Category: Leadership

Do Event Planning Backwards Only If You’re the Gambling Type

When plan­ning for a major event involv­ing mul­ti­ple par­ties and agen­cies, par­tic­u­larly when mul­ti­ple spe­cial­ties are involved, effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion is absolutely crit­i­cal.  Every­one needs to under­stand who’s in charge, where they will get infor­ma­tion from, and who they will give infor­ma­tion to.  You need to have a solid com­mand, con­trol and com­mu­ni­ca­tion (C3) struc­ture in […]

Friday January 15th, 2010 in Communication, Emergency Management, Leadership, Systems + Processes | Comments Off

& What’s Not">Leaders Declare What’s a Priority & What’s Not

What would you think if a decision-maker said to your face, “Sorry, your project is not a pri­or­ity.  We’re focus­ing our efforts else­where”?  Would your first instinct be, “@#$ing @$$-%*&#!”?  Would it be, “Damn old fart doesn’t know what’s good!”?  Would it be, “Senior man­age­ment doesn’t under­stand what’s really impor­tant!”? Or would it be, “Thank […]

Thursday December 17th, 2009 in Leadership | Comments Off

Why don’t we do AARs at work on a regular basis?

AAR isn’t just a sound that your favorite pirate makes when he runs out of whisky.  It stands for After-Action Report, and it is what the busi­ness world calls “Lessons Learned.”  How­ever, the term lessons learned is some­times a bit too pre­sump­tu­ous — are the lessons really learned?  Bet­ter yet, are the lessons even really […]

Wednesday November 18th, 2009 in Communication, Leadership, Systems + Processes | Comments Off

Be a Team Player and Get Shafted Quietly?

If you’ve agreed to pay your per­son­nel accord­ing to a given arrange­ment, you stick with it. But what if you decide to shaft your team and ask them to be nice lit­tle team play­ers and take it qui­etly?  What does that say about you? That’s basi­cally what’s hap­pen­ing at the orga­ni­za­tion where I work. And it’s wrong. […]

Wednesday November 18th, 2009 in Leadership, News & Commentary | 1 Comment »

& Talks Fast">A Good System Sees Quickly & Talks Fast

Kingston is a leader. The City of Kingston, and the KFLA Pub­lic Health Unit have a sys­tem that sees quickly, talks fast, and heads off health prob­lems faster than any­one else in Ontario. I’ve been deal­ing with flu assess­ment cen­tres in Ontario these past few weeks, and Kingston was a leader all the way through. […]

Monday November 16th, 2009 in Communication, Emergency Management, Leadership, News & Commentary, Systems + Processes | Comments Off

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