Large rocks rising from the sea

Many of us will have rolled our eyes when we’ve received an invitation to join our colleagues in a meeting room to discuss our values. Writing the same tired old tropes on a whiteboard or flip charts can seem like a waste of time. The values are written up at the end of the session, … Read more

Speed is at a premium at the outset of a crisis, and being able to trust your gut and having good pattern recognition helps you move fast when facts are scarce. However, once you get farther into the response, the challenges are more complex, and patterns become less clear: your gut can start to let … Read more

Path to a sandy beach

The sun is shining in Austin, Texas, and many of us are thinking about plans for the beach this summer. I’ve written before about the notion that a healthy body is a combination of diet and exercise, and the equivalency that I see with healthy organizations, which will have a mix of ability – crisis … Read more

yellow right turn sign

Loyal readers of this blog will have seen that we’ve spent a lot of time talking about speed, clarity, and trust recently. For us, these represent a new approach to helping organizations: less of a focus on crisis response and more on risk awareness and crisis readiness. Overall, we’re focused on building what we’re calling … Read more

a flat tire being fixed

I’m fond of the old military saying: “two is one, and one is none.” It reminds me to have a backup or a spare for critical equipment when I’m on the boat. I can’t run to the corner store if something goes wrong when I’m at sea, so I need to be able to replace … Read more

A runner in starting blocks

Mobilization simply means getting the right people in the right place with the right information to allow them to start managing the event taking place.  The term ‘mobilization’ can sound very operational and, therefore, a little out of place in a communications environment, but that’s the point. It’s meant to convey a sense of purpose … Read more

Procedures have a terrible reputation amongst communicators for stifling creativity and limiting the freedom needed to respond to a crisis. We’ll often say that we can’t plan something as complex and instinctual as a crisis in advance. In many ways, I agree. My dislike of shelves of binders is long-held and well-documented. Trying to map … Read more

wall covered in flow chart arrows

Procedures have a terrible reputation amongst communicators for stifling creativity and limiting the freedom needed to respond to a crisis. We’ll often say that we can’t plan something as complex and instinctual as a crisis in advance. In many ways, I agree. My dislike of shelves of binders is long-held and well-documented. Trying to map … Read more

iron chain

You’ve probably seen the Abbott and Costello sketch ‘Who’s on First?‘ (and if not, you’re missing out) where the team’s names – Who is on First base, What is on Second, Why is in the Outfield – make for a lot of confusion and a great skit. But take a moment and think back to … Read more

silhouette of a man catching his daughter

The final component of our speed, clarity, and trust architecture that will transform you into a Crisis Confident organization is trust. The simple quote from Santosh Kalwar, “Trust starts and ends with the truth,” helps us think about the truth and the trust that’s necessary for superior crisis response. Of the three elements, you may … Read more