Emergency Management is a Team Sport

Ken Blanchard who is with FEMA and heads up their Higher Education Project at the Emergency Management Institute (EMI), has put together a list of the Top Ten Competencies for Professional Emergency Management It is a fairly comprehensive listing of knowledge and those key traits that make for an effective emergency manager. But wait, there is more. Behind that document, if you print it out, is an outline for competencies to develop successful 21st Century hazard or disaster or emergency or hazard risk managers. If you are looking to build a job description or post a job advertisement, this would be a good document to use.

The documents are five and seven years old respectfully. In my opinion little has changed that would modify these drastically. The key principles are there. The one document was updated after Katrina.

There is a "Quote of the Week" phrase in the first document that I will elaborate on in my next blog posting.

What I'd like to highlight here is, "Does anyone measure up to all of these qualifications and standards?" It would be a rare individual who is an emergency manager that does. We are all wired differently with unique skills and abilities, not to mention personalities. This is one of the reasons I say emergency management is a team sport. Super Woman or Super Man does not exist in emergency management land. We need one another desperately. We must have internal teams built, and external teams functioning for us to be successful when disaster strikes. If you are a loner, there is a place for you in the system, but you can't be the leader. The leader has to build the coalition that is needed for success. Generally it is the Type A people who become emergency managers. Boundless energy and optimism that keeps them going every day of the week--weekends included.

Having said that, don't let the daunting lists of what makes for a professional emergency manager deter you. Much of it is knowledge that can be learned and the experience part of it comes from being in the game, getting your nose bloodied and learning from the mistakes that you make.