Crisis Communications Management: Training for the Worst, Performing at Your Best, How to Develop From Plan to Program. With guest Shawna Bruce, and host Tim Conrad.

Tim Conrad (00:06):

In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning ISN indispensable President Dwight d Eisenhower, we must be ready yet flexible, quick, yet caring. It's a fine balance when you are communicating and making decisions during emergencies and crises. The wrong statement or decision at the wrong time can rapidly destroy your reputation as a spokesperson or organization while also adding another crisis to man. That's why plans, programs, and practice belong in your culture. I'm your host, Tim Conrad. Welcome to the Wildfires, floods and Chaos Communications podcast with this week's gue st, Shawna Bruce. Hello, Shawna.

Shawna Bruce (00:44):

Hi, Tim.

Tim Conrad (00:44):

How are you?

Shawna Bruce (00:45):

It's great to be here and meet you in person.

Tim Conrad (00:48):

I know it doesn't happen. Has it happened before? I'm trying

Shawna Bruce (00:50):

To, I don't think it has. We've just been LinkedIn. You're like my LinkedIn family. I call

Tim Conrad (00:54):

And we've spent a lot of time on virtual conversations.

Shawna Bruce (00:56):

Of course, we absolutely have.

Tim Conrad (00:57):

Yeah. Yeah. So it's wonderful to be here. We're here at the Canadian Emergency Preparedness and Climate Adaptation Convention, the C-E-P-C-A in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. If you're watching from around the world. And we are surrounded by thousands of people keen on emergency management, crisis communications, climate science, and getting Canadians prepared for the unknown. So I've heard you like to talk about how it's a crisis communications program, not a plan, not simply a plan. So,

Shawna Bruce (01:35):

Ooh,

Tim Conrad (01:36):

Tell me more.

Shawna Bruce (01:38):

Well, I think people feel, I often find when I work with organizations or clients that they feel they have this plan and they're good to go.

(01:47):

We've written a plan. We have a plan, it's on my bookshelf. And I always say that is great because your plan is your roadmap to get you to your destination. But what you really need is a program. So the plan is the foundation, but you need to prepare your templates for that plan. You have to practice that plan with the team that you've selected. You have to perform in the roles with the training that you've been given and make sure you understand what the protocols and policies are. And then you have to perfect the plan

(02:18):

With

(02:18):

Your after action reviews and deconstruct and reconstruct that crisis so you do better. And I'm not saying it's not part of the larger after action review, but from your communications perspective. So it's not just having a crisis communications plan, Tim, it's understanding that's a foundational piece of an entire crisis communications program.

Tim Conrad (02:38):

Yeah, it is really. And it's the time you take to practice. And you said about putting people into different roles and I believe too, and we have to put people that are never in that role into that role because I've walked into many different situations where there's somebody sitting in a chair that's sitting in a chair they've never sat in before and had to adapt in that moment. And if you have a really good program, you can stretch it out and have anybody jump into the chair if they need to.

Shawna Bruce (03:07):

Well, and every time we go into these positions and we're doing a drill or a simulation or a live response, you should have a shadow with you. Someone that may be someone that has to be your replacement one day is your understudy, so to speak, and not in that space so that we are building up some confidence. Because I feel that when we start talking about mental health challenges and people that are overwhelmed and don't manage the stress, it's because we're not setting them up for success. And part of that success is having the skills and the tools to do the role, but also a little bit of experience. So if you imagine the first time you've ever walked into an emergency operation center or an emergency coordination center, if you've never seen that environment, it's overwhelming

Tim Conrad (03:55):

Very much.

Shawna Bruce (03:56):

But if you have walked in and you've done a few drills and okay, I know where I have to sit and I know where to find the people that I need to connect with, it automatically reduces your stress and allows you to focus on the tasks that you're being given to do.

Tim Conrad (04:10):

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, here's a simple thing that I've come across lately is we have to secure up a lot of our accounts on social media and so on. So the plan may say, post these things onto social media. The program would be, how do I get access to those social media? Because it's not easy anymore. You have authenticators and text messages being sent to make sure that nobody's hacking the account. So that's part of it, right? There's so much to it. I know that you had mentioned in our earlier conversation around templates and having number of files and all sorts of things there. So

Shawna Bruce (04:49):

Well, 90% of what we do in crisis response can be prepared in advance, all the templates, all of who my audience is, who are the people, how am I reaching those audiences most importantly. But I feel that sometimes if we go back to just the plan, a lot of times when I'm asked to review a plan for people or do a gap analysis, the plan tells them what to do, but it doesn't show them how to do it.

(05:13):

So the plan shouldn't just say, as an example, contact your local media. It should say, or put out a holding statement as an example. It should say, put out a holding statement. Here's a template. This is what it should look like. This is where you should post it. It should walk through so that if I'm walking into your organization or if everyone comes down with a stomach flu and the last person standing has only ever done logistics, they should be able to pick up your plan and actually get through a good part of it. It should be written for anyone to use. And I think when we talk about that, that's the challenge. Social media is another one. What's in there? So how do I gain access to this? Who is it that I have to contact and are my backups? Because it always happens. Someone's on vacation or out of the office when you need them there. That may be the keeper of the key for those accounts. So good point.

Tim Conrad (06:07):

So I have an admission, Shawna, I've only entered two organizations, and I've been in this business now for over 25 years that had proper crisis communication programs in place. And this is decades as a consultant, as an employee, hundreds of organizations on this list and many large organizations. I think some people would be a little bit surprised that I've walked into some organizations. So in a way, it's been a good way to make a living. But I have to say, it's a beautiful experience to be in a spot where an effective communications program is in place because you don't experience that stress. It's surprisingly relaxing, even with some very big crisis or even issues that you might see. So what is your experience with programs or even the lack of them, and what did it feel like for you being in one that's without one that's got a good system?

Shawna Bruce (07:12):

My first real experience of not having a plan, I'll be honest, was 2002. And I was in a military, still in the military at the time. I was posted to Winnipeg in that role, and it was our first fatalities in Afghanistan. Now, I wasn't leading the response for that. That was coming out of Edmonton, the headquarters where the troops were deployed from. But I was supporting it because we had soldiers that had augmented that deployment that were from Winnipeg. So I was in a supporting role, and we had a lot of plans in the military, you name it, we had a plan for it, but I'm not sure we had a very comprehensive crisis communications plan. If we did, I didn't get to see it initially. I wasn't briefed on it. We never talked about what if we lose soldiers in Afghanistan. It wasn't a conversation. So the subsequent days and weeks that followed, everyone just pulled together. And the Army is fortunate. We have people, one thing we had is we could pull in resources and we worked very diligently to ensure that we were managing everything for the families of our fallen with honor and with dignity the way it should have been. But we were going off, we were making it up as we went.

(08:23):

The policies that we had in place, even from a repatriation of soldiers coming home, how memorial services would be held, how we'd manage national international media coverage. The policies that we were dealing with at the most rudimentary care level were from the Korean War

(08:41):

From the 1950s. Now, fast forward 2002, so when I left that role and I was posted to Toronto to the Army headquarters there, now the army deployment cycle had shifted, and Ontario had all the troops out the door in Afghanistan from pua.

(08:58):

Now I was the lead. And I remember going up to visit my new friend in Pua who had just also been posted in for three days. We sat down, we talked through everything we talk through. I said, it's not if you need it, it's not if you need a plan, it's when you're going to need it because you're going to need one. And we walked through the entire thing where we would host a service, how we would manage it, where we'd host media, what would happen, what resources we would bring in for him. We wrote a plan based on everything we had from our previous spot in Winnipeg. And two weeks later we had our first fatalities.

(09:34):

Now I felt that we were in a much better position to respond. I could identify lessons from our time in the west here in our situation and apply them immediately. And we wrote the protocol and frameworks we wrote the protocol and policy. The team that I worked with were outstanding, and we wrote that for the Canadian Army because we had that experience from them. But it was a good lesson. And we also brought in people to support that time in Padua from the next cycle of location in Quebec and Val Cartier. And not that we're going to have to join possibly be in the same scenario. We lost many soldiers after that. But I feel that at least the stress of working with families, and we learn very quickly how an international incident becomes localized very quickly when soldiers hometowns are named and families locally are impacted. So big dynamics there and that, and I worked in that space for probably five more years before I retired.

Tim Conrad (10:37):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's an incident I know well, because my best friend was on the line that night and those night that those four first

Shawna Bruce (10:48):

Soldiers,

Tim Conrad (10:49):

TK farm were killed. And yeah, I remember at the time hearing about it. And of course knowing he's there and trying to confirm whether or not he had been affected or not, but all his friends, of course on the line, that's terrible. It was a horrible incident. And I do remember things shifting over time, and it was a bit rough in that early stages because even getting just simple information of who was there, who was okay, who wasn't, and that was difficult to come out. I worked with people that had family members there as well.

Shawna Bruce (11:24):

And let's think about that for a minute. When you think back 22 years, where we were then and where we are today. So social media wasn't existent at the

(11:34):

Time.

(11:36):

We were in a position with the military, a mass casualty situation where we lockdown communications in theater so that no information gets out because the last thing you want is the family to hear about the loss of their loved one through any other network than an official network. And so we had time, we had the luxury. I would say in that instance of time, we had to do all of these mass notifications. People had to be informed. We had to follow that up. We had to be respectful of them letting their loved ones, but no information. People media were starting to call because they'd heard

(12:13):

Things

(12:13):

Had happened, something had happened, but we were controlling the narrative. We were releasing the information when we were ready to release it. And that is just not a luxury that we have today.

Tim Conrad (12:24):

No, that's it.

Shawna Bruce (12:25):

It's very different. Today's dynamic is very different.

Tim Conrad (12:29):

And that's been my experience. No matter what I've stopped, years ago, I stopped saying to people that are working in emergencies or doing any sort of crisis work, I've stopped saying, don't take pictures and post them. I say, please don't if you can or if you have photos, please send 'em our way and we'll get them out there for you. But nowadays, it's pretty common for that to happen, regardless of what you say. And it's difficult to manage that. So in a way, you kind of just assume it's going to happen, that something is going to get out there fairly quickly. So you just kind of mix that into your overall program and make that work with what you have. Right.

Shawna Bruce (13:14):

I dunno if you saw the, I was really sad to see last week, the feral cat. Did you see about the mayor in our region, in my region where I live, and the feral cat situation. So there is a case where we talk about instantaneous things going viral so that if anyone's not familiar with it, it was a mayor in Fort Saskatchewan and the city of Fort Saskatchewan outside of Edmonton, third term mayor, very media savvy. We even did crisis communications. She was in one of my workshops in the last year, and when I saw that come out, she made a statement about how to manage the feral cats in council mic's on.

(13:56):

And

(13:56):

She knew as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she says, I probably should have said that. I hope no one is taping this. Sadly, someone was. It ended up on the local Facebook page and platform. And when I saw it, I monitor that for my own reasons, I thought, that's going to go viral. And I sent it to a colleague and I said, we need to be careful here. There's an apology going to be required here. And there was maybe a few dozen hits at the time. The next day when I checked 26,000 hits, Tim and all the media, local and regional media everywhere, it was in my vehicle. And I'm hearing about it, and I'm hearing someone say probably she's from a small town, probably the first time mayor, not very media savvy. And in my head I'm thinking, you couldn't be further from the truth. But what's sad for me is that same mayor, his three terms, she's done a lot of public civic service. She recently, there was a huge investment in her community from local industry that had been there for over 60 years and they donated $9 million to the community for a new pool. And that's her legacy.

(15:05):

But people aren't going to remember that, are they? They're

Tim Conrad (15:06):

Going to remember that.

Shawna Bruce (15:07):

And late with the ology didn't come out until the next day.

Tim Conrad (15:10):

It

Shawna Bruce (15:10):

Wasn't posted where people broke the news on social. It went on the website where no one really saw it. And I thought, you got to be first. And if you can't be first, you got to be

(15:20):

Fast.

(15:21):

You got to put the facts out there. You got to be frequent and you got to follow up. I mean, that's what crisis is today.

(15:27):

And

(15:27):

I'm thinking, and these are people that know

(15:31):

That

(15:31):

And it still impacted them, and they're going to be dealing with reputation and brand issues now, sadly.

Tim Conrad (15:36):

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes those little remarks that you think maybe you're making a little bit of a joke or something like that taken out of context and they just, you'd never know. And we see too often, especially on the, I would say local government level, it's a little bit more common there. The difference being is that the audience generally is smaller, but now and then one of those stories pops up and it gets up to the provincial, national, and even international level. But that one went certainly national

Shawna Bruce (16:08):

Very quickly and international. I've had people from around the world say, I heard about this. And I think what we need to be very careful. I think we do hold elected officials to a higher standard. We are expecting more from them. They're representing our city, our community. We voted for them because we trusted that they would represent us well and make us proud. And people were unhappy with this. So I don't know what the follow-up will be here. It's one to watch though, for sure.

Tim Conrad (16:39):

Yeah, and it's interesting one, and just another note on that, elected officials, we hear some out there that are saying, well, that's just how I am. And it's important for them to know that they are an elected representative on behalf of the people that they represent. So is that who the people are that you elected is the question you really need to ask? Are you representing them well? Are you being them?

Shawna Bruce (17:06):

And we want them to be authentic and we want them to be personal, and we want people to be able a relatable, all of these things. But we also want them to be inclusive.

Tim Conrad (17:16):

Yes, absolutely.

Shawna Bruce (17:17):

And we don't know. I don't know how you feel about cats. You don't know how I feel about cats. It doesn't really matter how we feel about the cats. There was enough people that were upset with those comments that said, what? Now? You've embarrassed us. You've put us on the map here, and this is embarrassing. So it's those elements there. But I think that there's certainly an awful lot that's happening in Minnesota, politics across Canada these days.

Tim Conrad (17:41):

Yeah, absolutely.

Shawna Bruce (17:41):

We could talk about that all day.

Tim Conrad (17:42):

Yeah, we could. When I started this podcast, this is one part which surprised me, an audience from so many cities, towns, and villages, all around this beautiful marble we call home. Hello to our listeners in Columbia, which is definitely on my travel list. And listeners in these communities or at North Macedonia, Shepherdsville, Kentucky, gloss up, England, Vero Beach, Florida, Athens, Greece. Thank you for listening to our podcast. You join a global audience with listeners in over 30 countries and 300 cities. Wherever you listen, whether it's Spotify, iTunes, or Amazon Music, please subscribe, leave a review and share with a friend by sending them communications podcast.com where you can also sign up for our newsletter. So next up, I'm curious as to how you measure when you're doing your work. I've relied on you to look at the world and see things in a different lens, a very high level lens. So I'm curious as to what tools you use to measure both impact of things that you're doing, and overall, how's the program doing? How are our messages being received and so on? So tell me more.

Shawna Bruce (19:00):

Well, it's interesting because I think it's really hard to have a level of measurement for what I do. I mean, for those that aren't aware, I deliver workshops in crisis communication and emergency information. I also do co-constructing with the incident command system ICS, Canada Information Officer course.

(19:21):

And for me, I'm at that point in my career, I would say after the military and after being at Dow Chemical and Industry, where I'm kind of at that point where I like to be in the preparedness space. So my sweet spot is getting teams prepared and confident and ready to respond to their own crisis. And I found that this last year, it was very busy a year ago with support and people needing help and bench strength. And I'm always willing to work as we work together to help teams do that. But I really want to help these teams be prepared for their own crises.

(19:58):

This

(19:58):

Last year, the phone wasn't as busy. We ran a couple of I-C-S-I-O courses in Alberta last year. We're running a third one in another week. And we started to get those that would be in the EOCs and ECCs prepared, and they did a brilliant job. So the messaging I saw coming out of Jasper, I felt they did a really brilliant job. And three of those people, a fourth one that went in were all graduates of this program. So they spent four days learning from one another, building connections, knowing who they could lean on and walking through it. I like to think that maybe there's somewhere in there that the work we're doing in this space of delivering training is helping. We saw a similar thing in BC with the Justice Institute of bc. We wrote that co-wrote with Jen Howie Ferguson, a micro-credential course. We are now seeing people from municipalities and from organizations take this course

(20:54):

And feeling that they're getting some tools. It's a very tactical course, it roots in the theory, but it's very much, here's a template, here's how to write a plan. This is how you do key messages. Here's some media interview tips, all the little things that you're going to have to have in your pocket to do the job. So when we talk about, I can't obviously say, oh, because of these courses, people are graduating that we don't get as many phone calls for deployments. But what I am saying is I'm seeing better responses. I'm seeing websites being used as communications hubs. I'm seeing messages being put on Facebook and pinned to the top and added to in a day. All the little things and takeaways that we're learning are a proven practice. I'm starting to see employed. So I have to feel that we're learning some of these lessons. We're identifying these lessons, but we're applying those lessons and actually learning them. And for me, that makes me very happy to think that we can have a role in getting them prepared to do that.

Tim Conrad (21:52):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, there's been a definite improvement and you can see that with things certainly in Western Canada. I've been pretty active out in this space since 2013, and I've noticed it's continually improving for the most part. And you do get the odd outlier.

Shawna Bruce (22:13):

Yeah,

Tim Conrad (22:14):

For sure. But I noticed that there's a lot more consistency in how organizations are responding and the speed at which they're responding and just the tools that you're using. So I do want to pick up on one thing that you said, and that's using a website as a main source. One spot. I think that's really important for people to use your own media. The social media is a tool, but it is not the tool. And with this click of a switch, they can change the algorithm and they have, and it has hurt communications during emergencies. I've seen that, and we just don't reach as many people as we used to through social media. What's the benefit of using owned media channels when you think of the overall?

Shawna Bruce (23:04):

Well, I think if we put it in a wildfire context, and maybe Twitter or X is your primary social media means of communication and Facebook, maybe you're using the two of them, but when you are linking everything that you put on there, you're getting attention. You're grabbing attention, and you're linking back to your communications hub or your website. You could have a dark site or a black site on that site already to go and prepared. You could have evacuation lists listed you could have to do after a flood in your home, how to manage your pets, how to manage the most vulnerable, maybe members of your family, how to prepare children and to talk to them. All of these elements that are the holistic side of managing disasters and emergencies, you can have available and ready in advance. So you're linking to it and people are getting all the information and then they're pulling the information that they need specifically for their situation. And I think sometimes you just can't put as much in. Now you're doing 12 social media posts and people are trying to find it. The other thing, which is a pet peeve of mine is just don't link to PDFs

(24:15):

Because people can't search pet emergencies. They're not possibly going to find everything in there. They unpack it and have it in a section on your website for people. The other part you said about meta, if you notice in Jasper, for the Jasper of wildfires, they use Facebook as their primary means of communication with the community. And they put new updates every day, date, less than date and timestamped as they should. But in the days of meta, what would've happened there? Would you have seen a muni take that information, write a news release, media take it, and then they try to post it on their Facebook page. But all we're asking is saying, just unpack it. Don't write the news release. Maybe goes out anyways, but now you're unpacking it and you're putting in your own social media as an update.

(25:03):

So

(25:03):

You're still using it, right? You're still able to use it. So I felt that we maybe had people that were relying on media as the tool to disseminate, but like you said, it's traditional media, social media, they're tools in your toolbox. You need to know which ones to prioritize to use for you, but don't ever forget your own. So even on top of that, people say, well, what else is there? Your community signs your faith-based organizations that have signs your arena, all of these things, you can be putting information out there as well. You have a whole community network to use. So I guess my point in that, I'll get off that soapbox, is prioritize what tools you need to have a presence where your audiences are going for information and then prioritize them and tell people where you're going to be.

Tim Conrad (25:55):

And that of course takes doing the work before. You can't learn that in the middle of an emergency.

Shawna Bruce (26:00):

You shouldn't be learning anything in the middle of the emergency.

Tim Conrad (26:02):

No, and you talked a little bit earlier about preparing all these different guides and templates and things and just what do I do with my pets during an emergency? All of that can be prepared before. And I just want to add to the audience that if you don't do it before, just imagine doing it when you have worked 20 hours the day before and then you're back in for another 17 hour grinder that day. It's not that fun doing it and that time. So just try to get it done ahead. You can find the time, trust me, because you will find the time when you're doing a 20 and a 17 hour day

Shawna Bruce (26:37):

And you're going to make mistakes. And then the other thing I would say on that, my favorite word in this space, in this field of practice, leverage. So if you see someone that's done a brilliant guide on pet emergencies, let's just stay with that one, look through it, see how it applies, talk to them and say, may I leverage this content? Are you comfortable with me using this? Everyone has leveraged something from someone in emergency management. Let's start putting together the best ones we've seen and keeping a profile on that, a file so that you can pull and use it.

Tim Conrad (27:07):

Yeah. And this feeds well into the next question because this is where I leaned on you last year. You helped our team response in both the Squamish Lilette fires as well as the shoe swab, area fires. And one of the things I got you to do is to get a sense of what was going on and how some of the other areas in Canada were making out with what they were doing. There was a few that were ahead of us time-wise, on what had happened to them. So you reached out to them to talk to them to have a conversation. So on that note, how do you determine best practices?

Shawna Bruce (27:44):

Well, I always like to use the term Tim proven practices because I feel that what works for one municipality may not work for another. So when we call it a best practice, if everyone tries to align to that best practice, it may actually be a square hole trying to fit in the square peg in the round hole. So let's take a look at a proven practice that's worked and see what can we glean from that as lessons identified that might apply to us, and then see if that's going to fit for our audiences, our culture, just our organizational setup, like the way we're actually structured, and is it a systems thing? Can we navigate this around that? How's it going to work? So for us, for our work together in BC for the wildfires, we had AAL on Nova Scotia with the wildfires that they had very unexpectedly.

(28:34):

They had some challenges in some areas with comms, but what they did effectively was lost properties, how they brought people in, how they made notifications, how the process for that and information was shared, how they set up their comfort centers and that. So we were able to talk to people that were involved, glean that basic information and put it together in a framework then that our clients could take a look and say, okay, this won't work for us, or this would work for us here. And we did see some brilliant takeaways there. We saw that there was not a map put up for people to find their

(29:09):

Homes.

(29:09):

It was done in phone calls, in person by individuals, person to person. And I think that there was some really excellent takeaways there. But learning these lessons, unless we as practitioners are identifying what happened and making the changes, they're not happening.

(29:29):

So I would say to you, even Alberta alerts, when we ran the last course in Grand Prairie last summer for the information officer course, a lot of discussion about alert fatigue from the summer before. So I had lunch with the two people at Alberta Emergency Management, bless Steven and Evan. We talked through the most common things that they saw happening and challenges. Well, now we have those two gentlemen coming to the next course for half an hour to talk about it because that's critical. So that's how we identify and learn. The lessons I feel, need to be more proactive in engaging those

Tim Conrad (30:04):

Elements. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, it's a constant learning process, and

(30:10):

We're always looking for those opportunities to find those new lessons. And I know every time I got an opportunity when I was leaving, often, quite often, leaving the fire zone in the shoe swab I was driving out, and I would give you a call and I remember those conversations because you would just pepper me with questions as to what was going on, why it was happening that way, that sort of thing. And so I think it's really good for everybody to lean on each other out there. A hundred percent. It's been amazing for me over the years to be able to have lots of different people to lean on and yeah, you've shown a good example of the benefits of that.

Shawna Bruce (30:46):

Well, I appreciate that. And you're absolutely right. We need to have our own network. And we are not even as consultants. I mean, I don't have all the answers. I'm not looking to try to have all the answers. I'll often say to people or clients, look, if I can't help you with this, I guarantee you there's someone in my network who can. I will find them for you.

(31:06):

Or

(31:06):

I'll find that answer. And I think what's really important is that there's no I in team and that we really, emergency management and this crisis space, it is a team effort a hundred percent all the time.

Tim Conrad (31:16):

Yep. Yep.

Shawna Bruce (31:17):

Absolutely. So thanks for being there for me too.

Tim Conrad (31:19):

Yeah, thanks. Hey there, I have a special offer for you. Jump over to www.canadiantraining.ca and subscribe to our newsletter, receive discounts and early access to our new training platform, which will launch this fall. What's more valuable is we will send Canadian training.ca subscribers, free guides, checklists, and more that you can use in your homework or volunteer roles, Canadian training.ca, learning from mistakes. Someone should sign up now for those free resources. So next up, we've got three quick questions, so you ready to go?

Shawna Bruce (31:54):

I am ready to go. Fire away.

Tim Conrad (31:55):

All right. So what is one book, documentary or resource that you would recommend for those learning about crisis and emergency management?

Shawna Bruce (32:04):

Oh my gosh, that's so hard. I have a reading list I can share with you if anyone wants it. But I would say to you, the one book that maybe changed the way I thought about how people think about themselves, even in a crisis, is the Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley. I've got the book, the new one that she's updated. I haven't read it yet,

(32:23):

But

(32:24):

For me, I think that's where I learned the concept about how people think during crisis and disasters that they deny deliberate, then decide, and how we want to give them less time in that deliberation phase. So that's why our effective messages are so important to help them make informed decisions to act. I think that's where I pulled that concept. I teach it in every workshop. And I also learned the story of Rick Rescorla, the hero that he was during the nine 11 Twin Towers and that. So her book is very good at talks about different ways that people actually manage a crisis and how even improving your own personal safety, simple things like actually reading the aircraft design booklet and knowing your closest exit, how if your plane ever went down, it could save your life.

Tim Conrad (33:13):

Yeah, absolutely.

Shawna Bruce (33:14):

So Amanda Ripley the unthinkable.

Tim Conrad (33:16):

Yeah, and I'll give a piece of advice. I am staying in an Airbnb here and I'm in an older building

(33:21):

And it's a nice spot, but because it's an older building, it's got a little bit more narrow hallways, different weird staircases. It's it'ss a bit of a maze in there. And so I went for a walk to find out where the emergency exits were, to find out where everything pull alarms, all that. I am a former firefighter, so I kind have that in my DNA, but I think it's important for everybody to think that way when they go into a place that they haven't been, what's my way? What if just enough to get you out of that situation if you were, because it does happen.

Shawna Bruce (33:59):

And if I can just add a point there, I was in a high rise in Taiwan, in Taipei, and I read the back of the door and it said the same thing. This is where you're located, this is where your thing is. This is where your route is for the closest exit. Now walk the route to know your way. And beside my bed was a vest and a flashlight.

(34:20):

Wow.

(34:20):

So I thought they had that little, and I did walk it so I would know like you did in your Airbnb, but in my head I thought, how much would it take to add that little extra sentence just to get people that little more confident that they could be prepared? Not much.

Tim Conrad (34:35):

Yeah, exactly. And of course you have to remember in an emergency, it's not going to be nice and clear and easy and lights are on. It could be smoky, it could be

Shawna Bruce (34:41):

Dark, a hundred percent.

Tim Conrad (34:42):

Lots of different things. Alright. What advice would you give information officers or communicators that are managing crisis or emergencies that would help them to do their job better?

Shawna Bruce (34:53):

I would say to them to remember that they are not an island of their own. That if you're in the thick of a crisis or an emergency and you're not quite sure about things, ask a friend, ask your team, put out some examples. We tend to think we have to have all the answers, but we don't. And it's always good to get a second opinion, if nothing else, to kind of justify you're going down the right path and ask for help when you need it. Don't wait until you're feeling completely overwhelmed, exhausted, and you're not making a sound decisions until you ask for help. Ask for help early. That's what I would say.

Tim Conrad (35:29):

Yeah. Excellent. And my last question is, how do you maintain your mental wellbeing during the most intense moments?

Shawna Bruce (35:39):

Well, I would say to you that I'm a big fan of deep breathing exercises. I'm a big fan of getting out of the environment and doing a quick walk or finding some fresh air. You might find me taking a moment alone if I've had to deal with something really heavy. Managing as many families of the fallen as I did at the end of my career in the military was, there was some rough days. We had some rough days. I mean, I can remember standing at Memorial Services and holding a 2-year-old for a mom so she could grieve.

(36:12):

And

(36:12):

Me just standing there thinking this little girl's never going to see her dad again. And I am a mom at that time. My daughters were quite a bit younger, and it could be. I would just always put myself in the fact that I'm doing this for the people, I'm doing this for the

(36:28):

Families.

(36:28):

Whatever decisions we make is helping them. So taking the time to rest, taking the time to have a little mental health break and some deep breathing will go a long way. Take a crossword puzzle, go to a corner of a room, just totally take yourself out of the setting is my point. Don't feel like everything's going to fall apart if I take five minutes for a walk or 10 minutes for a walk. Take the breaks.

Tim Conrad (36:50):

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really important. I've been in some extremely intense moments that are super busy, and I've had to still take that moment. And even just that, just 60 seconds aside just to do that or just to go for a walk, whatever, it makes a big

Shawna Bruce (37:05):

Difference. It makes a big difference. You can't focus up if your brain is not allowing you to. Right.

Tim Conrad (37:11):

Yeah. And on that note, I've used visualization, so that's a good, anybody that's done sport, it's a wonderful way to adapt in that situation. Well, Shawna, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Wildfires, floods and Chaos Communications podcast recorded here at the 2024 Canadian Emergency Preparedness and Climate Adaptation Convention at the Shaw Center in Ottawa, Canada. So Shawna was on our butterfly effect team for the response to the shoe swap Cariboo and ette area in the summer of 2023. And she played an essential role in staying up way, way up in the stratosphere, developing frameworks, and keeping a good understanding of what was going on in our world. It's just wonderful to have this time to sit down together and all the way in Ottawa. We live a lot closer than this. We

Shawna Bruce (38:01):

Had to come all the way here to get together. But Tim, I appreciate, I appreciate the work you do. I appreciate that there's lots of people out there always trying to get ready for their next crisis, and that if we could say one final word, don't wait. Start planning today for that crisis tomorrow because you want to be in a good place to be able to respond.

Tim Conrad (38:18):

Absolutely. Thanks very much. My pleasure. For those listening, jump over to www.communicationspodcast.com. Give us a review, feedback or guest ideas, and of course, please share with a friend. Thanks for joining us. Stay safe. Thank you for listening and taking the time to learn from our guests. Do you have a suggestion for a guest or topic or maybe some feedback? You can write to us communicationspodcast.com or you can also leave a review wherever you listen, whether it's Spotify, iTunes, or Amazon Music, please subscribe and share with a colleague or friend such as someone in emergency services. Remember, we also have a newsletter that will give you more information and we put up transcripts, links, and information from our guests on our website communicationspodcast.com. Thank you for joining the Wildfires, floods and Chaos Communications podcast, a production of Butterfly Effect Communications. We are a masters of doom and gloom communications, bringing calm to chaos. If you like this episode, check out season one, episode one, calm in the Chaos with Brie Thorsteinson Ogle at communicationspodcast.com. Goodbye. Hear me later.