Risk: Disaster Management, perception, the impact of terrorism & effective media handling
Program Titles
- Survive Crisis
- Crisis Management: Preventing Chaos in a Crisis
- Disaster Recovery
- Communications are global, instant & on many different levels
- Avoiding Catastrophe: Human Behavior – Good or Bad
- People Factor: Factoring in How People Will React
- A Behind the Curtain Look at Current Issues
- Emergency Planning & Response
Peter G. Power, BA FIRM FCMI FBCI FEPS,
Fellow of the Emergency Planning Society,
Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute,
Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute,
Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management
and a member of the Guild of Freemen.
Peter has a senior Scotland Yard background which includes setting up the multi agency operational management structure, the Anti Terrorist Branch, deputy forward control coordinator at the Libyan People Bureau siege and leading the team behind the existing police street philosophy for dealing with terrorist bombs.
Peter lectures world wide on all aspects of Crisis Management
(CM) & BC.
He also talks extensively on perception,
the impact of terrorism and
effective Media Handling,
Disaster Recovery,
Crisis Creative Media Handling and
Leadership.
How a crisis manager looks, speaks and manages can make all the difference between success and failure with repercussions that spread from one end of the globe to the other.
Therefore look more closely at a common language of crisis definitions, shared risk management in the broadest context and focus on continuing critical services and activities during the acute phase of any crisis linked to post disaster recovery when the initial drama has past.
The need to demonstrate robustness by using intelligent risk measures to deter incidents and better business continuity plans to apply if anything does happen.
In a world where
(a) terrorism has become more dramatic, deadly and wide spread and
(b) global pollution now threatens all countries – and is in fact a much greater threat to mankind than terrorism.
•Conceptual – To understand risks and threats as an end to end process and examine exposures caused by anything from inept Government decisions to critical supply chain failure triggered outside a region or country boundary.
To then work out how best to respond and practice the skills needed to lead combined and productive teams operating in the adverse circumstances of a crisis.
A good crisis manager should inspire trust, command respect, act with authority and impartiality, communicate well and be able to minimize potential conflict across a multidisciplinary team.
The hallmarks of a stable personality include reliability,
level-headedness, and the ability to remain calm under pressure.
Decisiveness is an outgrowth of the other two and dictates that managers should be prepared to formulate and implement decisions when under pressure; use balanced, analytical, and sound judgment and know whether to use an authoritative or consultative decision-making style.
Such people are I expect a rare bread but I do believe you can train the right people to become leaders, or as a colleague of mine put it “given the right material we can actually make born leaders”.
Reading the newspapers or simply watching television almost every week reveals some action or failure of action applied or committed by some individual or organisation that shows how vulnerable we all are to the application of leadership, especially in relation to crisis situations.
All too often it seems that we do not have enough leaders, yet on other occasions we seem to have too many leaders and not enough followers?
Crises Management in this sense, includes the need for executive leadership when a catastrophe is perceived to have hit, or might hit any organisation and its dependant units.
But just listing a series of leadership considerations can ignore the vital point about perception, or how others will be observing our crisis and it’s here where the media step in and become your best friend or worst enemy – often depending on the attitude towards them by the organisation actually suffering the crisis.
In a very simple sense, any realistic response to a crisis has to come from the top, especially when it impacts or otherwise covers a wide area.
But where is the top?
They may not always see it this way, but the heads of any organisation in any country have a responsibility to avoid being
crisis-prone and to demonstrate more than just routine boardroom respect.
Add up the implications of whole raft of new pan global guidelines and legislation on issues ranging from corporate killing to risk assessment and the task can seem daunting. But it is not all about being pushed by fear of prosecution.
Several organisations in the private sector have actually increased investment potential by successfully demonstrating strong crisis leadership as a positive feature of wide scale crisis management in the ‘abrupt audit’ of a real drama.
Often the real threat to corporate reputation has come not from what has happened but from what people think has happened.
Perception really counts, especially in restoring trust, enterprise and positive risk taking to recover international financial stability.
So where does this leave us?
With H1N1 Swine Flu now a global pandemic,
the footprint of terrorism spreading globally without restraint,
fragile national infrastructures vulnerable to attack and no end of corporate banana skins ready to trip us up we should listen to the alarm bells that are already ringing.
But the sad the truth is, the alarms have been ringing for ages, but too many countries keep pressing the snooze button.
It’s time to wake up and take collective action now.
So who needs Crisis Management?
I think we all do…
Peter’s appearances on TV and Radio as well as documentaries, and taking part in current affairs programme examining the impact of terrorism.
Peter is authoritative and entertaining presenter and writer.
He is specifically quoted on the BBC in relation to his role at the scene of several previous major incidents in the UK.
Books by Peter G. Power, BA, FIRM, FCMI, FBCI, FEPS
Book Peter G. Power, BA, FIRM, FCMI, FBCI, FEPS for your Event!