be a good APIO over Information Production. If you’ve planned and conducted multiple public meetings, you may be a good fit for overseeing Community Outreach.MQI Doctrine can be canonized at the section level, as the JIC Manager reviews capabilities and assigns APIO-Section Chiefs.

How do you decide where you fit?

Here’s a guide, based on one Crisis Communication Plan: JIC Positions and Comparable Skills Needed

REMEMBER that JIC structure is flexible, so Section titles can change.

Leave your ego at the door!

A warning: Serving in a position you’re not really qualified for will eat you up, and it may jeopardize the entire response. Failure to effectively communicate response information to a concerned public can have severe impact on response reputation, your reputation and the safety and security of the public.

Don’t fall into the trap of becoming a legend in your own mind. I’ve seen gifted communicators fail badly in Unified Command because while they may be really good at public speaking, or highly photogenic, or possess a great ‘bedside manner,’ they’re neither strategists nor tacticians. Unified Command is a machine and so is the Joint Information Center. Practice MQI and place gifted people where they’re needed — including yourself.

The response and the affected public will thank you.

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

Comments?  Leave them below.

Stakeholder communication and messaging

Effective stakeholder communication is all about saying the right things to the right people. In our everyday world, we do this well. Time and experience teach us the benefit of investing in the people who are strategic to us and as we select these people over time, we get the process down pretty well. Our daily communication works because we know what to say, and we know who to say it to. If we don’t, time and tide set us straight. Plus, we always have the luxury of trying again if we miss our stakeholder communication mark the first time.

Then a crisis occurs, and everything changes. In addition to the need for new messaging due to our new situation, we join a new organization, leaving ‘ Day to Day, Incorporated’ for ‘Incident Command (hopefully) Limited’. We’re thrust into a new operating sphere called the Joint Information Center, with new coworkers and new stakeholders. Our stakeholders and messaging are exponentially more critical to our survival, but we have neither additional time nor extra chances to get both right.

As we step into this new sphere, how can we make the right choices for messaging and stakeholders? It may be helpful to consider a different business model that will help you make the right decisions.

A look at how successful nonprofits manage stakeholder communication and management

If you want to see an organization that maintains a clear understanding of stakeholders and messaging, look at a well-run nonprofit. Thriving nonprofits manage to balance the evolving and competing demands of their stakeholders, and communicate common values, principles, priorities and messages to each one.  In so doing they are actually increasing the value of their gathered stakeholders to the organization as a whole, while simultaneously increasing the value of the organization to each stakeholder.

Consider five stakeholder groups every nonprofit must manage:

• The clients: Every nonprofit has clients of some type. Their needs usually define the organization’s mission. These are the people we’re trying help. They care about our services, availability and effectiveness. They think that their priorities are, or ought to be, the organization’s priorities.
• The donors: The people with resources. These people care about effectiveness and the return on their investment; they willingly give to causes and programs that matter to them. They have an affinity for the Clients, but they aren’t a client. They don’t need the nonprofit for services, but they see the nonprofit as the best way to help the client.
• The board: These people manage the organization. They care about the organization and its effectiveness. They care about costs, and they balance the need and effectiveness of service delivery against cost, budget and available resources. While they care about the Client, they are committed to the organization.
• The workers: These people actually deliver the services.They care about the clients, and they care about themselves. They expect both finances and feelings: they care, and their care is shaped or defined either by their pay, or by their desire to have a personal impact in people’s lives, often both. Workers are paid staff or volunteers. The pay is is different, but a good nonprofit holds the same standards of training, accountability and effectiveness for volunteers as they do for staff.
• The activists: These people are the heralds. They care about the cause, usually more than they care about the clients. They are often advocating for their own benefits instead of the clients’. Their focus can be on purity of mission instead of effectiveness of programs.

Run effectively, nonprofits balance each of these groups’ expectations in a way that meets each group’s needs while also adding a greater mutual benefit from this balance. They effectively balance the strengths and shortcomings of each group and create a dynamic, effective and thriving team.

Non-profit management isn’t easy, and the best practitioners succeed despite limited time, budget and agreement from often competing stakeholders. They simultaneously deliver needed services to clients who appreciate them, extract support from resource holders who buy into the vision, steer overseers to common and effective decisions, direct staff to deliver quality services and assuage the concerns of activists who always expect their personal nirvana.

And these needs do compete. It’s easy to become unbalanced and nonprofits always have a much lower margin for error:

• Fall short in meeting the needs of your clients and they will complain about your services.
• Turn off donors, who constrict your cash flow, leading to staffing reductions and even lower services.
• Neglect the Board and they can end up fighting fires instead of planning futures, while the value equation for donors disappears.
• Worry your workers by neglecting pay, security or support and they can turn against you, impacting your image with donors and activists or alienating clients with lackluster service.
• Fail the activists by not delivering services or an image they can support and they will turn against you, questioning your mission or methods, often loudly and publicly. They will watch you and measure you, always ready to pounce if they perceive wrong motives, actions or outcome. And they will define each.

Anybody want to manage a nonprofit? The good leaders dance a dance that keeps all their stakeholders satisfied, and they do it by blending the needs of each group with the mission of the organization.

What does this have to do with stakeholder communication in a response?

Effective response communication also has to dance a dance that keeps all stakeholders satisfied by blending the needs of each group with the mission of the organization. Nonprofits manage their stakeholders, communicators manage stakeholder communications. Both endeavors face the same dynamics.

Your organization is the Incident Command. The response is your mission. Your stakeholders are:

• The Clients: These are the people who have been impacted by the incident.
• The Donors: These are the funders of the response, usually the Responsible Party or their insurer, though sometimes a government entity.
• The Board: Incident Command itself, participants working together to provide the maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
• The Workers: These are the people and organizations actually doing the work. This group includes both paid and volunteer people and organizations.
• The Activists: These are people or organizations with causes. Media are activists. Bloggers are activists (and bloggers are media, another subject). Advocacy and special interest groups are activists.

Now for the ‘easy’ part; apply the tactics and strategies of an effective non-profit to the Joint Information Center and you can succeed at moving this conflicting herd of cats to the finish line of success.

Dance the dance like a non-profit!

1. Define the mission: Every successful nonprofit has an ascendant mission that colors the perception of every stakeholder. From Client to Activist, every stakeholder can define the agency mission in common terms. Mission becomes common cause when effectively defined and shared.Turn Unified Command objectives or priorities into a mission statement. Use words of commitment and vision. Instead of saying; “Ensure the safety of responders and the community” say; “The safety and security of every person is important to us. Everything we do is centered on this principle.”
2. Define ‘success‘ for each stakeholder group, and tie each definition to the Mission. For clients, success may be a return to normal life, restoration of something damaged, encouragement to trust and believe. For donors success may be effective use of funds, even more than minimal use of funds.Each stakeholder group will define success differently, but link them together by identifying each with the mission statement: “We will minimize the impact of this incident because we want the community and the environment healed and restored.”Objectives of the response are recast as definitions of success. This allows each stakeholder group to begin to share a common and measurable definition of success. The vision is supported by reality.
3. Dedicate your resources, first to the most greatly shared objectives. Disparate stakeholder groups will likely share some definitions of success, and shared information has greater impact. If activists are clamoring for bird rescue and clients value wildlife, sharing successful rehabilitation will have a positive impact on both groups’ belief in the mission. Products identified in a publication plan should be weighted by their impact: Deal with the most important ones first.
4. Share success across all stakeholder groups. Remind all stakeholders that progress in any area is progress in all areas. Celebrate accomplishments. An insurance company might not care about a rescued bird, but they will be happy that community members are gaining confidence in the response because they see a bird rescued.
5. Ask for more. Encourage every stakeholder to do something to further the mission. Successful nonprofits are always recruiting: bodies, testimonials, funding, volunteers. Encourage each stakeholder group to greater involvement. As community members see their own beach cleaned, ask them to share any other needs they see among their neighbors. As activist groups provide volunteers, ask them to spread the word for more. As media members receive communication content, encourage them to ask more and write more. Engage with negative stakeholders to help them see the overall mission more clearly.
6. Don’t ignore any stakeholder group. It may be more fun to work with volunteers than it is to engage with activists, but success requires both. Don’t consider media inquiries as a chore or to be discouraged. Welcome them and make it clear they are welcome. Thank them for their interest and engage with them. Keep response personnel aware of latest updates and support them with counsel and content.Engage with all stakeholders. Invite each one to the communications table and give them content that not only feeds them but satisfies them. Show bird advocates that you are funding rehabilitation centers and encouraging them to volunteer because part of your mission is to protect, heal and restore wildlife affected wildlife to their natural state. Tying mission to performance is a powerful element in satisfaction.

It seems like a lot of work, but consider this simple concept: If each stakeholder group understands the broad mission of Incident Command and can relate to it because they see their concerns or needs addressed, there will be a building consensus and partnership in the response that will yield the most precious result: recognition and appreciation for work well done in difficult circumstances.

The old communication adage is really true: Do the right thing and make sure people know about it. Engage them at their point of interest, with language meaninful to them, and they just might dance the dance with you.

Stakeholder communication and messaging

Effective stakeholder communication is all about saying the right things to the right people. In our everyday world, we do this well. Time and experience teach us the benefit of investing in the people who are strategic to us and as we select these people over time, we get the process down pretty well. Our daily communication works because we know what to say, and we know who to say it to. If we don’t, time and tide set us straight. Plus, we always have the luxury of trying again if we miss our stakeholder communication mark the first time.

Then a crisis occurs, and everything changes. In addition to the need for new messaging due to our new situation, we join a new organization, leaving ‘ Day to Day, Incorporated’ for ‘Incident Command (hopefully) Limited’. We’re thrust into a new operating sphere called the Joint Information Center, with new coworkers and new stakeholders. Our stakeholders and messaging are exponentially more critical to our survival, but we have neither additional time nor extra chances to get both right.

As we step into this new sphere, how can we make the right choices for messaging and stakeholders? It may be helpful to consider a different business model that will help you make the right decisions.

A look at how successful nonprofits manage stakeholder communication and management

If you want to see an organization that maintains a clear understanding of stakeholders and messaging, look at a well-run nonprofit. Thriving nonprofits manage to balance the evolving and competing demands of their stakeholders, and communicate common values, principles, priorities and messages to each one.  In so doing they are actually increasing the value of their gathered stakeholders to the organization as a whole, while simultaneously increasing the value of the organization to each stakeholder.

Consider five stakeholder groups every nonprofit must manage:

• The clients: Every nonprofit has clients of some type. Their needs usually define the organization’s mission. These are the people we’re trying help. They care about our services, availability and effectiveness. They think that their priorities are, or ought to be, the organization’s priorities.
• The donors: The people with resources. These people care about effectiveness and the return on their investment; they willingly give to causes and programs that matter to them. They have an affinity for the Clients, but they aren’t a client. They don’t need the nonprofit for services, but they see the nonprofit as the best way to help the client.
• The board: These people manage the organization. They care about the organization and its effectiveness. They care about costs, and they balance the need and effectiveness of service delivery against cost, budget and available resources. While they care about the Client, they are committed to the organization.
• The workers: These people actually deliver the services.They care about the clients, and they care about themselves. They expect both finances and feelings: they care, and their care is shaped or defined either by their pay, or by their desire to have a personal impact in people’s lives, often both. Workers are paid staff or volunteers. The pay is is different, but a good nonprofit holds the same standards of training, accountability and effectiveness for volunteers as they do for staff.
• The activists: These people are the heralds. They care about the cause, usually more than they care about the clients. They are often advocating for their own benefits instead of the clients’. Their focus can be on purity of mission instead of effectiveness of programs.

Run effectively, nonprofits balance each of these groups’ expectations in a way that meets each group’s needs while also adding a greater mutual benefit from this balance. They effectively balance the strengths and shortcomings of each group and create a dynamic, effective and thriving team.

Non-profit management isn’t easy, and the best practitioners succeed despite limited time, budget and agreement from often competing stakeholders. They simultaneously deliver needed services to clients who appreciate them, extract support from resource holders who buy into the vision, steer overseers to common and effective decisions, direct staff to deliver quality services and assuage the concerns of activists who always expect their personal nirvana.

And these needs do compete. It’s easy to become unbalanced and nonprofits always have a much lower margin for error:

• Fall short in meeting the needs of your clients and they will complain about your services.
• Turn off donors, who constrict your cash flow, leading to staffing reductions and even lower services.
• Neglect the Board and they can end up fighting fires instead of planning futures, while the value equation for donors disappears.
• Worry your workers by neglecting pay, security or support and they can turn against you, impacting your image with donors and activists or alienating clients with lackluster service.
• Fail the activists by not delivering services or an image they can support and they will turn against you, questioning your mission or methods, often loudly and publicly. They will watch you and measure you, always ready to pounce if they perceive wrong motives, actions or outcome. And they will define each.

Anybody want to manage a nonprofit? The good leaders dance a dance that keeps all their stakeholders satisfied, and they do it by blending the needs of each group with the mission of the organization.

What does this have to do with stakeholder communication in a response?

Effective response communication also has to dance a dance that keeps all stakeholders satisfied by blending the needs of each group with the mission of the organization. Nonprofits manage their stakeholders, communicators manage stakeholder communications. Both endeavors face the same dynamics.

Your organization is the Incident Command. The response is your mission. Your stakeholders are:

• The Clients: These are the people who have been impacted by the incident.
• The Donors: These are the funders of the response, usually the Responsible Party or their insurer, though sometimes a government entity.
• The Board: Incident Command itself, participants working together to provide the maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
• The Workers: These are the people and organizations actually doing the work. This group includes both paid and volunteer people and organizations.
• The Activists: These are people or organizations with causes. Media are activists. Bloggers are activists (and bloggers are media, another subject). Advocacy and special interest groups are activists.

Now for the ‘easy’ part; apply the tactics and strategies of an effective non-profit to the Joint Information Center and you can succeed at moving this conflicting herd of cats to the finish line of success.

Dance the dance like a non-profit!

1. Define the mission: Every successful nonprofit has an ascendant mission that colors the perception of every stakeholder. From Client to Activist, every stakeholder can define the agency mission in common terms. Mission becomes common cause when effectively defined and shared.Turn Unified Command objectives or priorities into a mission statement. Use words of commitment and vision. Instead of saying; “Ensure the safety of responders and the community” say; “The safety and security of every person is important to us. Everything we do is centered on this principle.”
2. Define ‘success‘ for each stakeholder group, and tie each definition to the Mission. For clients, success may be a return to normal life, restoration of something damaged, encouragement to trust and believe. For donors success may be effective use of funds, even more than minimal use of funds.Each stakeholder group will define success differently, but link them together by identifying each with the mission statement: “We will minimize the impact of this incident because we want the community and the environment healed and restored.”Objectives of the response are recast as definitions of success. This allows each stakeholder group to begin to share a common and measurable definition of success. The vision is supported by reality.
3. Dedicate your resources, first to the most greatly shared objectives. Disparate stakeholder groups will likely share some definitions of success, and shared information has greater impact. If activists are clamoring for bird rescue and clients value wildlife, sharing successful rehabilitation will have a positive impact on both groups’ belief in the mission. Products identified in a publication plan should be weighted by their impact: Deal with the most important ones first.
4. Share success across all stakeholder groups. Remind all stakeholders that progress in any area is progress in all areas. Celebrate accomplishments. An insurance company might not care about a rescued bird, but they will be happy that community members are gaining confidence in the response because they see a bird rescued.
5. Ask for more. Encourage every stakeholder to do something to further the mission. Successful nonprofits are always recruiting: bodies, testimonials, funding, volunteers. Encourage each stakeholder group to greater involvement. As community members see their own beach cleaned, ask them to share any other needs they see among their neighbors. As activist groups provide volunteers, ask them to spread the word for more. As media members receive communication content, encourage them to ask more and write more. Engage with negative stakeholders to help them see the overall mission more clearly.
6. Don’t ignore any stakeholder group. It may be more fun to work with volunteers than it is to engage with activists, but success requires both. Don’t consider media inquiries as a chore or to be discouraged. Welcome them and make it clear they are welcome. Thank them for their interest and engage with them. Keep response personnel aware of latest updates and support them with counsel and content.Engage with all stakeholders. Invite each one to the communications table and give them content that not only feeds them but satisfies them. Show bird advocates that you are funding rehabilitation centers and encouraging them to volunteer because part of your mission is to protect, heal and restore wildlife affected wildlife to their natural state. Tying mission to performance is a powerful element in satisfaction.

It seems like a lot of work, but consider this simple concept: If each stakeholder group understands the broad mission of Incident Command and can relate to it because they see their concerns or needs addressed, there will be a building consensus and partnership in the response that will yield the most precious result: recognition and appreciation for work well done in difficult circumstances.

The old communication adage is really true: Do the right thing and make sure people know about it. Engage them at their point of interest, with language meaningful to them, and they just might dance the dance with you.

Want to know more about nonprofits’ communication challenges and solutions?  Here are two podcast to hear! Episodes 24 and 25 on the Leading in a Crisis Podcast!

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

Comments?  Leave them below.

In my previous post ‘Camelot is a Myth‘, I identified a dozen dynamics that challenge the myth of Unified Command as a modern Camelot. These can each, or all, cause a significant level of JIC dysfunction.  People who have served in a Unified Command response can share horror stories, including one or more from this dynamic dozen of disfunction.

In my last post. ‘Bakers’ Dozen I‘, I addressed solutions for the first half-dozen dysfunctions. In this post, we’ll look at solutions to protect us from the remaining seven JIC dysfunctions, so we can all return to our own brief shining moment known as Camelot – in this case Unified Command, specifically the JIC.

To pick up where we left off….

The Napoleon complex

These are the seekers of authority. They will leap in to serve in positions that give them power over people. The problem with power seekers is that their ambition has little to do with their capability. They’re neither good managers, nor necessarily proficient. They become a ‘competency black hole’, holding little competency themselves while also sucking other competency out of the room by allowing them to exist and to lead, you are encouraging JIC dysfunction.

What to do with Napoleon

Again, enforce the MQI doctrine. Look for competence, not forcefulness or greediness. We all instinctively have an aversion to power mongers. In this, trust your gut. Command and Control is a concept, not a lifestyle. Minimize the issue by identifying the culprit early. It’s harder to dislodge the wrong person from a position than it is to not put them there in the first place.

If they’re in place, complain about it. Nobody benefits from bad management and power hungry people always manage badly. Better to incur short-term discomfort than long-term pain and poor performance.

Hopefully these individuals’ reputation precedes them and key leadership averts this issue, but sometimes they work their way into positions of power anyway.

A test of any person’s commitment to the Unified Command concept is their willingness to be replaced. Test this often, Regular rotation of Leadership positions can provide relief and time to permanently rotate these people out of power.

The Phantom

Some people disappear when they should take charge. These are the opposite of Napoleons. They are usually highly capable, with great experience and wisdom, but when they’re needed the most they retreat away from responsibility or the spotlight.

Exorcising the Phantom

This one is simple. Let them go away. If a leader doesn’t lead, replace them immediately. The stress and demands of a response leave room only for the strong. Don’t beg or cajole a reluctant leader or participant. Let them leave. If they want to keep a position, enforce performance on threat of removal. Life is too short for poor leadership.

The accidental tourist

Some people just don’t get it. They avoid positions of responsibility, never stepping up into leadership positions their skills and experience indicate. If pressed into a specific role, they delay, divert or disappear. They want to be in the room, but they don’t want to actually do anything.

No vacancy!
By any definition a response is not a vacation. Participation entails hard work and long hours in a pressure-packed situation. Work conditions are stressful, food is usually bad, sleep is scarce and lodging is dicey. There is no reason to spend time in the JIC unless you’re dedicated to a greater cause than having a good time.

There’s never enough room, enough time, enough resources. Every person in the response has too much to do already, without picking up the slack of a non-performer. If the accidental tourist won’t buckle down and perform, send them home. If they’re in the room because they were chosen out of convenience or familiarity, at least request another body to replace their needed function.

If they’re leadership, an APIO or a PIO and you can’t get rid of them, ask for a deputy to be added, someone who will actually fulfill the responsibilities of the position. It’s not fair to the deputy to have to do all the work, but at least that person can manage the Section and build a performing team. It takes broad shoulders, but the end result is better for the response than struggling along with a non-performing leader.

Of course enforcing the MQI doctrine also takes care of this problem. If you won’t do the job, you’re not qualified. Be aware of politics in this instance – the fact that a non-performer holds a position of authority is a clarion signal that decisions are being made to salve or solve political problems.

The Anchormen

Unlike the Phantoms, these people seek out the limelight, not for power but for prestige. They’re the camera hogs, typically very good in front of the camera or in front of the crowd. But they’re often unconsciously unqualified, depending on their looks and skill instead of knowing the details and issues of the response.

Flack Jackets
The PIO is not star of the show. The response is. There are no JIC Emmys awarded. Egos get in the way of effective response communication, because stakeholders are more interested in facts than faces.An effective PIO will set up key leaders to give competent presentations. In the typical slightly antagonistic environment of a community caught up in your crisis, stakeholders want to believe that Unified Command is doing all the right things. They do not want to feel like they’re watching a PR flack. Smooth can easily be mistaken for schmoozing. It’s easy to lose credibility by being a gifted presenter.

The most believable person in the room is going to be the least polished and the most honest. Facts need to trump feelings. What is being shared will be more important than the loquacity of the presenter. A competent Incident Commander presenting without theatre will be more believable than a polished anchorman. A qualified subject matter expert will carry more weight and believability than a glib announcer.

Don’t promote this JIC dysfunction.  Don’t allow a spokesperson to hijack the reputation of the response to burnish their own. Unified Command may be many things, but it is not a popularity contest. Aim for respect rather than admiration!

Challenge an anchorman to measure their effectiveness by what stakeholders think of responders’ presentations instead of their own. Restrict their talk-time to introductions and routing of questions. Convince them that their glory-hogging is making people dislike them.

Back to MQI: The best PIO will be the person who has regularly facilitated opportunities for others to look good in front of media or stakeholders.

Oh, and be sure to coach all presenters that their task is to present and promote information about the response, not themselves or their own reputation.

Nervous Nellies

These people are stressed, and they stress everyone around them out. They are afraid. With nervous Nellies, fear fogs good judgement; every challenge looms equally large, so they end up majoring in the minors, expending resources and energy on irrelevant issues.

Wine
Unfortunately this is not an option. Help them calm down by pointing out the support network the JIC structure builds around them. Response communication is accomplished by multiple people working together. Everyone supports everyone else (well, maybe except for the Napoleons). They need to stop, take a deep breath and appreciate overall team resources.

Help them channel their nervousness by placing them in a monitoring position instead of a production position. Let them serve as information gatherers, writers, any ‘line position’ where they can hunker down and work without worrying about deadlines, phone calls and external pressures.

Don’t put Nervous Nellies in supervisory positions, or in external facing roles. Their panic can affect performance inside the JIC and stakeholder confidence outside the JIC. Moving Nervous Nellies to safe positions probably won’t offend them, and doing so allows them to use their often prodigious capabilities effectively.

Outside Experts

People noted for their knowledge, but whose knowledge doesn’t extend to this place, or this circumstance. These people know too much about the wrong things. They end up hurting the response by weighting decisions with wrong information.

Export the expert
As a response unfolds, every external stakeholder unconsciously determines how they would do it better. Everyone knows how to seal off a spewing well-head at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone knows where they would place boom or order dispersant. Everyone knows, just knows, that hair boom would pick up all the oil off the beach.

We do this all the time; in our minds, we’d get the final out in the world series, sink the tournament winning putt on the 18^th, design a car to get better mileage and give a better presentation than the one in the last press conference. And we could tell someone else how to do their job as well as we could. Humanely speaking, we hate advice but love advising.

Control the Outside Expert by exercising tight message research, drafting and delivery discipline. Don’t allow their speculation or comparisons – both are deadly. If you take away comparisons, you remove the breath from the instant expert. What they saw before or did in the past doesn’t matter when they can’t compare the present to it.

Remind them that times change so response activities have to change too. Social Media has changed how we share information. 24/7 news has changed the pace of news. Activist concerns and regulatory requirements force new procedures. Experience is fungible.

Test their expertise before mobilizing it. Be sure they’re flexible in how they think and sacrificial in how they share. In one way, an instant expert is a specialized anchorman – they really want the opportunity to pontificate and direct, but their efforts yield smoke instead of fire.

We need to check our ego at the door. The best response communication may be when nobody remembers your name, but everyone remembers what you said and what you did.

The fifth column

These people are interested only in their own reputations, at great expense to the response. A persistent hallmark of the fifth-column is an individual’s or Agency’s statement; ‘They decided on that strategy over my objections.’ This type of decision-sabotage is never taken for the good of the response, only for the good of the person or organization doing it.  It’s JIC dysfunction at its most pernicious.

Take the fifth
And put them somewhere else. This behavior is antithetical to Unified Command. The best decisions are made when everyone participates in the decision process and supports the mutual outcome. The best message to concerned and wondering stakeholders is that Unified Command is called Unified Command because everyone is, well, unified.

Disloyalty or dissent kills trust in the response. There’s no room for either. If an individual or Agency can’t own response decisions, they need to leave Unified Command. It may seem worth fighting it out to agreement, but attempting this usually wastes scarce time and resources without changing the outcome. Participation in Unified Command requires adopting the basic tenet of mutual decisions and mutual actions. Without this, the fate of response reputation is at stake; your dogma will be run over by your karma.

There you have it..

A baker’s dozen of dysfunction and thirteen possible recourses.

Again, I’m sure there are more, many more issues that arise. If you have one, share it. If you have other solutions to any of these, share them too!

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

Comments?  Leave them below.

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!

Comments?  Leave them below.

“Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment
That was known as Camelot!”

In a response, the Unified Command ideal is the same as the Camelot ideal; heroes come together to save the kingdom, chivalry and courage reign, decisions are wise and actions are just.

No myth – Unified Command truly is the best solution to large, complex incidents. It brings the best of the best together, and places each resource in a command/control structure designed to accommodate any scale of response planning, actions and personnel. It is the most expandable command structure extant, the most efficient way to mobilize and manage response resources and the greatest hope for a response structure that fully utilizes every resource.

It is in short, ideal, and the ideal for response effectiveness.

But it is also a myth, an ever-elusive ideal. Response realities attack the ideal. As Unified Command forms and responds, the reality doesn’t always, or even usually, match the ideal of Unified Command. It’s not perfect. Nothing created by human beings can be. It is subject to failure and inefficiency. Reality often falls short of the ideal.

The response dynamic dozen

What are some of the dynamics that can create this gap between ideal and real?  There are many, each of which seasoned responders can recognize and react to. People who have served in a Unified Command response can share horror stories, including one or more of the following, a dynamic dozen of disfunction:

• The habitual lair: The trap we all fall into when we bring old habits into a new structure. Our habits are our reality. Everybody does what she or he was doing yesterday, across Unified Command, not just the JIC. So our response decisions are often made based on yesterday’s realities, not todays. We end up making good decisions for the last event, not for this one.
• Paralysis of analysis: There is never enough information. This symptom dramatically affects the Joint Information Center, particularly one afflicted with a slow approval process. In the quest for ‘just a bit more information’, response updates are delayed, revised, delayed and finally released too late. 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. We can’t decide when enough information is enough.
• 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. Not only do we not know many details of what happened, we don’t know who is doing what, or where. Rapid and large response actions always lead to confusion while all the moving parts settle into place. Facts are flexible, both in existence and in duration; hat is accurate right now may be completely wrong in a few minutes.
• The devil we know: We all want to work with people we’re familiar with, regardless of their relative competency. This dynamic is remarkably common, for good reason; we’re all under stress, unconsciously reverting to our lizard brain. We can’t adapt to new things at this point, seeking instead the comfort of the familiar. This includes familiar people. 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.
• The devil we don’t know: From the many, one. Assimilation of multiple persons from multiple organizations into a single response structure is a challenge. All of Unified Command is built to achieve this singular task, but it is still difficult. Even if we are able to overcome our lizard brain, we still have to assimilate; everything takes time, when we have so little time. We need to learn phone numbers, email addresses, names. 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.
• The Napoleon complex: Some people just love power. These are the seekers of authority. They live for it and will leap in to serve in positions that give them power over people. By the way, this is a stress reaction as well: If you deal with power needs every day, your needs will be supercharged under response stress. The problem with power seekers is that their ambition has little to do with their capability. They’re not good managers, nor are they necessarily good at what they do. So they become a ‘competency black hole’, having little competency themselves while also sucking other competency out of the room.
• The Phantom: Other people disappear when they should take charge. These are the opposite of Napoleons. They are usually highly capable, with great experience and wisdom, but when they’re needed the most they retreat away from responsibility or the spotlight. They don’t offer their skills, counsel or support; they fade away.
• The accidental tourist: Some people just don’t get it. They show up but don’t belt up. When the going gets tough, they get going, out the door. These are the people who arrive in the JIC, survey the scene, and figure out a way to disappear. They avoid positions of responsibility, never stepping up into leadership positions their skills and experience indicate. If pressed into a specific role, they delay, divert or disappear. These are the people who will send a text or email saying they’ve been called back to their own office because of an unspecified crisis. They want to be in the room, but they don’t want to actually do anything.
• The Anchormen: People who promote themselves, but don’t add to the capability of the team. Unlike the Phantoms, these people seek out the limelight, not for power but for prestige. These are speech teachers who will give students’ speeches for them, out of the joy of hearing their own voice. They’re the camera hogs, typically really, really good in front of the camera or in front of the crowd. But they’re often unconsciously unqualified, depending on their looks and comfort instead of knowing the details and issues of the response. They’re caught in their own habitual lair, not recognizing that what worked for them in peacetime is not going to work for them today.
• Nervous Nellies: These people are stressed, and they can’t get hold of themselves. So they stress everyone around them out. They are afraid. Fear in itself isn’t a bad thing when it focuses the mind on what is most important, but with nervous Nellies, fear fogs good judgement. In their fear, every challenge looms equally large, so they end up majoring in the minors, expending resources and energy on irrelevant issues. Where courage concentrates, fear fuddles.
• Outside Experts: People noted for their knowledge, but whose knowledge doesn’t extend to this place, or this circumstance. These people know too much about the wrong thing; wrong circumstances, wrong impacts, wrong stakeholders. They end up hurting the response by weighing decisions with wrong information.
• The fifth column: People interested only in their own reputations, at great expense to the response. They may show up, but the often fail to put up. At the end of the day they are going to protect themselves. A persistent hallmark of the fifth-column is an individual’s or Agency’s statement; ‘They decided on that action over my objections.’ Another hallmark is when a response partner keeps their own meeting space, refusing or resisting efforts at integration. This action is never taken for the good of the response, only for the good of the organization doing it.

Every communicator, every responder, has a list of this type. Any one of these dynamics impacts the effectiveness of Unified Command; how does it endure multiples? With so many impediments, how does Unified Command ever succeed?

Unified Command is a wonderful thing

First, the structure was built out of actual responses, and many of these dynamics reared their heads in those responses. Remember the adage; “If you want to know how to fight a fire, ask someone who smells like smoke.” Unified Command was invented by people who smelled like smoke – literally. The structure, policies and practices of Unified Command provide much of the solution. The experience and accumulated wisdom of past response veterans provides additional insight.

This is why Unified Command can be compared to the fictional Camelot. While not perfect, it is the closest we can get. There are solutions! Preparation is the process of identifying problems and planning procedures to prevent them, Future posts will outline some of the solutions to these dynamics.

But first, what other additions to the dynamic dozen do YOU have? Share them by commenting on this post, and we’ll build a larger list to take on!

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

Comments?  Leave them below.