The Capability Behind the Capability, the Parking Prophet, Extremes & More
Profiles in Preparedness #59
Welcome back to The CP Journal, where we break down what it takes to get left of bang.
There is an underlying premise to the work we do with organizations pursuing the ability to get left of bang: there is a difference between aspirations and reality.
You can wish for the ability. You can say the right things about where your organization is heading. You can define the future state in detail.
But if there isn’t a clear path to make it real, it never manifests.
Whether someone uses “left of bang” to describe threat recognition, disaster preparedness, decision-making, or operational readiness, the goal is the same: move earlier on the timeline. Build the ability to succeed before the moment arrives.
And that usually starts by identifying the critical capabilities that matter most.
In public safety or security, it may be recognizing threats, issuing alerts and warnings, evacuating neighborhoods or buildings.
In business, it may be closing deals, launching products, or delivering services that exceed expectations.
These are tangible functions. You can watch a team perform them in an exercise or real event and say, “Yes, they can do this at the level expected.” There is clarity in that. There is something you can point to.
As humans, we like that tangibility, especially when preparing for an uncertain future. It creates closure around a pursuit that could otherwise go on forever, consuming every available resource.
But defining the right technical outcome is often the easiest part. Over time, working with organizations across public safety and business, that has become clear. Identifying the capability needed is rarely the bottleneck—or at least not one that can’t be addressed fairly quickly.
The friction shows up when stakeholders haven’t bought in, when decision-making isn’t clear, when projects get 80 percent done and stall, or when the handoff from vision to day-to-day execution breaks down.
I was thinking about this after a presentation I delivered this week on project management. Someone commented that it felt different from the behavioral analysis, operational readiness, and disaster preparedness topics I usually present on.
Seven or eight years ago, that would have been true. But experience has a way of clarifying where progress is actually made. Again and again, we have watched organizations take two or three steps forward in developing their capabilities—and then take one step backward at the end of an engagement.
That isn’t a criticism. It just took time to realize it was simply part of the process. It took time to recognize that three steps forward and one step back is still progress. It was a realization that helping organizations meant helping them take six or seven steps forward, so any reversal had less of an impact on their organization and the pursuit of their goals.
It changed how I think about left-of-bang preparation and clarified that there is a capability behind the capability.
The ability to execute a project well—to align the right people, move decisions forward, absorb friction, finish strong, and translate lessons into informed next steps—determines whether the technical capability we are developing ever becomes real.
It’s hard, though, because it is often felt more than measured. A team might walk away from a project saying, “That went well,” without being able to articulate why. But it is what unlocks everything else.
When professionals focus only on the outcomes their organization needs—the plan, the exercise, the new system, the deliverable—they risk confusing aspiration with the ability to make the capabilities a part of how their organization actually operates.
Clearly defined outcomes are obviously critical, but so is the need to build the ability to make them come to life.
For individuals who want to move their organizations left of bang, mastering “the project” becomes a force multiplier. It is how ideas turn into capabilities. It is how capabilities turn into performance. It is how one-time performance becomes sustained readiness.
In many organizations, it is the capability behind every other one. The professionals who develop it are the ones who create lasting improvements.
This Week‘s Reads
Here are a few standout reads from this week with insights, ideas, and perspectives that caught my attention.
Article | Why We Need Extreme Examples To Live Up To. This is an article I read and re-read a few times over the past couple of weeks. Part of being left of bang is hardening ourselves for the things we can’t prevent—the things truly outside of our areas of control or influence. In The CPJ, we focus a lot on preparing for things we can see, but it is worth remembering that the world of safety, stability, comfort, and peace may be just a sliver of calm between the storms that make up our history.
Article | City of Darkness. Read this for a ground-level tour of occupied Paris that brought the history to life for me—showing how familiar places hide stories of brutality, intrigue, and everyday resilience. Alex Kershaw uses vivid detail and historical texture to make the occupation feel immediate and real, not abstract. I’ll note that I found this article through Brandon Rapp’s newsletter (The Command Post), which is worth a read as well.
Article | The Prophet of Parking. I found myself engrossed in this eulogy for Donald Shoup—the “prophet of parking.” This is a guy who dedicated his entire career to a single topic—the parking of cars in cities—which has a greater impact on our lives than we might think. His initial thesis—that the price for parking is too cheap—has led to countless intended and unintended consequences. When people pay more for parking, cities and suburbs avoid the tragedy of the commons. When something is underpriced, we over-consume it. That might seem boring to some, but it was fascinating to see how the singular commitment to a topic has touched our lives.
Before You Go
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"Left of bang". It is worth tattooing on the backs of our eyelids. Thank you for the shout out, Patrick. And for spreading the good word on being proactive.