Not that I haven't been involved in crises large and small. Usually, I am in a fairly specific and defined role. But having a bit more experience now in dealing at much more like the Incident Command role, I find the view a bit different from here. (I know there are a lot of seasoned hands winking and nodding right now.)
I'll give a few off-the-top examples. Roles. I'm a huge believer in the ICS, the clarification of roles, the basic management principles and all that. I teach it all the time, and incorporate it into every plan I work on. But the reality is, when push comes to shove, particularly in a non-government, non-ICS trained environment, it is pretty darn hard to push an ICS structure on a group of people who are just trying to solve an urgent problem. Things like personalities, existing roles in their respective organizations, their understanding of priorities and their interrelationships all come strongly into play. Certainly a strong IC can stand there and say, "Hey guys, this is how it is going to be." But I'm not sure reality will often stand up to that. I'm wondering now if it is more about nudging than pushing or demanding. That it might be better in some cases to let these factors of personalities, priorities and interrelationships play themselves out, let the team find themselves and only really intervene in trying to bring traditional organization if what evolves simply isn't able to get the job done. Of course, that only applies to strictly non-government and non-multiagency responses -- but that's where many of us live a lot of the time.
I would love to hear some more thoughts on this.
Another issue: differing views of information sharing.
I guess I've been listening to myself and the others in this business I respect so that I've fooled myself into thinking we all have pretty much the same idea about the value and importance of getting information out there. I find it ain't so. There are wide variations in perspective with far more subscribing to the idea that less is better than I would have imagined. There is such fear of stirring things up, of making things worse, of saying something wrong, of getting in trouble with the lawyers, that the pressure to just not address things seems overwhelming sometimes.
My basic ideas are: If you have bad news, be the one to tell it. If a damaging rumor pops up, squash it quick before it gains steam. If you want to be where people go for information, feed the beast -- often fast and with accurate information.
I don't know. Maybe there is value to letting wrong information get a real head start and letting others tell your story for you. Maybe the dangers of being forthcoming are much greater than I am seeing and that one day, perhaps soon, I'll really stumble by pushing to say something that's better left unsaid.
I'm finding that within agencies that are required to provide public information there can be vast differences in thought about these things. It shouldn't surprise me, but it does.
What am I missing?
