101 Tips for Communication in Emergencies
When disaster strikes, the more prepared organizations activate their disaster plans. Whether it's a fire,
flood, chemical spill, hurricane, or database breach, we activate emergency management teams and
search for solutions, while we figure out what to tell the public. All of this activity involves people
working together under extreme pressure. The better those people are at communicating with each other
under pressure, the better the outcome will be.
Skip to the Details: How To Order
n a single day, you can witness the
final hours of a brand that took ten years to build. Or you can see it re-emerge stronger than ever. From
Tylenol to JetBlue — no brand is exempt. And the outcome depends not only on what you say to the public, but on how well
you communicate internally — with each other.
This same topic is available in seminar or workshop format. Check out
Team Communication in Enterprise Emergencies.Surviving the enterprise emergency requires teamwork at a level well
beyond high performance. People who have never even met must form a group that functions and thinks as one.
When they succeed, they do so because of their ability to build relationships with each other that transcend workplace
politics and personal agendas. The bonds they form are often so strong that they last lifetimes.
Foremost among the risks these teams face, perhaps, is the question of how well the Emergency
Management Teams will work together. After all:
- They're working on something that they don't know much about (yet)
- They've trained for this, but not as much as they would have liked
- They're under extreme pressure
- After the first day, they're very tired or close to burnout
- Some have concerns about loved ones
- Some might be missing or injured
- Some are worried about the future prospects of the company or their communities
- Some have rarely worked with each other before
- … and on and on and on
How do you train people to know how to do this? How do you create leaders who can make this
happen? It seems an impossible task, and it is. But fortunately, you already have them — they already work in your
organization. What keeps most organizations from succeeding in the enterprise emergency isn't a lack of training or a lack
of leadership — it's that they're stuck in a business-as-usual frame of mind. To succeed in the enterprise emergency, all
we have to do is stop pretending that the usual approaches can be bent just a little bit.
For example, when we do train our people in communication — and few organizations do that very well — we train for
the routine environment. But the emergency environment is like no other. People of all professions must collaborate
effectively — under extreme pressure — if they're going to find a path through the emergency. Yet, we do very little to
prepare people to communicate in that environment.
101 Tips for Communication in Emergencies — effectively — shows teams how to talk to each other in the emergency environment. And
an important factor in internal emergency communication involves learning to communicate across the
technology divide. Techies must learn how to talk to and listen to non-techies, and vice versa.
In the modern organization, enterprise emergencies almost always entail complex technological issues. Some of us understand
these issues, but most of us don't. And that creates a technology divide, which further complicates the already-complicated
communication problem. This ebook discusses in depth the issues of internal communication across the technology divide:
- How to successfully communicate within the emergency management team
- What non-technical leaders need
- How to ask for what you need from technical leaders
- How to prepare teams for the emergency environment
- How to deal with teams that run off the rails
- How to listen and how to manage your own responses
- How to manage and accept uncertainty in others
- How to manage the risks of metaphors
101 Tips for Communication in Emergencies is filled with tips for sponsors, leaders and participants in emergency management teams. It helps
readers create an environment in which teams can work together, under pressure from outside stakeholders, in severely
challenging circumstances, while still maintaining healthy relationships with each other. That's the key to effective
communication in emergencies.
It's an ebook, about 15% bigger than
.
Read the table of contents.
Some sample tips
Here are some sample tips:
- Connecting the dots conflicts with listening
- In the emergency environment, we are under extreme pressure to "connect the dots." That is, we respond to the
expectations of others by pushing for a clear statement of the pattern of the event as soon as possible. The result,
often, is that we decide on a pattern — a framework for understanding the situation — prematurely. In effect, our need
to connect the dots causes us to halt data collection too soon. It creates a tendency to slant our interpretation of
what we're being told. It interferes with the ability to listen.
- This tendency affects everyone differently. Those who have a preference for making models and
discerning patterns are more vulnerable to this error than are those who typically prefer to see and process more data.
Usually, the technologists are more vulnerable than are senior managers.
- On the other hand, those who prefer gathering more data are vulnerable to a different (but
complementary) error. They tend to postpone acceptance of working hypotheses until long after there is enough data to
justify them.
- Both error modes are manifestations of the inherent conflict between "connecting the dots" and
gathering data.
- Establish and enforce interface requirements
- In the routine environment, we permit team members to speak freely with those outside the team. Occasionally, this
"out of band" communication causes problems, but it also facilitates agility, and we tolerate it. In the emergency
environment, out of band communication is almost always a threat to orderly management of the emergency. In the
emergency environment, communication between a team and others outside the team must follow interface requirements.
- This is particularly so in the case of a technical emergency team, because the
spokesperson for the team might at times need to withhold information that isn't yet ready to be released. Others
outside the team then sometimes attempt "end-arounds," in which they privately interrogate team members outside the
awareness of the team lead or team spokesperson. Team members and all internal staff must be made aware, in advance,
that interface protocols are to be followed at all times.
- Appreciate the consequences of demanding definitive responses from technologists
- When we demand that technologists supply scalar responses to queries that inherently require vector responses, we're
requiring that they suppress information. That suppression, in itself, presents no difficulties to the emergency
response team. But when the suppression of that information prevents the emergency response team from considering
alternatives and issues that are its responsibility to consider, suppression of information by technologists does
become a problem for the emergency response team. Indeed, it can become a problem also for the viability of the
enterprise.
- It is the role of the technologist in a technology-driven emergency to maintain a clear grasp of
the full dimensionality of the emergency. It is the role of the emergency management team to decide what to do. Neither
can fulfill its role when the technologists suppress information, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
- In emergencies, leave no voids
- When people worry, they make up what they don't know. When we say nothing about a topic people are worrying about,
we leave a void to be filled by rumors. Make an active effort to determine what your stakeholder populations are
worrying about, and make special efforts to determine which of their concerns they're actually talking about. Make these
efforts part of your situational awareness program.
- When you learn of a concern that's propagating within a given population — internal to the team
or external — and you know that the concern is false or irrelevant, fashion and deliver a message to that population
designed to assuage the concern. If there's any truth to the concern, address that directly. Letting it circulate
unanswered will only give it space to grow to the point of unmanageability.
How to order
This ebook is in Acrobat (PDF) format. You'll need the Acrobat Reader version 5.0 or later to read it. You can load it onto your computer or PDA. Or print
it on any standard black-and-white or color printer. The price makes the decision easy: per copy.
Quantity packs are available at the prices shown below.
Call for site license pricing at the phone number below.
| Order "101 Tips for Communication in Emergencies" by credit card, for each, using our secure server, and receive download instructions by return email. |
This item is also available through ClickBank.com, the largest seller of downloadable products and software. If you prefer, you can |
| Or if you prefer, you can order through Google Checkout. |
This item is also available in a 10-pack (USD 166.95 per pack, or USD 16.70 per copy):
| Order "101 Tips for Communication in Emergencies, 10-pack" by credit card, for USD 16.70 each, using our secure server, and receive download instructions by return email. |
| Or if you prefer, you can order through Google Checkout. |
Or as a 50-pack (USD 665.00 per pack, or USD 13.30 per copy):
| Order "101 Tips for Communication in Emergencies, 50-pack" by credit card, for USD 13.30 each, using our secure server, and receive download instructions by return email. |
| Or if you prefer, you can order through Google Checkout. |
Or as a 100-pack (USD 1,129.00 per pack, or USD 11.29 per copy):
| Order "101 Tips for Communication in Emergencies, 100-pack" by credit card, for USD 11.29 each, using our secure server, and receive download instructions by return email. |
| Or if you prefer, you can order through Google Checkout. |
Or as a 500-pack (USD 4,659.00 per pack, or USD 9.32 per copy):
| Order "101 Tips for Communication in Emergencies, 500-pack" by credit card, for USD 9.32 each, using our secure server, and receive download instructions by return email. |
| Or if you prefer, you can order through Google Checkout. |
Table of contents
Click the folder icons to reveal (or hide) chapter contents.
Reveal all chapter contents
Introduction
Using This Book
- The Tip-Book format
- Ebooks are a little different
Understand the Emergency Environment
- Know the difference between a crisis and an emergency
- Become familiar with evolving terminology
- Understand the three dimensions of emergencies
- Understand the nature of the emergency environment
- Accept that the organizational posture will be more reactive than is typical
- Most emergencies have technical components
- The risk environment is novel
- Uncertainty dominates
- Some of what you "know" is wrong
- Standard procedures probably have broken down
- Standard policies might be obstacles
- Plan for absences
- Plan beyond COOP
- Use logical role designations rather than personal names
- People who rarely work together must work together well
- The consequences of failure are severe
- You probably get only one chance to get it right
- Good enough is good enough
Understand Emergency Environment Psychology
- Understand the Satir Change Model
- We tend to reject the foreign element
- In Chaos, people tend to be stressed
- Search for transforming ideas intentionally
- Establish an intelligence function
- Resolve pre-existing feuds and duels
- Deal with substance abusers in advance
- Plan for the pharmaceutical needs of emergency management staff
- Anticipate status inversions
- Accept that people have different communication preferences
- Conduct training in managing "betterism"
- Understand the economic paradox of control procedures
- Simulation-based training is essential
- Use drills to screen team members
- Deal with emotions - or else
Understand Emergency Stressors for Technologists
- It's difficult to do careful research
- Experiments and tests are almost precluded
- Internal customer expectations remain high
- Responsibility, guilt and shame
- I told you so
Understand Emergency Stressors for Non-Technologists
- Assets degrade
- Sense of predictability wanes
- Power inversions are uncomfortable
- The reactive posture is in itself a stressor
- External customer expectations remain high
- Connecting the dots is even more difficult in emergencies
Manage the Cost of Destructive Conflict
- Know the difference between creative conflict and destructive conflict
- Know why destructive conflict sometimes remains unresolved
- Resolve conflicts face to face
- Track the liabilities of destructive conflict
- Conduct regular temperature readings
Understand Person-to-Person Communication in Emergencies
- Person-to-person communication in emergencies is different
- Know the communication pitfalls of stress
- Avoid jumping to meaning
- Avoid hat hanging
- Listen
- Avoid completing the other's thoughts
- Avoid replaying dramatic putdowns
- Avoid rushing
- Avoid confusion
- Avoid mind reading
- Avoid living the catastrophic expectation
- Avoid starting with "you"
- Avoid blame dancing
- Understand the Satir Interaction Model
- Connecting the dots conflicts with listening
- Ignorance isn't a personal failing
- Establish a we-can't-do-this-now protocol
- Create criticism-free conversations
- Track metrics that measure communication problems
Prepare Your Teams
- Know what makes a team a team
- Team formation skills are organizational assets
- Introduce team members and their backups
- Avoid "shift changes"
- Know why teams fail in emergencies
- Assess pre-existing conditions
- Know who's ready to go - always
- Establish a "ready line" for necessary infrastructure
- Understand the risks of team reorganization
- Know how to manage a team restart
- Establish and enforce interface requirements
- Harvest knowledge from after-action reviews of other teams
Manage the Stress of Uncertainy
- Understand how technologists deal with uncertainty
- Understand how non-technologists deal with uncertainty
- Appreciate the consequences of demanding definitive responses from technologists
- Understand what information non-technical leaders need
- Understand the conflicting needs of internal audiences
Manage Myths and Rumors
- Anticipate rumors and myths
- Eradicate myths in advance
- Prepare modular information resources to meet media requirements
- In emergencies, leave no voids
- Always be right
Manage the Risks of Metaphors
- Know what a metaphor is
- Understand the power of metaphors
- Understand the risks of metaphors
- Some constituencies demand metaphors
- Criteria for metaphor selection
Know What to Do After the Incident
- Establish an after-action review process
- Conduct after-action reviews after drills