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Crisis management expert, Eric Dezenhall, kicks off the BCI Author Series

The BCI is proud to introduce our first author interview with Eric Dezenhall on April 11th, 8:30-10:30 am, at the Harvard Club in New York City.

From Tiger Woods to Michael Jackson, Eric Dezenhall has been on the front line of high-profile crisis communications and public relations. Come hear his perspective on Trump vs Clinton, BP vs Goldman, fake news and much more. Eric is a world-renowned crisis management and public relationship expert with frequent appearances on NPR, CNN, FOX, CNBC, and MSNBC. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today; is a regular contributor to the Daily Beast, Huffington Post and CNBC.com. Learn more about Eric.

Seating limited to 50 seats. Register now!

Eric Dezenhall

Lootok presents at the Enterprise Risk Management Summit

Join me at the Enterprise Risk Management Summit in Las Vegas on November 2, 2016!

I will be speaking with Andrew Miller from ADP about linking reputation management, business continuity and crisis planning to strengthen risk resilience.

Where: Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas
When: November 2, 2016, 9:00am
What: Linking reputation management, business continuity and crisis planning to strengthen risk resilience

ERM conference 2016 — We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!

How do you create situation awareness—Fresh perspectives with Mica Endsley

I had the privilege of sitting down with Mica Endsley —author of Designing for Situation Awareness: An Approach to User-Centered Design. Mica is the president of SA Technologies. Previously she was the Chief Scientist for U.S. Air Force.

Mica shares with us lessons learned from her book—Designing for Situation Awareness. I asked her nine (9) questions to solicit her thoughts on situation awareness, technology, and mental models.

Mica Endsley

What is the best way to tell stories as means to communicate - Cliff Atkinson on Fresh Perspective

How would a physicist approach risk management - Mark Buchanan on Fresh Perspective

How to use Scenario Planning in Risk Management - Thomas Chermack on Fresh Perspective

Can a crisis make you a celebrity?

Picture of man speaking to the press — Ready or not. Say, “Cheese!”

While artists, athletes, and performers struggle to make their mark in the public eye with a memorable act or viral moment, a different type of celebrity has been emerging on the scene - the spokesperson for a crisis.

Here’s a quick exercise to highlight the point:

Jeffrey Boyd, Lew Frankfort, and Stephen Hemsley. Do these names sound familiar?
If not, don’t feel bad. They are the CEO’s of Priceline.com, Coach, and UnitedHealth Group, respectively.

Now, how about the names Tim Cook and James Comey?
We can immediately recall them as the CEO of Apple and the FBI Director, respectively, feuding over a locked iPhone involving a federal investigation of the San Bernardino shooting.

The media diligently covered Cook and Comey’s debate for more than three months. During that time, both men emerged as stars in a cast of characters ranging from lawyers, judges, politicians, and even presidential candidates. The media and public tuned in to hear their perspectives on data privacy, security, technology, civil rights, and terrorism.

Snowflake Syndrome: when should we be unique vs. boiler plate?

One of the challenges we have in risk management, crisis management, and security management is striking a balance between customized and standard solutions. Customized solutions and approaches tend to be more expensive now (implementation) and later (maintenance). However, customized solutions resolve specific requirements. Standard solutions tend to be cheaper, but we don’t get exactly what we want. Our challenge is balancing requirements and spend to get the most out of our budgets.

When is good good enough?

Jeremy Stynes, Lootok’s CCO / CTO, has coined a term he calls Snowflake Syndrome. Snowflake syndrome is when someone believes that they are so unique they demand special attention and design - but reality is ... they’re not special. They believe their project/initiative/program is one-of-a-kind, a snowflake. The challenge of the Snowflake Syndrome is rooted in people’s mental models. People can suffer from the syndrome when they confuse their personal uniqueness, or desire to be unique, with the organizational program they are responsible for. It can also come from working in organizational environments that lack standardization and procedures; therefore snowflake solutions are everywhere. It is easy to believe you are a snowflake when everything and everyone around you is a snowflake. Snowflake thinking can lead to overly complex (unique) design and processes. Anytime we see inconsistent design or costly overruns the snowflake syndrome is close by.

Snowflake — Snowflake syndrome

Disaster Recovery for America interview on the Federal News Radio

I appeared on Federal News Radio and shared my thoughts on new approaches to risk management and how to develop an effective approach to business. You can stream the recording for free here: Interview with Sean Murphy

Look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments!

Sean Murphy on Federal News Radio — Sean on Federal News Radio

Shaking Up the Status Quo: Innovations in Risk Management

Chris de Wolf (Mars) and I got back together in April at the RIMS’16 conference for an overwhelmingly well-received session where we talked about transforming the risk function from a program to a business.

“Shaking up the Status Quo - Innovations in Risk Management” gave us the opportunity to tell the story of how we reinvented risk management - business continuity. Long story short: We were looking for a better way.

Fresh perspectives: biggest challenge in risk management – metrics

What’s the biggest challenge in risk management? If you ask risk analysis expert Yossi Sheffi, it’s the lack of an industry metric. For example, when you choose a supplier, how can you quantify how risky your choice is? When it comes to metrics, Sheffi says, risk still remains an area where gut feelings and opinions play a major role. And the biggest challenge for risk managers? Defuse the responsibility for managing risk throughout the whole company.

Fresh perspectives: resiliency strategies

Risk analysis expert Yossi Sheffi discusses two fundamental resiliency strategies that organizations can use to recover from an incident: redundancy and flexibility. Using the examples of Intel and Southwest Airlines, Sheffi talks about the role of redundancies, flexibility and interchangeability, and communication and culture to provide risk managers with realistic and practical approaches to consider.

Fresh perspectives: risk matrix

Risk analysis expert Yossi Sheffi explores the capabilities and limits of the traditional risk matrix, and adds another axis called “detectability.” Detectability has to do with time dimensions, or how much time we have to prepare and react to a threat. There are some events, such as a cyberattack or theft of intellectual property, that have no warning; you realize their occurrence only after they hit you. While the standard use of the risk matrix is influenced largely by the past, adding detectability means greater opportunity to tackle impending threats.

Fresh perspectives: insights

What happens when we’re in a crisis we haven’t seen before, and our experience is insufficient? Such a situation requires us to gain “insight,” or develop new patterns that change the way we understand things and consequently, change the actions we consider. Research psychologist Gary Klein investigated the different ways that people form insights, and the factors that prevent us from having them.

Fresh perspectives: crisis management team

There are certain challenges that face a crisis management team in the “Golden Hour,” the moment when team members convene to make critical decisions. Research psychologist Gary Klein discusses the need for team members to size up not only the situation, but also each other’s capabilities, roles, and responsibilities at time of event. That’s why it’s key for a crisis management team to regularly practice and train together.

Fresh perspectives: uncertainty metaphors

How do most organizations handle uncertainty? They gather more information. Research psychologist Gary Klein explains why this isn’t always the best course of action. After all, it’s easy to gather information and sit on it; it’s harder to know how to make sense of events, and make a coherent story based on the data we have.

Fresh perspectives: recognition-primed decision model

How can leaders make good decisions under the extreme time constraints of a crisis? To find out, research psychologist Gary Klein studied fire fighters to understand their approach to making crucial, complex decisions so quickly. The recognition-primed decision (RPD) process, as he explains, reveals how these professionals assess the situation: they compare familiar patterns and cues to past experiences to know which actions to take.

Understanding the risk environment: Sean Murphy discusses nonlinear environment with Gary Klein

I had the pleasure to interview Gary Klein the author of “Seeing What Others Don’t,” “Streetlights and Shadows,” “Working Minds,” and “Sources of Power.” His research and experience is invaluable to anyone in the field of risk management. In this interview, Gary talks about the difference between a well-ordered domain (i.e., normal business environment) and complex domain (i.e., crisis environment). Understanding the characteristics and attributes of each environment is critical to understanding what tools, processes, and capabilities needed to be successful in each environment.

Dr. Yossi Sheffi on crisis management

Dr. Yossi Sheffi, author of “Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage,” discusses two of his favorite crisis management case studies with Sean Murphy.

Why don’t plans work?

Sean Murphy discusses the limitations of plans with renowned author and research psychologist Gary Klein.

Methodology

Lootok has three methodologies that drive our operations: Activity-Based Collaboration™, The Lootok Demand Model™ , and Get Ready, Stay Alert, Take Action™.

mod — The MOD board game

Business continuity and the Sony data breach

A massive data breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which experts believe was targeted by North Korea as retaliation for a film depicting the assassination of its leader Kim Jong Un, has led to an international incident that has gained the attention of business continuity professionals. Even large companies like Sony can sometimes put business continuity planning on the back burner. BC professionals say that attacks like this can sometimes change their minds.

Visualizing the impact of hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy is the largest hurricane to ever form in the Atlantic Basin. Along its path, 253 people were killed in seven countries and total damage resulted in over $65.5 billion. How does superstorm Sandy compare to major disasters from last year?

Managing reputational risk: how to plan and adapt for public reaction

In today’s volatile environment, businesses are under constant pressure to adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace. Change happens, but how do you manage a switch that will likely anger your customers?

Hurricane Sandy — Plan and adapt.

Why someone else’s data breach affects you

Cyber crime is one of the biggest threats facing companies today. Its ramifications, such as stolen data and identity theft, are enormous and will only continue to grow. It’s impossible to plan for everything, but a proper business continuity program will help your company stay strong in the event of an unexpected attack.

data breach — Data breach

Seven insights from superstorm Sandy: a financial sector retrospective

$18 billion dollars. That’s the number estimated in damages caused by Hurricane Sandy just in the state of New York alone. With the unexpected turns that transpired amidst the super storm, all businesses were reminded of the importance of business resiliency.

Given the vast amount of information presented to-date, it is still very important that the financial sector revisit the surprises from Sandy to ensure that critical financial services are better protected. A team of experienced BCM advisors gathered the recommendations in the accompanying table from industry thought leaders in leading global financial services companies to learn from their perspectives.

Everyone needs a backup plan - just like every company needs a business continuity plan

This video for the Homeland Security Business Continuity Planning Suite communicates core business continuity concepts and highlights the benefits of planning. In just a few minutes, the video manages to cover a variety of disasters including a loss of power, hurricane, fire, and a human threat. It’s perfect to use for kicking off a planning workshop or meeting, or circulating to department leads or plan writers to increase their awareness.

Reinvigorating BCM: The power of co-creation

More and more, successful organizations are realizing that a meaningful “customer experience” involves the co-creation of a product. What does co-creation look like in business continuity?

A funny take on risk perception

When it comes to risk perception, we are notoriously prone to misconceptions. Whether fearing planes over bikes or elevators over stairs, we have a tendency to misjudge just how dangerous certain situations are.