In this episode of Managing Uncertainty, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser discusses the new ASIS/ANSI Workplace Violence and Active Assailant – Prevention, Intervention, and Response Standard. The newly revised and expanded standard provides an overview of policies, processes, and protocols that organizations can adopt to help identify, assess, respond to, and mitigate threatening or intimidating …

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser reviews steps that organizations should consider when managing high-risk terminations. Topics discussed include threat assessment, threat incident risk factors, threat severity levels, understanding what high-risk terminations look like, managing reductions in force, and the steps organizations should take in high-risk …

It’s our one-hundredth episode! In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser, we discuss a common employee comment about someone in the workplace they may find threatening, which is “But, they are weird!”. How can we evolve our assessment behind simply reporting that someone is “weird” and focus …

Hurricane Season 2020 is upon us! In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal and Chief Executive Bryan Strawser talks through personal, family, and business preparedness for this year’s hurricane season. Topics discussed include personal & family preparedness, DHS’s Ready Campaign, and actions that businesses should take to ensure they and their teams …

As states, counties, and cities begin to lift stay-at-home orders and companies begin to make plans to return to the office in the coming weeks and months, what social distancing considerations should organizations include in their planning?

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser walks through a number of social distancing considerations, including workstations, cubicles, meeting rooms, offices, walkways & hallways, and more.

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Episode #96: Crisis leadership in the time of Coronavirus

Episode #97: Returning to the office in the age of COVID-19

Episode Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath. I’m flying solo again today due to Minnesota stay at home and social distancing guidelines that we have in place, as I’m sure you are dealing with in your own workplace today, I hope that you are doing well. I want to spend just a little bit of time and talk about social distancing guidelines for businesses, as you start to think about reopening or returning to the office or other environment that you might work in, what social distancing and what PPE might look like, in this environment.

And so I want to talk through some things that we’ve been thinking about that we’ve been doing with other clients. And hopefully, this gives you some advice on how to implement these in your own business.

I’ll start by saying something we’ve said before, and that is that we have absolutely no idea what government is going to do what the government might require a view in order to return to the office. And you may see state by state, county, by county, city by city differences large and small in what those requirements are. But here are some things that we’ve seen put into place in businesses that have to be open right now. And things that we expect would be on your menu of things to consider, as you think about reopening in going back to the office, or reopening your small retail store or bakery or, you know, whatever your businesses. The first is that you really have to think about the entire structure that you have for your business and start thinking about it in terms of social distancing. And so I’ll start with something basic and that is like walking down the hallway or doing going down a walkway.

What we’ve seen be effective, what the CDC is recommending and critical infrastructure already is to create some kind of barrier or delineation that creates one-way l

Leaders at all levels are being challenged today by the multitude of business leadership issues arising from the Coronavirus epidemic. The challenges are significant – from how one takes care of their employees, to how to best communicate with your customers or clients, to how to stay on top of the situation from day to day.

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser talks about leading through the Coronavirus epidemic.  Topics discussed include crisis leadership, crisis management frameworks, crisis communications, customer communications, cross-functional business leadership, collaboration, emotional intelligence, and more.

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Episode #94: Personal and family preparedness for Coronavirus

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Blog Post: Making Decisions in the Midst of a Crisis

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the managing uncertainty podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath. I’m solo again today. And, I want to talk about leadership in a crisis, focusing on what’s going on with coronavirus. And, what this really means from a crisis leadership perspective.

I think, without a doubt, the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis unlike any other we’ve seen in recent times. I’ve been involved in crisis management since about 2000. So, 20 years now. And, in all of the different crisis situations, active shooter situations, homicides, pandemics, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other disasters that have happened, this is far beyond anything that I’ve ever seen before.

It’s certainly not a time where there’s a playbook that you can pull out and say, “Well, here’s what we should do.” Down to every step. Those days are really behind us now. Leaders facing this crisis today, crisis leaders, business leaders, who may not have a lot of experience in crisis management are really facing a significant amount of uncertainty and really just sheer unpredictability at this point as this crisis unfolds.

I mean, look at some of the challenges that business leaders are faced with right now. There’s a fearful workforce. We’re looking at a really shaky economic foundation. We have a customer and consumer marketplace that’s bordering on panic. I mean, for God’s sake, people are buying out all the toilet paper that’s out there. And, we don’t know what steps the government may choose to take tomorrow in order to address the crisis that’s in front of them or that is headed at them in the coming days.

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser tackles the topic of Personal and Family Preparedness for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19).

Topics discussed include the Ready Campaign and their themes of:  have a plan, make a kit, be informed – and specific steps that you and your family can take to prepare for a potential epidemic of Coronavirus Disease in your state or local community.

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Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hi folks. Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast for this week. We’re going to be talking about personal and family preparedness as it relates to the current Coronavirus outbreak. We’ve talked about personal and family preparedness before here on the podcast, usually in conjunction with National Preparedness Month, which here in the United States is in September. Although there are other countries that do it, do something similar at different times of the year. But today I want to talk specifically about a personal and family preparedness when it comes to looking at the potential pandemic with Coronavirus around the world. But I’m going to also give maybe a little bit of a US-North America-centric point of view.

Bryan Strawser: So let’s start with some basics about personal and family preparedness. No matter where you’re at in the world, I think one of the best resources to start with is to look at the Ready Campaign, which is a product of the United States Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. You can find this website at ready.gov and it is full of all kinds of preparedness information as it relates to personal and family and business preparedness and it also has some resources right now available for Coronavirus. So what the Ready Campaign advocates strongly for individuals and families is a three-step process.

Bryan Strawser: First is to make a plan. What we want to think about here is having an emergency plan for yourself and your family members so that whether you’re together or not at the time the disaster strikes you know how you will contact one another, reconnect if separated and then how you will kind of communicate and move through that disaster together. The plan starts by getting together with your family and answering four questions together and there is, I should point out, there is a plan template at ready.gov/plan. But there are four steps that the Ready Campaign talks about when it comes to make a plan.

Bryan Strawser: The first is to talk through these four questions with your family, your friends, or your household. The first is how will you receive emergency alerts and warnings? So how can you use your technology

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser discusses what your executives are really looking for in your crisis management plans.

Topics discussed include executive roles in a crisis management framework, developing crisis management plans, crisis exercises, executive interactions, and more.

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Episode #4: The Crisis Team

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Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath. I’m flying solo today and we’re going to do a short episode this week talking about crisis management plans, and what I want to focus on our discussion about crisis management plans, a topic that we’ve talked about numerous times before, is what happens when your executives get involved? When your executives are at the table, involved in your crisis process, what do they really want? What are your executives really looking for in terms of a crisis management plan?

Bryan Strawser: If you remember in our previous episodes and blog posts we’ve done over the years about building crisis management plans and crisis management frameworks, what we’ve really talked about in those situations is building something that has a crisis management team that is below the executives, that really is managing that moment-by-moment action that we want to happen during a crisis. They’re coordinating across the organization. They’re communicating, they’re collaborating, they’re making those moment-by-moment decisions.

Bryan Strawser: The role that we typically reserve for the executives is to support the work of that crisis management team, usually in a couple of key areas around large scale expense and capital commitment. They’re making decisions about the organization’s reputation, and they might be taking active steps to manage the reputation of the organization, but they’re really focused in that middle area there. I’m sorry, they’re focused on rather on really those big picture issues where they’re supporting the crisis management team. Your crisis management team is really made up of those day-to-day managers from across the organization who are doing the real work in responding to the crisis. Your executives are there to support the work that that crisis management team is doing and making decisions on the type of things that escalate to them.

Bryan Strawser: Here’s my experience. My experience and I just went into this a few weeks ago with a client who is managing a data in

You won’t want to miss this episode.

There are few things that have caught the attention of business leaders and individuals around the world right now in the way that the Novel Coronavirus outbreak in China has garnered attention.  For a virus that was unheard of prior to December 2019, as of this podcast publication, there are nearly 25,000 cases just in China alone – with hundreds of new confirmed cases each and every day.

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal and Chief Executive Bryan Strawser provides an overview of Novel Coronavirus – what it is – how it’s impacting businesses, countries, and individuals, and recommended steps that companies and individuals should take right now to ensure their long-term continuity of operations.

Bryghtpath Coronavirus Resources

Blog Post: Bryghtpath publishes new Novel Coronavirus whitepaper & briefing

Bryghtpath Briefing: Novel Coronavirus

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Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath. I’m flying solo again today for this episode where we’re going to talk about probably the top issue that’s going on in the emergency management or crisis management world right now and that is novel coronavirus. The outbreak that began in the Wuhan province of China and has now led to what appears to be becoming a global pandemic, the likes of which we haven’t really seen since H1N1 just over a decade ago. Novel coronavirus. We’re going to talk a little bit about what it is. What is a coronavirus, the impact and spread of the virus, its impact on business and travel, its impact on businesses and our recommendations for businesses and individual precautions in terms of travel and medical treatment? And we’ll talk about some things you should be thinking about as this outbreak continues, things you should monitor as an organization, as a crisis management or business [inaudible] leader within your organization.

Bryan Strawser: Let’s start by just explaining coronavirus briefly. The novel coronavirus was detected in December 2019 so not very

In this week’s edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, our first for 2020, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser discusses the recent drone strikes carried out against Iranian aligned unconventional forces, militia, and government officials by the United States – with a focus on steps that businesses that operate in the region – and globally – should consider as tensions rise and escalations occur in retaliation.

Topics discussed include intelligence, monitoring threats, freedom of navigation, travel safety & security, soft target protection, detecting pre-attack surveillance, and other measures that companies should take.

Editorial Note

Despite knowing the proper pronunciation of Qasem Soleimani’s name, I pronounced it incorrectly multiple times during this episode. My apologies for my error. — Bryan

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Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath, and I’m running solo again today. We’re here to talk about Iran and the Middle East. Given recent events that have occurred over the last couple of weeks throughout Iraq and Iran and the involvement of the United States admitted, confirmed involvement of the United States on a drone strike killing an Iranian official near the Baghdad airport about a week ago.

Bryan Strawser: I’m sure you’re familiar with the details of the incident, but to back up a little bit, there has been for a number of months, years even in Iraq, a number of attacks on United States military interest throughout the region that have connectivity back to the unconventional forces of the government of Iran. These unconventional forces in many cases, were the Quds Force, Q-U-D-S, and the commanding general of the Quds Force. Quds is the unconventional warfare arm of the Iranian military and intelligence apparatus. The commanding general was Major General Suleimani and a week ago as he was leaving the Baghdad airport in a three-vehicle convoy with some allies of his, no Iraqi government officials but Aronian allies that operate within Iraq, his convoy was struck by a series of missiles fired from a U.S. Government Reaper drone, a more modern version of the predator.

Bryan Strawser: Killed in this drone strike were General Suleimani along with some local allies as how I’d outlined before. It took a little bit of time, a few hours before this was confirmed, and then a few more hours for the United States to announce that they had made the drone striking, accepting responsibility for the strike. In addition in the following days, but the United States executed a number of other strikes, some of which our government has confirmed, some of which have not been confirmed as well as a special