Many years ago when I was a student, there was an apocryphal rumor making the rounds about a teacher who used the “fling method” to grade term papers. The method involved standing at the top of a staircase and flinging the papers towards the bottom. The theory was that those papers containing the most content (i.e., the most pages) would travel the farthest. Where your paper fell on the staircase determined your grade. I suspect that many emergency managers are using this method to determine the value of their emergency plans.

We all deride “doorstop plans,” plans that come in 4-inch binders or multiple volumes. Yet we continue to produce them. However, both anecdotal evidence and a small smattering of research suggest that during a crisis no one is going to read your emergency plan. This begs the question, for whom are we writing the emergency plan?

In my previous blog, I wrote about the three levels present in any response (strategic, operational, and tactical) and the need to distinguish among these when writing your plan. The easiest way to do this is to ask the question, “who is my target audience?”

Consider, for example, what happens when we apply this concept to the basic plan. The basic plan is a bit of an exception in that it delineates overall strategy and lays out the operational framework for response. But who is the target audience? If you’re honest, you’re probably writing it for anyone but the user (e.g., auditors, evaluators, politicians, the public) with the intent to demonstrate your level of preparedness. Plan users are most likely intimately familiar with the contents as it is the basis for more detailed planning. If this is indeed the case, why include extraneous material that is of no use to anyone?

Let me give an example of what I mean by extraneous material. Almost every basic plan I have reviewed over the years contains an extensive section on the Incident Command System. Given our requirements for ICS training, how likely is it that someone reporting to the emergency operations center in a crisis will be completely unfamiliar with ICS? Even assuming that they are, will they have any inclination to sit down and read...

Lucien Canton is consultant specializing in helping managers lead better in a crisis. He is the former Director of Emergency Services for San Francisco and the author of the best-selling Emergency Management: Concepts and Strategies for Effective Programs used as a textbook in many higher education courses.

Emergency management is notoriously bad at marketing. People have a much better idea of what most other government agencies do, or simply (at least) that they exist. Establishing awareness and understanding of emergency management not only for the people you serve, but those you work with can go a long way toward meeting your goals.

As with any message everything is about the audience. Emergency management has a variety of audiences. While we have some programs and campaigns oriented toward individuals, much of our work is with organizations, including non-profits, other government agencies, and the private sector. All in all, most emergency managers are pretty good at interfacing and coordinating with organizations. It’s the public that we still struggle with. Emergency management inherited the burden of individual and family preparedness from the days of civil defense. Things were different then. Civil defense focused on one threat, it was persistent, and the calls to action were tangible and even practiced with the public in many communities.

And yes, I said that our present engagement with the public is a burden. Can it make a difference? Sure. Does it make a difference? Sometimes. While some can argue that any measurable difference we make is good, we all need to acknowledge that campaigns and programs for the public are often a huge source of frustration for emergency managers across the nation and elsewhere. We feel compelled to do it, but so often we can’t make that connection. While I think it is a worthwhile mission and there are successes, the usual rhetoric is stale (i.e., make a plan, build a kit, be informed, get involved) and our return on investment is extremely low.

We need to do more than handing out flyers at the county fair. Some communities have been able to find success through partner agencies or organizations that actually do work with the public on a regular basis, which I think is a better formula for success. These agencies and organizations already have an in with a certain portion of the population. They have an established presence, rapport, and reputation. Given that agencies and organizations have different audiences, it is best to engage more than one to ensure the best coverage throughout the community.