Once you’ve created your initial crisis management framework, how do you go about prioritizing your top risks for additional situation-based planning?

That’s the topic that we dive into today in this week’s edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser along with Consultant Bray Wheeler talk about how to shift from your established crisis management framework and plan to situational based planning for your top prioritized risks.

Related episodes of our Managing Uncertainty Podcast and articles from our blog include:

Managing Uncertainty Episode #1: Shouldn’t we have a plan for alien invasion?

Managing Uncertainty Episode #12: When the world falls down around you

Managing Uncertainty Episode #55: Crisis Leadership Roundtable

Managing Uncertainty Episode #59: All roads lead to one

What the CEO needs to understand about planning for a crisis

Crisis Communications 201: Crisis Protocols

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. I’m Bryan Strawser, principal and CEO at Bryghtpath.

Bray Wheeler: I’m Bray Wheeler, a consultant at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: One that we’ve talked about, at least, in a couple of previous episodes is this really common call or email that we get from prospective clients. It usually starts with, “I don’t have any kind of crisis plan or structure, but my executives have told me I need an active shooter plan.”

Bray Wheeler: Yup.

Bryan Strawser: We always immediately steer them towards, “You might need an active shooter plan, but if you don’t have anything else, what you first need to establish is a crisis management framework. You need a plan on you’re going to deal with any major disruption that establishes, here’s the team, here’s the process, here’s how you’re going to communicate, here’s how you’re going to make decisions, here’s how you’re going to escalate things.” When we talk about a crisis framework, that’s what we’re talking about.

Bryan Strawser: So, we’ve talked about this several times. What we want to talk about today is, what happens when you have that in place, and now it’s time to take a look around the company and say, “There’s probably some specific things I need to write a plan for, but what are those things? So, what do we do next?”

Bray Wheeler: I think, people can get hung up on evaluating different things and scoring different things, and talking to different people. All of those things are important, and

Once you’ve created your initial crisis management framework, how do you go about prioritizing your top risks for additional situation-based planning?

That’s the topic that we dive into today in this week’s edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser along with Consultant Bray Wheeler talk about how to shift from your established crisis management framework and plan to situational based planning for your top prioritized risks.

Related episodes of our Managing Uncertainty Podcast and articles from our blog include:

* Managing Uncertainty Episode #1: Shouldn’t we have a plan for alien invasion?

* Managing Uncertainty Episode #12: When the world falls down around you

* Managing Uncertainty Episode #55: Crisis Leadership Roundtable

* Managing Uncertainty Episode #59: All roads lead to one

* What the CEO needs to understand about planning for a crisis

* Crisis Communications 201: Crisis Protocols

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. I’m Bryan Strawser, principal and CEO at Bryghtpath.

Bray Wheeler: I’m Bray Wheeler, a consultant at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: One that we’ve talked about, at least, in a couple of previous episodes is this really common call or email that we get from prospective clients. It usually starts with, “I don’t have any kind of crisis plan or structure, but my executives have told me I need an active shooter plan.”

Bray Wheeler: Yup.

Bryan Strawser: We always immediately steer them towards, “You might need an active shooter plan, but if you don’t have anything else, what you first need to establish is a crisis management framework. You need a plan on you’re going to deal with any major disruption that establishes, here’s the team, here’s the process, here’s how you’re going to communicate, here’s how you’re going to make decisions, here’s how you’re going to escalate things.” When we talk about a crisis framework, that’s what we’re talking about.

Bryan Strawser: So, we’ve talked about this several times. What we want to talk about today is, what happens when you have that in place, and now it’s time to take a look around the company and say, “There’s probably some specific things I need to write a plan for, but what are those things? So, what do we do next?”

Bray Wheeler: I think, people can get hung up on evaluating different things and scoring different things, and talking to different people. All of those things are important, and all of it needs to come into play, but you really just need to start somewhere. And some obvious places that you can start to have those conversations that kind of whittle yourself in are, “Do we have something recent that we were not prepared for that did not go well?” Say, you’re a bank or financial institution, “We had an armed robbery. We didn’t have anything in place.” Probably need a plan for that. You know,

In this episode of our BryghtCast edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast for the week of August 12, 2019,  Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Consultant Bray Wheeler take a look at three current risks and upcoming events:

Hong Kong protesters offer apologies, China doubles down after airport clash

One-China T-Shirt row engulfs Coach and Disney, a day after Versace apology

Donald Trump to delay extra tariffs on Chinese imports

US designates China as a currency manipulator for the first time in decades

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello, and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and CEO at Bryghtpath. And with me today is Bray Wheeler, consultant at Bryghtpath. This is our weekly BryghtCast edition where we talk about recent news and upcoming events and what they might mean for businesses in the private sector. And we’re just doing it a little different this episode. As we looked through the news this morning, and we’re recording this on Monday, August 12th, as we looked through the news this morning, really one topic was really dominating the news that we thought had private-sector impact, and that is China.

Bryan Strawser: So we’re going to start by, again, talking about protests in Hong Kong. I awoke early this morning, of course, early afternoon Hong Kong time, but I awoke early this morning to learn that the Hong Kong Airport was completely shut down because thousands of protesters were occupying what looks from the photos I’ve seen to be essentially every square inch of real estate in the Hong Kong Airport. So inbound flights were canceled, outbound flights were canceled. And really the, again, we can protest led to airport closure. Bray, what do you see going on here?

Bray Wheeler: Yeah, it’s just that, it’s the next evolution of what they’ve been able to do. They’ve targeted a lot of these more disruptive major logistical and transportation features, government locations, things like that where they’re going to get the most bang for their buck in terms of attention and disruption really without direct violence. Now, certainly, there’s back and forth on how much violence there is actually taking place. But in terms of just the disruption and the attention, this has been the protestors’ MO.

Bryan Strawser: There were a couple of pieces of related news feeding into the airport shutdown this morning that came out over the weekend. One was there were a number of protests throughout Hong Kong over the last couple of days. I think it’s the 10th weekend in a row that there were major protests. There was tear gas fired, which is becoming also more of a norm to see that level of force from

In this episode of our BryghtCast edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast for the week of August 12, 2019,  Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Consultant Bray Wheeler take a look at three current risks and upcoming events:

* Hong Kong protesters offer apologies, China doubles down after airport clash

* One-China T-Shirt row engulfs Coach and Disney, a day after Versace apology

* Donald Trump to delay extra tariffs on Chinese imports

* US designates China as a currency manipulator for the first time in decades

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello, and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and CEO at Bryghtpath. And with me today is Bray Wheeler, consultant at Bryghtpath. This is our weekly BryghtCast edition where we talk about recent news and upcoming events and what they might mean for businesses in the private sector. And we’re just doing it a little different this episode. As we looked through the news this morning, and we’re recording this on Monday, August 12th, as we looked through the news this morning, really one topic was really dominating the news that we thought had private-sector impact, and that is China.

Bryan Strawser: So we’re going to start by, again, talking about protests in Hong Kong. I awoke early this morning, of course, early afternoon Hong Kong time, but I awoke early this morning to learn that the Hong Kong Airport was completely shut down because thousands of protesters were occupying what looks from the photos I’ve seen to be essentially every square inch of real estate in the Hong Kong Airport. So inbound flights were canceled, outbound flights were canceled. And really the, again, we can protest led to airport closure. Bray, what do you see going on here?

Bray Wheeler: Yeah, it’s just that, it’s the next evolution of what they’ve been able to do. They’ve targeted a lot of these more disruptive major logistical and transportation features, government locations, things like that where they’re going to get the most bang for their buck in terms of attention and disruption really without direct violence. Now, certainly, there’s back and forth on how much violence there is actually taking place. But in terms of just the disruption and the attention, this has been the protestors’ MO.

Bryan Strawser: There were a couple of pieces of related news feeding into the airport shutdown this morning that came out over the weekend. One was there were a number of protests throughout Hong Kong over the last couple of days. I think it’s the 10th weekend in a row that there were major protests. There was tear gas fired, which is becoming also more of a norm to see that level of force from the police. There was also an interesting article, I want to say it was in Foreign Affairs Magazine, on their blog over the weekend, but it may have been elsewhere, about protest technology and false news and how both sides were using that in the Hong Kong protest through social media in order to put out their version of a narrative. I think the protesters have been very effective in using video to show their side of the story and what has gone on.

Once you’ve made the decision to hold a crisis management exercise, how should the exercise team and participants begin planning for the exercise? There’s a lot to do in order to ensure that the goals of the exercise are achieved!

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser along with Consultant Bray Wheeler discuss their experiences in crafting and preparing exercise material – but also how to coach participants through preparing for the exercise that you are developing.

Related Posts & Podcast Episodes:

Crisis Exercises: Why are they important?

Managing Uncertainty Podcast – Episode #19: Exercises are Boring

How to evaluate plan effectiveness after active shooter exercises

Why social media and communications should be part of any crisis exercise

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and CEO at Bryghtpath.

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

Bryan Strawser: We’ve decided that 90 days from now, we’re going to have a crisis exercise. We’ve scheduled it. We’ve sent out the invites. We’ve secured the room. Then it hits us. We have to prepare for this exercise. We just thought it was a good idea to have one. What are we going to do here? What do we do, Bray?

Bray Wheeler: Where to begin? Where to begin? Well, I think a couple of assumptions. We’ve identified the scenario. We’ve laid out our run of play, or our outline, for the exercise. We feel pretty confident in that. I think what we’re trying to drive at is-

Bryan Strawser: We know who’s participating and observing and evaluating and controlling, which might all be the same person.

Bray Wheeler: Right. All the finer points of the nature of the exercise and what we’re trying to accomplish has been laid out. But we have to get ready for it. I think there’s a couple of different pockets of things, activities, that have to be done. One is as players and one is as facilitators from that exercise. From just a pure participant player standpoint, there’s quite a bit that people can do that’s probably fairly obvious, but not everybody does it. We do surveys a lot with a lot of our companies, and it’s amazing to see that people, “Well, I brought the plan.” And that’s all they did.

Bryan Strawser: Bringing the plan is good. It’s good to have the plan with you.

Bray Wheeler: Right. It’s a good start, but they often don’t necessarily review that plan upfront. They’re not meeting as individual workstreams or things like that. There’s a lot that can be done. I think we’ve talked quite a bit about reviewing that plan is important, but it’s really looking at it from a, “I understand the general flow of how things go, that I could easily communicate that to somebody who doesn’t know.”

Once you’ve made the decision to hold a crisis management exercise, how should the exercise team and participants begin planning for the exercise? There’s a lot to do in order to ensure that the goals of the exercise are achieved!

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser along with Consultant Bray Wheeler discuss their experiences in crafting and preparing exercise material – but also how to coach participants through preparing for the exercise that you are developing.

Related Posts & Podcast Episodes:

* Crisis Exercises: Why are they important?

* Managing Uncertainty Podcast – Episode #19: Exercises are Boring

* How to evaluate plan effectiveness after active shooter exercises

* Why social media and communications should be part of any crisis exercise

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and CEO at Bryghtpath.

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

Bryan Strawser: We’ve decided that 90 days from now, we’re going to have a crisis exercise. We’ve scheduled it. We’ve sent out the invites. We’ve secured the room. Then it hits us. We have to prepare for this exercise. We just thought it was a good idea to have one. What are we going to do here? What do we do, Bray?

Bray Wheeler: Where to begin? Where to begin? Well, I think a couple of assumptions. We’ve identified the scenario. We’ve laid out our run of play, or our outline, for the exercise. We feel pretty confident in that. I think what we’re trying to drive at is-

Bryan Strawser: We know who’s participating and observing and evaluating and controlling, which might all be the same person.

Bray Wheeler: Right. All the finer points of the nature of the exercise and what we’re trying to accomplish has been laid out. But we have to get ready for it. I think there’s a couple of different pockets of things, activities, that have to be done. One is as players and one is as facilitators from that exercise. From just a pure participant player standpoint, there’s quite a bit that people can do that’s probably fairly obvious, but not everybody does it. We do surveys a lot with a lot of our companies, and it’s amazing to see that people, “Well, I brought the plan.” And that’s all they did.

Bryan Strawser: Bringing the plan is good. It’s good to have the plan with you.

Bray Wheeler: Right. It’s a good start, but they often don’t necessarily review that plan upfront. They’re not meeting as individual workstreams or things like that. There’s a lot that can be done. I think we’ve talked quite a bit about reviewing that plan is important, but it’s really looking at it from a, “I understand the general flow of how things go, that I could easily communicate that to somebody who doesn’t know.” Maybe that’s your participants, your members of your crisis group, whatever that is, should be able to walk up to a random employee in the company and be able to succinctly explain what the general process is for that and have that person understand what they’re talking about, because that means that participant gets it.

Bryan Strawser: Yeah. They understand what’s going on. They can speak to the context of the exercise.

In this episode of our BryghtCast edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Consultant Bray Wheeler take a look at three current risks and upcoming events:

Hong Kong’s protests evolve into a general strike on Monday

India revokes the special status of Kashmir

Iran seizes yet another oil tanker in Gulf, warns of increase in nuclear tech, and the US & UK team up on maritime task force

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello, and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Brian Strawser, principal and CEO here at Bryghtpath.

Bray Wheeler: Hi, this is Bray Wheeler, Consultant at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: This is our BryghtCast edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, where we break down two or three interesting developments around the world and talk about what that may or could mean for the private sector and other organizations. This week we’re going to start off by talking yet again about developments in the city of Hong Kong.

Bray Wheeler: Again.

Bryan Strawser: Hong Kong, the special administrative region of China, continues to have disruption. We’ve now evolved, today, we’re recording this podcast on Monday, August 5th, today there was a general strike in Hong Kong that paralyzed transportation networks during rush hour, forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights, and shut down scores of business and restaurants after another chaotic weekend of protest across several parts of the city.

Bryan Strawser: It’s interesting now that this is evolving from protest to a general strike, which I think portends a much more difficult path for the Hong Kong government, and the Chinese government for that matter, and the demonstrators are getting more savvy. They’re using tactics deliberately to outsmart the police. They’re using lasers and lights in order to disrupt facial recognition. That was one example.

Bray Wheeler: That was a big concern here kind of over the last week that they were afraid they weren’t going to be able to make much more progress in terms of the protest based on the fact that China was going to use this facial recognition to start rounding folks up.

Bryan Strawser: Identify people. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like tens of thousands of people participated in the protest including airline pilots, airline crews, baggage handlers, bus drivers, financial planners and others who declined to show up to work. In fact, transportation networks, the train system, primarily, train and bus system across Hong Kong, which is normally quite efficient in the financial hub, were suspended or delayed, including the airport express train that links downtown Hong Kong to the airport. More than 200 flights were delayed or canceled at Hong Kong’s International Airport.

Bryan Strawser: The protests have now been going on since June, and I think they’ve solidified now on kind of what their demands are. Of course, they’

In this episode of our BryghtCast edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Consultant Bray Wheeler take a look at three current risks and upcoming events:

* Hong Kong’s protests evolve into a general strike on Monday

* India revokes the special status of Kashmir

* Iran seizes yet another oil tanker in Gulf, warns of increase in nuclear tech, and the US & UK team up on maritime task force

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello, and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Brian Strawser, principal and CEO here at Bryghtpath.

Bray Wheeler: Hi, this is Bray Wheeler, Consultant at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: This is our BryghtCast edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, where we break down two or three interesting developments around the world and talk about what that may or could mean for the private sector and other organizations. This week we’re going to start off by talking yet again about developments in the city of Hong Kong.

Bray Wheeler: Again.

Bryan Strawser: Hong Kong, the special administrative region of China, continues to have disruption. We’ve now evolved, today, we’re recording this podcast on Monday, August 5th, today there was a general strike in Hong Kong that paralyzed transportation networks during rush hour, forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights, and shut down scores of business and restaurants after another chaotic weekend of protest across several parts of the city.

Bryan Strawser: It’s interesting now that this is evolving from protest to a general strike, which I think portends a much more difficult path for the Hong Kong government, and the Chinese government for that matter, and the demonstrators are getting more savvy. They’re using tactics deliberately to outsmart the police. They’re using lasers and lights in order to disrupt facial recognition. That was one example.

Bray Wheeler: That was a big concern here kind of over the last week that they were afraid they weren’t going to be able to make much more progress in terms of the protest based on the fact that China was going to use this facial recognition to start rounding folks up.

Bryan Strawser: Identify people. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like tens of thousands of people participated in the protest including airline pilots, airline crews, baggage handlers, bus drivers, financial planners and others who declined to show up to work. In fact, transportation networks, the train system, primarily, train and bus system across Hong Kong, which is normally quite efficient in the financial hub, were suspended or delayed, including the airport express train that links downtown Hong Kong to the airport. More than 200 flights were delayed or canceled at Hong Kong’s International Airport.

Bryan Strawser: The protests have now been going on since June, and I think they’ve solidified now on kind of what their demands are. Of course, they’re demanding the complete withdrawal of the current suspended bill that started this, the bill that allowed extradition to mainland China for trial of individuals that were arrested in Hong Kong. They want the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive, they want an independent investigation of the police, and they want the protestors that have been arrested and charged with crimes, fake crimes, as they’re describing them, to be freed or the charges dropped,

We’ve talked on several previous episodes about the need for a single, defined crisis management framework in an organization.

In Episode #59 of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Consultant Bray Wheeler go deeper into this need – and talk about the need to integrate all of an organization’s various incident management processes into a single unified crisis management framework.

Relevant previous episodes about the Crisis Management Framework:

#1 – Shouldn’t we have a plan for alien invasion?

#23 – Crisis Management is not a pickup game

Other Resources

Journal Article:  From crisis prone to crisis prepared: a framework for crisis management (1993)

Journal Article: Crisis management: an extended reference framework for decision-makers (2013)

Episode Transcript

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

Bray Wheeler: Hi, this is Bray Wheeler, consultant at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: And today we’re going to be talking about having a single, unified crisis management framework. And I guess I’ll sum the problem up because Bray and I were talking about this on the ride back from lunch today as we were struggling to figure out what to talk about on the podcast. And one of the things that we hit on is that we often see the issue in organizations that organically, for all the reasons that seem like the right reason at the time, a lot of companies wind up having siloed incident and crisis management processes that are totally rooted in the kind of problem that a single organization and the company has to deal with.

Bray Wheeler: Yes.

Bryan Strawser: And, over time they come to realize that they need other teams involved in that process. So what happens is, and I’m just going to pick on my two favorite people to pick on, physical security or corporate security and information security or cybersecurity, that they probably have in most companies, separate incident management processes, and then almost are definitely going to have separate crisis management processes. And generally, they won’t have a crisis management framework.

Bray Wheeler: Most likely.

Bryan Strawser: And let’s say that both things happen in the same week. So the physical security, the corporate security team is dealing with a homicide, the cybersecurity team is dealing with some type of data breach. They’re probably sending out two different communications that are not coordinated, that have different templates, that have different people at the table to make decisions, maybe not the right people, and not everyone is being informed in a consistent manner. And at the top of that food chain is a CEO who is getting one set of comms from here about one incident and a different set of comms from here about a different incident, and says the infamous WTF, w

We’ve talked on several previous episodes about the need for a single, defined crisis management framework in an organization.

In Episode #59 of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Consultant Bray Wheeler go deeper into this need – and talk about the need to integrate all of an organization’s various incident management processes into a single unified crisis management framework.

Relevant previous episodes:

* #1 – Shouldn’t we have a plan for alien invasion?

* #23 – Crisis Management is not a pickup game

Episode Transcript

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

Bray Wheeler: Hi, this is Bray Wheeler, consultant at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: And today we’re going to be talking about having a single, unified crisis management framework. And I guess I’ll sum the problem up because Bray and I were talking about this on the ride back from lunch today as we were struggling to figure out what to talk about on the podcast. And one of the things that we hit on is that we often see the issue in organizations that organically, for all the reasons that seem like the right reason at the time, a lot of companies wind up having siloed incident and crisis management processes that are totally rooted in the kind of problem that a single organization and the company has to deal with.

Bray Wheeler: Yes.

Bryan Strawser: And, over time they come to realize that they need other teams involved in that process. So what happens is, and I’m just going to pick on my two favorite people to pick on, physical security or corporate security and information security or cybersecurity, that they probably have in most companies, separate incident management processes, and then almost are definitely going to have separate crisis management processes.

Bray Wheeler: Most likely.

Bryan Strawser: And let’s say that both things happen in the same week. So the physical security, the corporate security team is dealing with a homicide, the cybersecurity team is dealing with some type of data breach. They’re probably sending out two different communications that are not coordinated, that have different templates, that have different people at the table to make decisions, maybe not the right people, and not everyone is being informed in a consistent manner. And at the top of that food chain is a CEO who is getting one set of comms from here about one incident and a different set of comms from here about a different incident, and says the infamous WTF, what’s going on here?

Bray Wheeler: Yep. They look different.

Bryan Strawser: They look different.

Bray Wheeler: They talk differently. They’re using different language.

Bryan Strawser: Maybe one informed me and maybe one didn’t.

Bray Wheeler: Asking me things or not asking me things.

Bryan Strawser: And I don’t know, what’s my role supposed to be?

Bray Wheeler: Yep.

Bryan Strawser: You can’t see me because I’m raising my arms up in the like, “What?”

Bray Wheeler: He’s gesticulating.

Bryan Strawser: What? What’s going on? So, how do we solve this problem? What do we want companies to do?

Bray Wheeler: I think the big thing is, it’s not inherently bad to have different response systems to, as we’re picking on physical security and ...