Split Second Decision Making

What are the topics that have persuaded me to change my first Sunday Roast focus?

First, the 23rd of September is the National Day of Saudi Arabia. I was privileged to spend a day with a group of senior Saudi Police Officers last week, hosting a session with the City of London Police on Leadership of Crises, Emergencies and Natura Disasters. I made the point that policing is one of the only public service leadership roles which can involve life-and-death decisions. We discussed and compared examples of many of these instances within the context of global responses to crises.

Two further news items were featured in LinkedIn posts on Saturday morning with a common, similar, and sombre theme: deaths due to split-second decisions. The first is a memorial to constables Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, who were tragically murdered 11 years ago to the day, on duty whilst attending a burglary. The second relates to posts/comments regarding the split-second decision made by a London police officer who killed Chris Kaba. Both instances resulted in charges of murder. Today, Sunday, the Home Office published a notification that today is National Police Memorial Day.

Read my post related to these issues which I published this morning:

Some initial thoughts on Preparing for Crises

In recent sessions with senior leaders from Saudi and the United Arab Emirates, we considered globally accepted frameworks based on international security and resilience standards containing incident management guidelines. The standards apply to any organization needing multinational and multi-organizational approaches in incident management. The standards and the guidelines are helpful to any organization responsible for preparing for or responding to incidents at the local, regional, national, and, possibly, international level. We explored what I described as the thirteen principles of strategic planning for Emergencies and Crises, drawing on five-fold phases of response to Emergencies and Crises. The five stages will apply to both planned-for crises (using the principles and international standards) and equally when an individual responder faces a life-threatening situation that could not have been planned for. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) will likely exist (such as response to firearms incidents). Still, the five phases and guidelines will apply to the initial heuristic (intuitive) assessment of the presenting crisis and support a more holisitc and intelligence-led assessment.

Initiation: The critical emergency or crisis either emerges or is planned for. Initiation represents the need for public authorities to plan and build capacity for response. In the case on not-planned-for crises, standard operating procedures should be followed where possible.

Intelligence: This is the scanning and assessment phase in which information is sought and transformed into actionable intelligence to inform the response. In planned cases, this will be a more systematic approach but when responding to an immediate crisis, first responders should consider all prevailing circumstances in fast thinking time, seeking validation where possible.

Integrated: Multi Organizational Responses are instigated, and collaboration and coordination are encouraged. This will be essential if the not-planned-for incident continues to develop.

Implementation: Command and control systems are set up, and communication and coordination structures are created. In immediate crises, ad hoc control facilities will need to be set up through adaptive and flexible processes and structures.

Impact: Leaders assess the initial IMPACT of the crisis/emergency, take further action, and create opportunities to learn the lessons for future planning and responses.

Being adaptive in a critical and immediate crisis is crucial for leaders. In the next newsletter, I will follow this up by exploring strategies and tactics to help first responders better prepare to face a previously unknown challenge.

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