More than 615,000 people signed up for ShakeOut, which ran at 1.30pm today. That’s a huge number! NEMA’s framing for it was athletic. Its Deputy Chief Executive Emergency Management, John Price, says that just as athletes build confidence and capability through practice, “we need to rehearse the right actions until…
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You can’t tell people to calm down. Give the arousal a better job.
I am ashamed to admit I have, more than once, committed the egregious social, intimate relationship, workplace relationship, and parental sin, of telling someone in full sympathetic nervous system arousal, that they should just calm down. You may throw tomatoes, and possibly soft apples, now. It is possibly the least…
Birth order, labels, and how your team performs
A couple of weeks ago I was talking personality with a group of Emergency Managers. They’d recently completed a five factor questionnaire for me as part of a week-long residential programme they were attending. We were discussing how this information could feed into their work in teams, with new teams…
It’s hard to learn to swim on land. If the real job happens under pressure, some of the training should too
It’s very hard to learn to swim on land. At some point, sooner than later, ya gotta get in the water. I recently participated in a simulation with emergency managers, while they learned by engaging in a deliberately chaotic scenario. Fun, practical, and very, very useful. As an observer, it…
The most expert move under pressure might be to stop trusting your memory
Experts are supposed to know what they’re doing. Right? I think that’s fair. They’re experts after all. What I think we do though, is stretch that further than it should go. One way we do this is to think that ‘experts have deep knowledge and skill’ means ‘experts should know…
A lawyer said her team shouldn’t get sick?
I read an article in the New Zealand Herald about a senior New Zealand lawyer who reportedly told her junior staff they didn’t need sick days, because theirs wasn’t a physical job. When one of them reported a high fever, she apparently suggested it was psychosomatic. You may have seen…
Why couldn’t I think of it at the time?
“But I know this! Why couldn’t I think of it at the time!!” I’ve said versions of this in my head, and occasionally aloud. I’ve heard if after difficult meetings, during clinical events, presentations, and negotiations. You’ve probably heard versions of it too. Basically, someone competent (like you and me,…
Apparently, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption
Apparently, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption. At least, that’s the rule according to wellbeing programmes, slide decks I’ve seen, the occasional HR newsletter and, perhaps, presentations you’ve sat through yourself. Fast Company ran the 23 minute version in 2013. The Washington Post covered…
What happens to decisions under sustained stress?
I was working with a group of Public Information Managers recently who are in the emergency response space, What a great group of people from across the Canterbury region, and across a range of organisations. Completely dedicated to their work. In brief, I was talking about how cognitive performance degrades…
Mental Health First Aid is not a psychosocial risk strategy
Training mental health first aiders might tick a box intended to sit in a different column, but will not change workload, rosters, communication, role clarity, management styles, leadership, or other factors that we might roll into psychosocial risk. ‘Number of people who attended MHFA’, or ‘20% completed, 35% scheduled within…