Managing Crises
Your next - and probably your first - experience of a crisis might be only minutes away - as many Spanish and Portuguese officials have learned over the last day or so. This Substack accordingly introduces you to the fifth part of How to Succeed in the Senior Civil Service which will help you be ready when your crisis hits.
The text includes detailed advice from experienced officials. I recommend that you first read it fairly quickly but without trying to assimilate all the detail You will then be aware that the full advice is there when you need it.
The following extract will give you a feel for the subject. But there is lots more if you follow the above link
5.1 Introduction
All senior executives face crises from time to time, but Senior Civil Servants have to respond to such crises in full view of ministers, the media and the general public. This adds an unwelcome but unavoidable layer of stress and difficulty. This part of 'How to succeed ...' offers general crisis-handing advice plus some thoughts on how to navigate crises within government.
Natural disasters and other crises require rapid responses which involve making difficult judgements. Sir David Omand reminded ministers that:
You are going to behave rather differently; the pace of decision-making is going to be much faster than you have been used to; the mechanics of your relationship with your officials are going to be rather different, and very importantly, you are going to have to take more decisions on less information than you have been used to.
That last point means you have to stick your neck out ... it is about risk management. You do the best you can, but it may or may not be the best decision at the time and you are not going to know that as you take it... You have to live with that and just get on. That is not how most policy-making process works.
Officials need to plan thoroughly for crises, and ensure that the necessary resources will available to mount an effective response. They should 'prepare for the worst and hope for the best'.
If and when a crisis occurs, it is vital that both Ministers and officials apply the lessons learned by those responding to previous crisis. This is not a time to believe that you know any better. Here, then, is detailed advice from those who have gone before.
5.2.1 Plan and Prepare for Possible Crises
Officials (and ministers) should practice (‘game’) responding to crises. This can be through table-top or live exercises.
One incidental but important benefit is that these exercises help build relationships between major players who might otherwise not meet very often or at all.
It is hard to overstate the importance of practising responses to possible emergencies. Voluntary reports to the US Aviation Safety Reporting System showed that flight crews handled 86% of 'textbook' emergencies well. But only 7% of non-textbook emergencies were handled well. 93% of crews were overwhelmed by situations for which they had not prepared.
No plan will survive contact with reality. But if there is no plan then reality will take over with disastrous consequences. Lucy Easthope[2]:
No one expects the disaster plans we develop to flow perfectly when they meet reality but, nonetheless, they serve many important functions and provide a stabilising influence on shaking hands. Disaster plans help us to alert incident commanders of what they need to do before they even know such problems exist. Even seasoned responders will be fogged by cortisol and adrenaline in the early stages of a major incident. On a clipboard or an electronic tablet, the plans give us something to hold onto, a psychological device to clarify thoughts and focus.
When you 'game' a crisis you should:-
assume that the crisis will hit when your organisation is in some ways unprepared, for reasons outside its control.
assume in particular that key team members and decision makers will not be available.
Note that the Prime Minister and several other ministers and senior advisers became infected and so unavailable during the Covid-19 crisis.
consider 'domino consequences' including in supply chains.
identify and prepare for the worst case scenarios.
Do not shelter ministers etc. from potential bad news. They need to (be forced to?) accept responsibility for mitigating the worst that can go wrong.
You should also:
be aware that the first instinct of ministers will be to limit the reputational damage that they think is going to happen to themselves rather than focus on how to fix the problem.
prepare public responses to foreseeable damage caused by your organisation.
not let lawyer-driven responses – seeking to downplay legal liability - cause large reputational damage.
Get your most sceptical staff to check, from time to time, that the detail of the resilience or crisis management plan is up-to-date, sensible and appropriate. Red teaming might be useful.
In the US, following Hurricane Katrina, mandatory evacuation led to all vehicles leaving New Orleans well in advance of the plan’s deadline. Unfortunately the plan made no mention of the need to evacuate those residents who did not have vehicles within a similar timescale.
Plans must be written by those who have relevant experience. Lucy Easthope again:
New fast track civil servants serving a six month placement at the Home Office, who have never been to a funeral home never mind inside a disaster mortuary, are sometimes asked to draft plans, instead of bringing in specialists like me. They bend and break the processes to speed them up, ignore welfare and rest space, forget the storage space for 100 pairs of clogs and 100 pairs of Wellington boots. They have no knowledge of the ways that the disaster fates play their tricks.
Beware the Prevention Paradox (see Part 2.3 of 'How to Succeed ...'). Activity and expenditure aimed at avoiding future disasters seldom generates political credit. (Example: Y2K). But failing to act will eventually wreak much greater havoc.
You can’t see everything coming. You cannot stockpile in anticipation of every disaster. But disaster planning must include building in some resilience. Do not eliminate all slack and redundancy in key systems, nor in the emergency and armed services.
END of extract
Speaking Truth to Power
This short, well-reviewed paperback investigates a subject which lies at the heart of civil servants’ relationship with ministers. As it is now part of my (otherwise free-to-read) How to Succeed in the SCS I have temporarily reduced its price to £2.99 from £7.99 - but only until this Thursday. So please follow this link asap if you would like a copy.
Martin Stanley
[2] Author - When the Dust Settles - Searching for Hope after Disaster