Strategy + Airline Ops Centers + Snows Plows
Profiles in Preparedness #8
Strategy, in its most basic form, is how you use your resources to accomplish your goals. Preparedness, at least one element of it, is about developing the resources you will need in the future.
The challenge is that it’s speculative. You often don't *know* what you will need until it is too late. Acquiring supplies and equipment, training your team, and developing new capabilities takes time. By the time it is clear what you need, it is often too late.
Yet the organizations best positioned to grow through crises, and best positioned to serve their communities or stakeholders during disasters, are those that invested the time and money and effort before they had 100% certainty. They are the ones with options. They are the ones ready to adapt to a changing situation instead of being forced to react.
It takes vision. It requires accepting a bit of risk that the capability might never be needed or used. But creative leaders find a way to use their time preparing to strengthen their day-to-day operations. They find a way to continuously pursue greater ability before, during, and after disaster strikes. They commit to ensuring the organization they want and need is the one they have.
Preparedness is not an expense, it is an investment in your future success.
Here is what I’ve been writing this week
New Article | Lessons Observed, Not Yet Learned. We often see the same mistakes written about in AAR after AAR. But if public safety leaders are going to succeed in future disasters, we need to break this cycle. This week, I did an AI-enabled analysis of 35 different COVID-19 AARs to identify trends and preparedness lessons from across the country.
New Academy Article | Reducing the Gap Between Decisions and Actions. For Academy subscribers, I posted an article this week that looks at what makes for a "good" plan activation process. Breaking down five key elements that lead to a smooth and effective transition from blue sky to grey sky operations, I included a downloadable sample.
A Few Other Things I Read This Week That Are Worth Sharing
Article | What American Airlines Learned From the CrowdStrike Outage. Using the July 19th CrowdStrike outage as an example, this article highlights the difference between a fast and decisive response to an incident (American Airlines) and those whose choices lead to an extended situation (Delta). Daily management of regular and irregular operations is something organizations will want to continually modernize, test, and improve upon.
Article | How It's Blade: Anatomy of a Snowplow. This is on the lighter side, but I've spent a lot of time this week speaking with organizations about weather tools for the snow we're getting across the country. If you're a school superintendent, emergency manager, or security professional and your operations are impacted by snow, reach out to me. At a minimum, you should be aware of the tools available to support safety, resource planning, and continuity of operations.
Articles | The Security Job Interview. From Phil Venables, the CISO of Google Cloud, here are two articles about job interviews, one for the candidate and one for the employer. Regardless of whether you work in cybersecurity, physical security, or emergency management, the concepts and approaches are quickly translatable to your field.
Book | "Mastery" by Robert Greene. This is, hands down, my most gifted book every year, and I spent some time this week re-reading a few different sections. It is one that I enjoy coming back to each year, considering where I am in my career and growth, and thinking about what comes next. It's not for everyone, but it’s highly recommended.
Whenever you’re ready, here is how I work with clients.
Projects and speaking events. I support organizations and industry events with left of bang-focused presentations and preparedness initiatives.
Helping organizations get left of bang to severe weather events. Technology combined with professional meteorologists ensures organizations never lose their situational awareness for weather events. Here’s how.
Proactive Threat Recognition Training. Learn how to read the behaviors and establish baselines discussed in the book Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life in our online training courses.
If you’d like to learn more and see what is available for your organization, you can reach me at patrick@cp-journal.com or on LinkedIn.