Knowing Your Gaps, the End of the World, Feedback & More
Profiles in Preparedness #27
Welcome to all the new subscribers—there are a lot more of you this week than last, and we're glad you're here.
Many of you I met at the Bureau Consortium's inaugural Workplace Violence Prevention & Security Symposium in NYC. If that’s you, it was great to meet you in person.
If you're new to The CP Journal, here’s what to expect as a free subscriber:
Every Sunday, you’ll get an email like this one—most weeks, it’s a “Profiles in Preparedness” edition.
Occasionally, if I haven’t found enough articles worth sharing, I’ll send a standalone piece instead (like the past two weeks).
We publish articles throughout the week, but to avoid cluttering your inbox, we link them all in the “Inside The CP Journal” section below. You can dig in at your own pace.
If you’d like to upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll get access to our Tactical Analysis Course, the Project Management in Emergency Management Playbook, and our Watch Office newsletter for deeper operational insight.
What Profiles in Preparedness Is All About
We believe some of the best lessons don’t come from within our own field, but from outside it. Ideas from other domains can sharpen our approach to preventing, preparing for, and proactively responding to disruptions, disasters, and acts of violence.
As public expectations grow and the drive for accountability increases, the tolerance for avoidable mistakes is shrinking. That’s why one of the most important leadership capabilities we can build is learning how to learn from others. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it starts with exposure to new perspectives.
Each week, we curate a short list of the most thoughtful and practical reads we've come across. These are articles that have helped me think more clearly and make better decisions. I hope they help you do the same.
Thanks again for reading. And if you know someone who’d benefit from The CP Journal, feel free to forward this along.
Inside The CP Journal
Here are three articles for you this week:
Know Your Gaps Before Disaster Strikes. Program and capability assessments are one of my favorite projects to work on. In this article, we break down the five steps that go into a thorough, objective evaluation of your readiness, so you can identify gaps before a crisis does it for you.
The Case for Proactive Evacuation Planning Against Wind-Driven Fires. Wildfires have evolved—no longer confined to forests, they’re now fast-moving, wind-driven threats impacting urban and suburban areas alike. This article explores how these fires have changed and what communities can do to stay ahead of the flames through advanced evacuation planning.
The Watch Office in The Bay Area. We’ve added the San Francisco Bay Area to our growing list of Watch Office reports. You can now access situational updates for the U.S. National Report, Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago, the Bay Area, and Colorado Springs.
This Week‘s Reads
Here are a few standout reads from this week with insights, ideas, and perspectives that caught my attention.
Article | Strategy Under Uncertainty. Public safety leaders face immense uncertainty as they prepare their organizations today (budgets, technology, recruiting, and expectations, among others). Do you go all in and invest in something new and bold? Do you dabble with a few things? Do you wait and see? Each choice has its own trade-offs and pros and cons. The approach that works in stable environments can be dangerous to use when uncertainty is high. But assuming the future is completely unpredictable and throwing away all processes is equally disastrous. I’ve come back to this article a number of times over the years, its worth the read.
Podcast | Improving Tactical Decision Making with Dr. Gary Klein. This episode of "The Debrief with Jon Becker" was great. Gary Klein is the father of recognition-primed decision making, a concept that had a huge impact on the way we designed our Tactical Analysis Course (the behavioral approach to threat recognition discussed in Left of Bang) and why we added over 40 additional practice exercises to the program. Build your base of experiences, and you increase the chances of recognizing the behavioral patterns needed to accelerate your decision-making. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and Dr. Gary Klein is absolutely one of them. Watch or listen using the link above.
Article | On Taking Feedback From Investors. Leaders, public safety chiefs, and corporate security executives receive constant feedback on their organization, its state of readiness, past incidents, and countless other topics. But not all advice is helpful, and as this article looks at the feedback that business leaders receive from their investors, the parallels are apparent. Since our industry is truly an ecosystem, with different people having different perspectives on events, considering the “aperture” of the person sharing advice can be very helpful in filtering what you hear, and what you do with the feedback you receive.
Article | This is how it feels at the beginning of the end of the world. The nationwide blackout in Spain and Portugal at the end of April was a near-miss event. It was certainly bad, and people living in Spain probably aren't calling it a "near miss," but the power did come back on (and only about a day later). A near miss—the events that aren't as bad as they could have been—should be the events we learn from, stress-test our plans against, and leverage to improve our readiness. This article shares the writer's perspective, initially unaware of what was happening, and the gradual realization that it was something more significant. It describes the disconnect in reactions, from people having drinks to the rescues of those stuck in elevators, subways, and trains, hospitals relying on backup power, and the absence of functioning traffic lights. Preparation doesn't begin until people perceive a risk. This wasn't a fiction story, a movie, or a scenario in a planning meeting or tabletop exercise. This was real. The question is, will we take this near miss to heart and do something about it, or will it go down in history as one of the events that highlighted a fragility, and yet was never acted upon? Don’t forget, getting left of bang is a choice.
When You’re Ready
If you want more in-depth insights, you can become a paying subscriber to access exclusive content like our Tactical Analysis Course, behavioral analysis practice exercises, emails from our Watch Office, and the “Project Management in Emergency Management” Playbook.
And if you’re considering how to enhance your organization's preparedness, that’s what we do. Whether it’s assessments, planning, speaking events, or exercises, we help teams build the skills and strategies to stay ahead of the next challenge.