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The Head, Not the Tail, Wagging the Dog

When policy people cross over into operations.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a somewhat unusual circumstance. Policy-level leaders, both elected and appointed, dipped more than their toes into operational matters.

In some cases they took over the response wholesale, shunting the emergency management system/emergency operations center (EOC) off to the side.

In the EOC, the professional staff were, in those circumstances, flying blind. Certainly the policy level should be making policy-level decisions, but not conducting operations on topics that they know little about.

Well-meaning people can really mess up what could be a well-honed response system. I used to call this challenge “putting the bell on the cat.” We mice need to know what the cat is thinking and doing, and where she or he is headed. Then we can support them and their decisions completely.

Alas, it was the “head/policy” that was often wagging the “dog/emergency management,” and the tail — responders and citizens — was being wagged all over the place with mixed messages and poor or non-existent operational support.

Unfortunately, it is very possible that negative learning did occur and in a future disaster those policy folks and their minions are going to be thinking, “This is how it is supposed to work!” Yikes!
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.