On July 29, 2015
It was interesting radio this morning as Jon Faine questioned the lawyer of Dimity Paul, Adem Somyurek’s chief of staff who was a victim of workplace bullying at the hands of the Minister. Jon’s line of questioning almost supported workplace bullying. Comments like ‘Politics is a tough environment’ and questions like ‘How bad was the...
On July 6, 2015
During a crisis response, actions will always speak louder than words. I had an interesting discussion with a client recently. Caught up in a major issue that has the potential to impact their reputation, they asked me what message I thought they should focus on. ‘Listen, learn and prevent it happening again’ was my response. ...
On July 1, 2015
In a recent tragedy, several children died. The crisis team of a long-term client swung into immediate action. Within 45 minutes, the client’s response was prepared. Genuine messages of condolences, tributes on site, staff counselling and more. The team worked seamlessly, each knowing their role, and no one needed to refer to their crisis manual....
On February 9, 2015
Failure to set and agree on clear objectives seems to cause problems for many, especially when they need to be SMART (Specific Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely). The same applies in a crisis. Recently, in the midst of an organisational crisis, I experienced the same. It resulted in some confusion when it came to the...
On November 12, 2014
In early February a fire took hold of the Hazelwood coal mine and burned for 45 days. Well into the event, vulnerable residents in Morwell and Latrobe Valley were advised to relocate until air quality improved. Was it too little too late? What else could the Council have done? How would your council cope in...
On June 18, 2014
David’s daily wrap-up of the World Conference on Disaster Management. Kjell Brataas gave an excellent presentation reflecting on the learnings from the Norwegian Terrorist attack that bombed the Prime Minister’s office killing eight people and then killing another 86, mostly young students, in a shooting spree on Utoja Island. After the bomb explosions destroyed a...
On June 17, 2014
David’s daily wrap-up of the World Conference on Disaster Management. Today’s keynote panel session discussed the concept of community resilience. Part of the initial discussion was to define resilience. The panels’ view was that resilience is the ability of a community to retain is functionality at both a municipal and individual level during a crisis...
On June 16, 2014
The second workshop of the World Conference on Disaster Management was extremely interesting and related to pandemics, epidemics and outbreaks. The first point was the need to change the terminology from pandemic plans to epidemic or outbreak plans because we are more likely to experience one of these than a pandemic. An outbreak can still...
On June 16, 2014
The first workshop of the World Conference on Disaster Management was disappointing. However, there were still some learnings, especially from the discussion and comments among participants. Some interesting points include: Challenges faced by people running simulation exercises include: Senior management failing to buy in and not attending. This poses problems when an actual crisis does...
On October 4, 2013
This month a ship described as China’s first luxury cruise liner has been detained at a port on the South Korean island of Jeju because of a legal dispute. A local court ordered the Henna not to leave after a request from a Chinese shipping company. It is not clear what the dispute centres on....