DRILLS

Emergency responders drill their technical tasks and their emotional tasks . They learn teamwork techniques to support and enhance performance and emotional stability. The buddy system or check-in process keeps people on track emotionally during distressing incidents. Post-incident training usually requires a debriefing process of some sort that allows participants to ventilate their emotions. First responders have discovered that individuals who caretake their emotional equipment as well as their technical equipment are less likely candidates for PTSD and generally have a more durable career. The concept is that toxic emotions enter into the human system during an incident and must find a way to exit. That exit can be healthy or dysfunctional , but the emotions will come out. If they do not exit they will remain in the system and cause toxic and potentially terminal damage on the system. Debriefing does not "fix" feelings. It only allows them appropriate ventilation so they don't build up to a dangerous and toxic overload that can either explode, or go deep underground to cause hidden damage.

A well conceived drill verifies the Emotional Continuity Management plan, increases goodwill for a job well done, demonstrates weaknesses and strengths, identifies additions or subtractions to the plan, increases buy-on for stakeholders and protects companies from the liability risk of not being employee-centered. The old adage of "practice makes perfect" is only applicable if the practice that is done is correct. Practicing something incorrectly over and over does not make it perfect, unless your goal is to make it perfectly wrong. In fact, an abbreviated definition of insanity is doing the same wrong thing over and over, expecting different and better results

All emergency management organizations practice and evaluate their tools and techniques to fine-tune their systems. Critiques and table-talks are arranged to hash over the successes and failures of plans and procedures. These generally cognitive, businesslike and non-emotional exchanges are arranged to find the weak links, missed ideas, or new data necessary to update emergency responses. New information provides new ideas.

Some organizations have the forethought to include the emotional components into their planning exercises. Some local chapters of the American Red Cross, for example, participate in expansive community emergency exercises that include a number of different agencies and responder components. They often include in the prepared scenario a number of actors who will demonstrate what a real victim may present at the scene. These actors and actresses are often community volunteers who enjoy the opportunity to be covered with products called "m lange" that simulate blood and gore. Some volunteers allow themselves to be put in body bags and others volunteer to act as grieving relatives. Firefighters, law enforcement professionals, health care teams , security guards , city officials, and coroners act out their roles in these scripted dramas while disaster mental health responders artificially comfort the fake survivors. These drills and exercises have been shown to be priceless opportunities to think through what might really happen in a similar situation.

Case Example

The Emotional Continuity Management Planner had been previously ignored by the other members of the emergency contingency team who focused primarily on IT recovery. She stated at one planning meeting, "What have you planned to do if people jump off the bridges. This community has five bridges and people do unexpected things during disasters." The team looked at her and scoffed that no one in their right mind would do that. They began to move the discussion forward until she continued , "During a disaster there are people who are temporarily not in their right minds. It happened in New York during the attacks. People jumped off bridges into the bay to either escape or swim toward their children who were in schools across the bridges."

Learning Byte

The team reconsidered and began discussions of how the community would respond to people's emotional reactions during a disaster.

DO THIS : Invite Mental Health professionals who have been trained in disaster responses and have had field experiences to planning meetings.

DON'T : Let someone who has the title but not the credentials or experience dismiss the needs of Emotional Continuity Management during this phase of your planning

 

In recent years businesses have not had to consider themselves "emergency responders." This is no longer valid. With the instability of today's world you may find yourself in a situation where you must respond immediately and with clarity to save your own life or the lives of your co-workers . The extreme situation that managers of corporate offices in the World Trade Center towers experienced early in the morning of September 11, 2001 has served as a "wake-up-call" to many businesses to come up with Emotional Continuity Management plans to handle the emotional impact of a large-scale event. If you think your little company might be immune to such drama because you are in Padiddle, South Nowhere and all you do is make little widgets and have five employees, think again. Consider natural disasters, disgruntled employees , a random psychopath with a weapon, rumor, layoff , national economic events that shut down your communications system, a community transportation tragedy, or a disrupted shipping process or the completely unthinkable event that makes the national headlines because no one in their "right mind" would have guessed that such a horror could have happened at little-ol' Padiddle, South Nowhere in the lobby of the What's-Up Widget Company! But CNN is on its way! The weirdest and most random things can happen, because life is unpredictable.

Case Examples

• Headline: Roof Collapses at Shopping Mall.

• Headline: Drive-By Shooting Kills Local Fast-Food Restaurant Customers

• Headline: Widget Inc. to Lay Off 43,000 Employees By June 30

• Headline: Cure Found For Common Cold, Destroys Health Care Industry, Millions Out Of Work

• Headline: Pacific Northwest Storm Shuts Down Columbia Gorge, Trucks Held Up For Sixth Day

• Headline: Local Business Owner Dies in Auto Accident

• Headline: Read Your Own Paper Tonight and Think Of How Many People Were Emotionally Challenged At Work Today

 

Case Example

"When the January, 1998 Ice Storm took Upstate New York by surprise, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation was able to deploy trained critical incident management staff to the County Emergency Operations Centers in the most highly affected rural counties. The employees had trained and exercised with police, fire, EMS, and government emergency responders in the Public Safety Critical Incident Management course at Onondaga Community College where a simulation board had been the focus of training involving all disciplines in the same class. The training paid dividends again that year when the Labor Day windstorm knocked out power to 250,000 customers. The Onondaga County Executive called upon the power company to loan their Emergency Planning Manager to the County to direct their EOC.

Bottom-line losses to the power company were $25,000,000 and $125,000,000 respectively from the two storms. Still later in September that year, the company was able to deploy trained crews to Puerto Rico to aid in the response and recovery to Hurricane Georges." Thomas Phelan, PH.D.

Learning Byte

This technical discussion of drills can be seen in statistics of cost-effectiveness . How to translate the emotional statistic would be extrapolated by a manager who knew how his or her people were doing through this. What people felt scared or discouraged after the first storm? Who felt successful and jubilant after the second storm? And who went to Puerto Rico? Most businesses do not factor into their plans the personal comments or salient emotional features in a situation that is charged. The mythology around not complaining, or a big- girls -and-boys-don't-cry mentality , has been dissolved through the tears spent at disaster sites. It is a myth that people cannot do work and have feelings at the same time. Firefighters and law enforcement, military and medical employees have discovered that emotions are present in every human situation. When reading or listening to Tom Phelan, the pride he has of his team's success is visible. Pride is also an emotion. How would you manage pride of success in your company? Is pride an emotion that can slow down productivity? How? Is it an emotion you can use to increase production? How? What would that look like in your company?