Hurricane Helene's Warnings, Clarity of Thought, Active Threat Exercises & More
Profiles in Preparedness #28
We are living through a period of profound change. Global politics, critical infrastructure, entire industries, and local communities are all being rapidly reshaped and redefined. For leaders, these disruptions can feel overwhelming, threatening years of careful planning and hard-won progress to ensure the organization they have is the one they need to succeed.
Yet, change is inevitable and your organization must adapt regardless. Reaching your goals and fulfilling your vision means guiding your organization from where it is today to where it needs to be tomorrow.
Use these disruptions and crises as accelerators. Rather than resisting or compartmentalizing crises, integrate your preparedness directly into your response efforts. Choose your projects strategically and manage them well, even though it’s challenging to balance immediate demands with future-focused goals.
Remember, the “new normal” hasn’t fully emerged yet. We're still operating left of bang, with the opportunity—and responsibility—to shape the changes underway.
Inside The CP Journal
If you're a school district or hospital and looking to do an active threat-focused tabletop exercise in the next year, we'd love to speak with you.
We are developing new content for the Academy and are offering tabletop exercise development for about one-quarter of the market cost to finalize and validate our content. We are ultimately looking for 1-2 schools and 1-2 hospitals to test the content before finalizing it.
If this is you (or if you know someone who would be interested), just reply to this email to find a time to talk through what we're building and how it could fit into your preparedness cycle.
This Week‘s Reads
Here are a few standout reads from this week with insights, ideas, and perspectives that caught my attention.
Article | Clarity of Thought. This article discusses one key factor that investors and venture capitalists look for when seeking the best founders, and it also directly applies to professionals working in the disaster management field today. As the bedrock for the field shifts and changes, how clearly can you articulate to your partners, your policy group, and your community the ways your agency is changing how you're going to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters? This article highlights some of the elements that go into achieving the clarity of thought needed to guide your organization into an uncertain future.
Article | Narrative Weapons Are Being Used Against You. From the John Boyd-inspired "Whirl of Reorientation," Mark McGrath offers a 5-part framework to help you consider the messages you receive and ways to combat manipulative communication. This article examines each of the five components —terrain, target, tone, trope, and tactics —to help you break down and think critically about what you read, allowing you to choose an informed response.
Article | Helene’s Unheard Warnings. There were warnings about the impending weather, many coming days in advance of Hurricane Helene's impact on North Carolina's mountain communities, but few evacuation orders. Disaster stories like these are tough to read, but necessary. This article highlights some of the reasons why individual homeowners chose to, or not to, evacuate. Often, the sentiment that "my house has never flooded before" as a reassuring answer to the worsening situation. In the same way that we talk about and support clients establishing "watch points" and "action points" as organizations, individuals should also have them for themselves. What do you need to see to act? Only you can decide that.
Article | The Impact Matrix. "When the world changes, and it does, the tactics we depend on don't always support the strategy we need." I read this article this week while working on an article that will come out over the summer, but it fits the theme of this week's issue and is a clear reminder about the need to step back, consider our strategy and reflect on whether the tactics we're using are actually in support of our goals. It's a short read, but an impactful one.
Article | Scammers stole $16.6 billion from victims last year. This is a quick read that I came across while developing the Watch Office emails this week, and it provides a number of data points about the cybersecurity risks individuals and organizations face. The point: "Scammers are getting better at tricking victims despite law enforcement, government, and industry investments." Threat recognition starts with the realization that you're a potential target, and this article (and the underlying report) can help with that.
When You’re Ready
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Nice recommendations. I too have been enjoying McGrath's posts on cognitive warfare.