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 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

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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

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser takes an informal look forward to 2020 and the potential risks that are just around the corner.

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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 this is our final episode for 2019. I’m recording this on Monday, December 30th you’re going to hear this later in the day. I am running solo today as it’s quite a snowfall going on here in the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. But I wanted to take a moment and just provide a little bit of a look ahead to 2020. I believe we’re going to do a more formal kind of preview of the coming year with both Bray and I. But I wanted to hit on a couple of things that are on our mind as we turn the calendar here in a couple of days to 2020 and wrap up the decade of the 2010s and look forward to the decade of the 2020s.

Bryan Strawser: The first thing that is on my mind as we head into 2020 is that here in the United States at least this is a presidential election year. In addition to that, all of the United States Congress is up for election along with a third of the United States senate. So this is going to bring all of the inherent politics that come along with a situation in a calendar year like this, a presidential election year. I think it’s also, just given that our society has become more and more partisan and certainly has become, I think, a little more rancorous with the current presidents and they both support and opposition for President Trump’s policies, that’s going to be a pretty pivotal issue in the news and how businesses and individuals react in the year to come.

Bryan Strawser: The second and one that we’ve talked about frequently on our BryghtCast podcast and in previous episodes, in previous reviews that we’ve done of coming years, and talking about the top global risks, is that we appear to have come to the final decision when it comes to the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union or Brexit. That was settled pretty much in the election that occurred in Britain just a few weeks ago. Brexit, the Brexit implementation bill has passed the UK parliament. We’re going to see that breakup occur, it looks like at the end of January, 2020, although that date may move around.

Bryan Strawser: But really next year in terms of Brexit, not only will Brexit be implemented but now it’s time for the real negotiation, and the real negotiation is, what will the relationship be between the United Kingdom and the European Union in the years to come? And there is a lot of negotiation, a lot of issues that need to be discussed and decided in the coming weeks and months. And that will have global economic implications, it’ll have implications for EU citizens that live in the United Kingdom today. It looks like they’ll be allowed to stay through a immigration scheme that is being developed and will be implemented. But there’s a lot of uncertain

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser, along with Consultant Bray Wheeler, discuss the need to “over-respond”, in a manner of speaking, but not overreacting – when it comes to establishing your crisis management framework and your own importance as a leader within your organization.

 

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Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, Principal and Chief Executive here at Bryghtpath.

Bray Wheeler: This is Barry Wheeler consultant here at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: You know, I like to think that everybody belongs to a couple of different tribes in their lives. And I don’t mean like real tribes but like the tribe of career or community that you’ve joined. And I’ve got the whole crisis management and business continuity communities and global security. And I’m Catholic, so I’ve got my Catholic tribe kind of thing. But I’ve-

Bray Wheeler: Red Sox Nation.

Bryan Strawser: Red Sox Nation, absolutely. And the Patriots and the Bruins. The Celtics. But you know, one of my tribes is a… I was never a firefighter, but I worked in law enforcement. So I kind of think of that as a tribe. And I’m an EMT, and I wasn’t EMT in the past and I am again now. And I think of that as my tribe. And when we were thinking about this podcast today, What we were going to talk about, over-responding but not overreacting, I was reminded of what very little I know about the fire service. And that is when there’s a fire of some type, there’s a set response.

Bryan Strawser: So a residential fire in Roseville, Minnesota is going to result in two engine companies, a ladder company and a BLS unit and a chief, the battalion chief, going to that. And what that first engine in, the officer on that engine or the chief, if they get there before the apparatus, which is unlikely, the first thing they do is a size up where they walk around the incident. They take a look at it and they’re making an instantaneous decision on calling for more resources, or I have what I need to handle this.

Bryan Strawser: And that call for resources is usually a little ahead of the actual need. They look at it and they’re like, well, I’ve got like two houses nearby. I’m going to have to mitigate against those homes catching on fire. And I know that has a term in the fire service. I don’t remember what it is. But they’re going to try to protect these two houses and he’s going to need another two engine companies to do that. They’re going to make that decision. So theyR

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser, along with Consultant Bray Wheeler, revisit the topic of Active Shooter Preparedness & Exercises.

Topics discussed include the current active shooter threat, preparedness efforts, active shooter exercises, planning for an active shooter incident, and more.

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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.

Bray Wheeler: I’m Bray Wheeler. I’m a Consultant here at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: And today, we want to talk a little bit about kind of rethinking active shooter preparedness and exercises. And I would say there’s a couple things that kind of stirred this conversation, and I know we’ve done a couple previous episodes on active shooter preparedness and maybe even exercises, and I certainly know we have an episode about leading through an active shooter incident that recorded with Jennifer Otremba and Lindsay Bradford who both used to work here at Bryghtpath, both of whom were with Bray and I on the day that we had a active shooter situation at our former employer, across the street from our offices, that we kind of manage through, and we’ll link that episode in the show notes, it’s worth listening to.

Bryan Strawser: But what prompted this are really two things. There’s been a number of articles recently about after shooter drills or exercises that I thought were not well done and garnered a lot of negative press, and this is where we’ve got police running an exercise where they’re shooting people with airsoft guns and they’re firing off blanks and some other things, and so we want to talk a little bit about that and what makes a good active shooter exercise, particularly for students in the K-12 environment and workers in your organization’s facilities. But the other thing we want to just touch on is just some other thoughts on active shooter preparedness that have come out of the incidents that have happen

In this edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser submits himself to questioning from Bryghtpath Consultant Bray Wheeler on the topic of how to make the case to leadership to gain new resources, headcount, finances, or approval for a project.

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Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is Brian Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath.

Bray Wheeler: This is Bray Wheeler, consultant here at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: We’re going to do something a little different today. We’re going to… Well, I think to frame this up, Bray is essentially going to interview me about making the case to leadership, a topic that we’ve explored elsewhere but we haven’t really talked about too much, you know, here on the podcast.

Bryan Strawser: We’ve had this idea for this episode sitting around in the hopper for quite some time, for a year, but it really comes from my experience growing into being a senior leader at my previous employer and getting to that place where I was the subject matter expert and the leader of the team, and having to go to leadership and often going to business leadership above my direct boss in order to make the case for things you wanted to do in the process of obtaining everything from budgets, expense, and travel, and resources, to headcount, to capital dollars for software or for facilities and emergency operation centers and that kind of thing.

Bryan Strawser: So I don’t know the questions.

Bray Wheeler: It’s a mystery.

Bryan Strawser: Bray has got some role written here that I can see, and we’re just going to have an open conversation around these. I’ll attempt to answer, and I’m sure Bray will have some color commentary along the way.

Bray Wheeler: Let’s do it.

Bryan Strawser: Let’s do it.

Bray Wheeler: So yeah, I just have kind of some basic questions and they’re a little bit open-ended, and kind of let you riff, and I can ask some follow-ups here. But really in terms of making the case to leadership, how is that something that’s… You know, just at the start here, how do you prepare yourself for that?

Bray Wheeler: You’ve been asked to go present on X topic. Does it make a difference in terms of what the topic is and how you prepare, or just generally how are you thinking about it? How are you preparing to go have that conversation, that presentation?

Bryan Strawser: I think the context matters a little bit. I mean certainly at our last employer where we worked together prior to Bryghtpath there were formal processes in presenting to leadership abou

In this edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser and Consultant Bray Wheeler, take on the new report by the United States Secret Service on targeted school violence.

Just published in November 2019, this report analyzes more the forty targeted school violence attacks in the United States and provides a detailed base of facts about school violence, as well as an updated methodology and practical guidelines for prevention.

The full report can be downloaded from the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) through this link.

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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.

Bray Wheeler: This is Bray Wheeler, consultant here at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: And on this week’s episode we’re discussing the Secret Services recent report published in November 2019, titled Protecting America’s Schools, a United States Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence. This report is available online and we will link it in the show notes. It’s a fascinating report that goes deep into 41 incidents of targeted school violence that occurred in K through 12 schools in the United States from 2008 to 2017. And they cite that these findings will help prevention efforts for schools and law enforcement across the country as communities work to develop threat assessment protocols that are geared towards preventing school violence tragedies. Some basic info that I think was shared or some basic info that kind of kicked the report off, and then I want to get to the meat of this, which is really about the warning signs of potential targeted school violence.

Bryan Strawser: But of the 41 attacks that are profiled in the report, all but two occurred in public schools. So only two occurred in charter or private schools. 73% of these attacks were carried out in grades nine through 12, so in high schools. Most of those schools that had a targeted violent attack had implemented some type of physical security measure and 66% of them had either full or part-time school resource officers on the campus. So, police officers on the campus. The most commonly used physical security measure was a school walk down procedure, followed by security cameras, followed by alert systems that notified community members via text or phone calls. 61% of the attacks used firearms, 39% use knives. Shocking. The attackers were predominantly male, 83%, and white, 63%. And by shocking, I

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser discusses the need for rapid decision making and communications during a crisis or incident.

Reflecting on a year of crisis exercises, Bryan discusses crisis management, crisis communications, crisis management frameworks, crisis plans, crisis plan annexes, prepared crisis communications messages, holding statements and more.

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Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is Brian Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath. I’m running solo on today’s podcast and I’d like to talk a little bit about the need for speed, so to speak, during a crisis or during a major incident. We’ve now facilitated a number of exercises over the course of the year. And one thing that we keep coming back to, coming out of these exercises is the need to get to a decision, the need to get the communication out, the need to make the strategic decisions that need to happen early in a crisis to set the stage for success. And so I want to dive into that a little bit and I think we’re clear about, I think everyone is clear about the need for rapid decision making during a crisis and the need to get your message out from a crisis communication standpoint once things start to become public or you’ve decided to make them public.

Bryan Strawser: But how does one achieve that? How do you get to that point in the crisis situation or in the exercise? As we’ve talked previously about how do you set up a crisis management team, an incident management team and kind of set the stage for this. It starts with having that basic crisis framework in place. That there are clear roles and responsibilities amongst the team on what every role or what every team does that they bring to the table. That you have created a decision making and communication framework that clearly lays out the decision-making rights of the individuals in the room. For example, who has to approve the activation of the crisis team, who is the final decision maker where there’s disagreement, who approves the communication, who needs to see that?

Bryan Strawser: Those are all basic things that should be in your initial crisis management framework and plan. And then once you have that in place, and we’ve always talked about at this point, you begin to prepare for known risks and threats. What are the five, 10, 15, 20 things that you think you are at most risk at or that your data says you’re at most risk to have happen?