At some point, nearly every organization will experience a crisis. For many, unfortunately, their crisis planning strategy is denial: “that will never happen to our company.” Except that it probably will. Sooner than you think. When all hell breaks loose, consider these “truths” of a crisis as you wade in to manage your organization’s reputation,…
On October 25, 2011, a young American humanitarian aid worker, Jessica Buchanan, was in Somalia teaching children how to avoid landmines when she and her colleague were kidnapped for ransom by Somali bandits. They were held in the desert at gunpoint for 93 days before they were rescued by Seal Team 6. Buchanan will be…
In those first few moments of a fast-paced incident, it is essential that the Crisis Management Team (CMT) comes together quickly in an organized and disciplined manner. It is in these early stages of the incident when discipline is incredibly important. If discipline is lacking in the early stages of an incident, the management of…
So, what is situational awareness? There are many definitions all of which explain what situational awareness is in a similar way. The term we use is as follows: Situational Awareness is “closely monitoring what is going on around you in a complex and dynamic environment”. Closely monitoring what’s going on around you will help you…
1. The Master Events Log The MEL (Master Events Log) is an essential document that can help the crisis team document the incident as soon as it starts to unfold. The MEL is a document that should be filled out by a scribe who usually is in close coordination with the crisis leader. The document…
Communicating during crises is important, especially in today’s world of fast-paced social media and mobile communications. Knowing what to say, and how to say it, is probably something that many organizations don’t practice enough. In this episode, we interview Erik Bernstein of Bernstein Crisis Management. During the podcast, we discuss several areas of corporate crisis…
Throughout 2016, we have created and delivered multiple crisis simulation exercises. Each scenario was custom created to each organization based on their exercise objectives. Scenarios must be customized to ensure the team being tested is engaged. Without engagement, the exercise will not be as successful as it could be. Scenarios should also include each exercise…
Leaders need to understand the importance of creating a culture that is cyber-security aware. Corporations need to address their current cyber-defense technology deficiencies to ensure they remain one step ahead of the aggressors. Incident response teams and communications personnel need to work together to ensure they are prepared for their moment in the “data breach”…
When you establish your crisis management capability, conduct crisis management exercises, or actually go through crises, what are the most common issues or gaps that are uncovered? Within this article, I define a few of the more common issues that we see when conducting simulation exercises within the corporate space as well as reviewing reports…
In this episode, we interview Dan Gortze who is security expert and keynote speaker. We discuss the following: Cyber-security challenges Cyber threat actors Insider threats and the Common cyber-security gaps base on real events The importance of incident management simulation exercises Including critical vendors in cyber-attack preparedness planning Dan Gortze on LinkedIn