The Tabletop Exercise
An exercise that everyone passes has told you nothing. The design question is what would have to happen for this to surface a real gap, and…
Read →Idaho leadership
Leadership Lessons
Practical leadership lessons from experienced Idahoans across the state's industries, institutions, and communities — guidance you can apply in your own work.
Continuity Basics for Small Organizations
The realistic threat to an organization of thirty is not a disaster. It is one person being unavailable for three weeks, and that is entirely foreseeable…
Read →Crisis Roles and Decision Rights
Four roles, assigned by name while everyone is calm. The most common failure is the senior person absorbing all four and becoming the constraint on their…
Read →What Can Be Prepared and What Cannot
Scenarios are the wrong unit. Prepare the roles, the decision rights, and the first hour, because those are identical across crises and are what actually fails…
Read →Early Recognition
The signals are almost always present and almost always explained away. The obstacle is not detection but a system in which raising something costs the person…
Read →Crisis, Emergency, Problem
The label determines the response, and the label is usually assigned by how alarming a situation feels rather than by what it threatens. Five types, each…
Read →What a Crisis Actually Is
A crisis threatens the organization's ability to continue functioning. An emergency is urgent. A problem is difficult. Most organizations mislabel all three and reach for the…
Read →When Persuasion Fails
Recognising an unwinnable case early preserves the capital you will need for the next one. The most expensive mistake is continuing to argue after the room…
Read →Building a Coalition
Support assembled by trading away substance produces a proposal that passes and does not work. The useful coalition is built on different reasons for the same…
Read →Pre-Wiring
Most decisions are settled before the meeting. Working inside that reality is ordinary practice; the line between preparation and manipulation is whether the meeting can still…
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