Local

You have activated your crisis plan. First responders are mobilized. Your role is getting out accurate information as fast as possible to as many people as possible. When you are dealing with a public health crisis or disaster response, it is important to make sure you life and well-being are the first priority. However, there is an illusion that 100% of your time needs to be spent managing the day-to-day. It's tempting.

But you have to make sure to budget time for Directing and Engaging.

A key competency at this phase is making action binary by removing ambiguity. This can be using a checklist approach, here is what you can Manage day to day:

PLAN

• The Strategy: Review your Crisis Plan, if you don't have one - a basic strategy of triage can be put in place for people, assets, and institutions.

• Targets and Goals: How many citizens are in your area, how many emergency responders, what is your total capacity? If you have answers to these questions, they make up the first set of targets and goals (e.g. keep under the limit of capacity). If you don't know the answer, this is a first task.

• Allocating Resources: With established priorities (Targets & Goals), and with a Strategy in place, your role is to make decisions on what, when, and where to move resources. The main goal will always be to manage capacity and resources, identify how long until capacity is depleted, and how fast resources can be increased.

ORGANIZE

• Design: How will you organize your command center, your resources, your team? Where will you do it? Taking a breath or two to design your response as well as your physical operation center makes a difference.

• Team: It doesn't matter if you are in an Emergency Response Center or out in the field, who is beside you? What are thier roles and responsibilities. The people around you and the roles and responsibilities they are given will make a difference.

• Monitoring/Adjusting: What key indicators, information, and data do you need to pay attention to daily (hourly?) to be able to respond and lead effectively? Having a Strategy, Targets and Goals is not effective without a means to Control and adjust as needed.

CONTROL

• Results and Reports: Based on how you have Planned and Organized, you should have unambiguous and even binary measures of success. This can also make up part of a daily or regular briefing to constituents and can be an early indicator of an innovation opportunity to solicit help from "the crowd" or to engage outside assistance.

• Correcting: To paraphrase a well known adage, "No battle plan survives first contact". You will not manage a crisis with 100% effectiveness. That should never be the goal. The challenge is to be able to respond and adjust as quickly and effectively as possible.

• Assessment of Commitment: As you lead, it is important to make sure the people around you are vested into the course of action you choose. Checking in as a group and individually to understand their commitment - and how you can help your team cope and thrive - will help you as a leader and give you an opportunity to focus on your other duties as a leader: Directing and Engaging.

In the world of innovation, this is the world of Optimization and Sustaining Innovation Challenges.

As the Next Phase of a crisis unfolds, building a plan of action for recovery in community is paramount. While much of your time is spent Managing the initial impact, Directing is about solving the remaining challenges and mobilizing a recovery. Directing is as much about "conducting the symphony" as it is building the orchestra and deciding what piece everyone will play.

A key competency at this phase is putting together a plan for the future and establishing a path forward. While there is a degree of uncertainty in planning for a recovery, this is where bringing in outside expertise combined with establishing teams that focus on rebuilding:

VISION

• Setting a Direction: "Where do we go from here?" is going to be a common refrain in your community. As a leader, providing a direction and vision for recovery (not a timeline) is the foundation for collaboratively moving forward.

• Articulating the Vision in Clear Language: A Vision to move forward needs to be simple and easy to share. Investing in time to create this story will help build the community and team needed to accelerate recovery.

ALIGNMENT

• Identification of Constituencies: Working with internal (local government offices, industry, and NGO/non-profits) and external (state/provincial, national, and citizens) to find the human and ecosystem resources to move recovery forward.

• Communicating for Relevance: Ensuring that each stakeholder and each individual leading a key effort is given the right information at the right time.

• Selling for Commitment: Moving the vision forward requires active effort by leadership and the core team to build commitment to a vision of recovery.

MOTIVATION

• Appeal to Untapped Needs: It is easy to focus on the physical aspects of recovery. Things like rebuilding facilities, recovery from illness, and reopening businesses. Leadership at this phase requires going beyond the things that are visible and inciting a passion for recovery among stakeholders.

• Belonging and Commitment: Community - by definition - is made up of people that share "a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals." Working to achieve a goal that each stakeholder shares and owns will increase the ability to achieve, accelerate, and push forward to recovery.

• Link to Personal Payoff: Not only for your core team, but each stakeholder must see the benefit of policies and programs being built to make recovery possible. When communities understand the path forward and each individual understands their role and how they will benefit, making decisions - even tough ones - becomes easier.

In the world of innovation, this is the world of Sustaining and Breakthrough Innovation Challenges.

As the Crisis begins to come to an end, this is where communication plays a vital role. The light at the end of the tunnel is visible and individuals and businesses are beginning to experiment and grow in new ways. The role of local leadership is similar to that of a gardener, to encourage healthy ecosystem growth.

A key competency at this phase is communicating successes that are reflective of recovery and the community that is being recreated:

VALUES

• Defining the Values: After a crisis, many people tend to re-evaluate their perspective on what it means to exist. This may lead to values and ideals that were important pre-crisis to be replaced by new ones that more accurately reflect recovery and the new reality.

• Articulating the Values: How you communicate (both medium and message) as well as how they are framed, not only help stakeholders understand this new world, but also how they can contribute.

• Modelling the Values Daily: Sometimes the hardest challenge of all - especially when a communities values change post-crisis - is to model those values. In a leadership role, ensuring that you are reflecting and modelling these values anchors your constituents and is key to accelerating recovery to create something better than before.

CLARITY

• Ensure Clear Targets: Leadership must make it clear what the new future will bring. When, how, and what are questions that can be answered and need to be answered so everyone in a community knows and understands how they can contribute.

• Searching/Making Decisions: Deciding what decisions to make in this new world and the criteria used to make them ensure that a leader is capable of engaging all stakeholders effectively and consistently.

• Ensure Boundary Awareness: Providing clear understanding of what has changed (and why a community cannot go back) is key to forward momentum in a recovery. Being clear about directions and options that will be destructive to recovery and building a healthy economic ecosystem ensures that maximum effort is directed in a positive direction.

INVOLVEMENT

• Systems and Procedures: Creating a means for all citizens to get involved ensures a collective recovery is not only shared by all stakeholders; it also provides a means for each individual to take ownership of recovery.

• Inclusivity and Restraint: Opening up a local "Recovery X-prize", providing projects for volunteers to pick-up and complete easily, and other programs can ensure your community returns stronger than ever. Additionally, ensuring that priority is given to certain areas (e.g. enhancing first responders ability to respond to the next crisis, building capacity, and bringing back key business and industry) vs. restraining actions and ideas that may be beneficial, but may not be appropriate in a new world (e.g. reviving old practices that led to increased strain during a crisis, structures that limited involvement and recovery, and distribution of resources that slow instead of enhance movement to a full recovery).

• Organizational Assessment: As you lead your community to a new future, assessment and review of what came before, what happens next and how local government and the community needs to change in order to be better prepared as well as meet the new challenges of the future is needed. This assessment should include ways to capitalize on new knowledge gained and open the door to organizing local government in a way that is more responsive and better suited to take on new opportunities.

In the world of innovation, this is the world of Breakthrough and Disruptive Innovation Challenges.