Lucien Canton is management 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.

Yet another discussion I’ve had with a few colleagues over the past few weeks highlighting a situation which absolutely needs to be improved upon. On a reasonably regular basis there are laws being considered across the US that directly or indirectly impact emergency management and our interests. In fact, there are more than we are even aware of. From annual budget bills, to bills about pets in disaster, bills impacting inclusion and equity, and bills about the National Disaster Safety Board, there is no shortage – and this is just an example of recent federal legislation. Last year, many state legislatures pushed back hard on the authority of their governors during a disaster. Be it at the federal or state level (or even local level), most of these things, unfortunately, are politicians wielding politics, often with little to no consideration of consequences, intended or otherwise, and the mechanics behind implementation. Emergency managers, on behalf of our own profession as well as the people we serve, MUST be involved.

Unfortunately, we don’t see enough legislative advocacy at state and federal levels. Some organizations claim they do, and I believe them, yet there is little transparency in this. Most states have emergency management associations, with membership composed of emergency managers working in the respective state. Some have active legislative advocacy, others do not. I found a reference from North Dakota State University’s acclaimed Center for Disaster Studies and Emergency Management that provides information on state EM associations. Unfortunately, the document is undated (so frustrating!!!), but I know it is at least a few years old as Vermont’s association is not listed. Most of these state associations don’t post anything publicly about their legislative advocacy work, so we have no idea what they may or may not be involved in.

Tim Riecker is a founding member, partner and principal consultant with Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC, a private consulting firm serving government, businesses, and not for profit organizations in various aspects of emergency and disaster preparedness.

Crisis management is defined as the process undertaken by any organization to prevent, prepare for, and respond to events that threaten to harm people or property, seriously interrupt operations, damage reputation, or impact the bottom line. Crises cost you money, hurt productivity, and can easily threaten the long-term health of your business, especially if you aren’t ready.

All good crisis management efforts go through three core stages — Pre-Crisis (preparedness and prevention), Crisis Response (actually managing the crisis), and Post-Crisis (recovery and analysis, integrating lessons learned).

Engaging in active crisis prevention and being truly prepared to react are the absolute best ways to reduce the impact any given negative situation can have on your organization. This is the stage where you’ll choose your core crisis team, create a formal crisis management plan, train your people, and start to put crisis-related policies into place in your day-to-day operations. Thorough crisis management plans should include specific crisis communications instructions, and in many cases risk assessment, business continuity, and emergency management planning as well. The piece most often missed in this step is training. Sometimes, and for a variety of reasons, organizations will complete full crisis plans but never engage in training on crisis team roles or actual use of the plan. Unfortunately this means that your execution of the plan in a real-life scenario is bound to be lackluster, and a lack of training often does major harm to what otherwise would be a strong crisis response structure.

Erik Bernstein is President of Bernstein Crisis Management, a specialized firm dedicated to providing holistic strategies for managing crisis situations.