Archive
New Testimonial from Alan Weiss
Thankful to Alan Weiss for this new testimonial…
© 2-13 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
May Day Precautions and Prevention Lessons
I will never forget last year’s May Day protests. My wife Barb and I were in New York City and sat in Bryant Park watching protesters peacefully march with signs around the Big Apple. The New York City Police were out in force, looked serious about their jobs, and everyone stayed cool, calm, and collected. We never felt like we were in danger, nor felt fearful. Imagine our surprise when we returned to our hotel and saw our very own Seattle on the news. May Day riots were out of control in the downtown area with protesters smashing windows and setting cars on fires. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Here I was safe and sound in one of the biggest cities in the world, and my relatively small hometown was being ravaged.
This year, things are different. The police have already started preparations and are sure not to be caught flat-footed again. In addition, businesses are being much smarter. I just saw a push notification on my phone indicating that US Bank in downtown Seattle was closing up shop at 3 pm due to the expected protests. They made a decision in the best interest of their customers and employees. While they might not be able to prevent damage to their building, they do have control over the people they serve and employ. While it might be a slight disruption for customers, my guess is that it pales in comparison to anyone being injured.
The lesson for you as a business owner is this…
You need to learn from history. I can’t tell you how many times in my years as an insurance agent and consultant, where I have seen business owners ignore history and trends to their detriment. For example, if you have a fleet of cars that continually racks up rear-end accidents, and you take no preventative action to educate and/or discipline your drivers, you will fall victim to larger self insurance costs, higher premiums, and loss of production and revenue. In this case today, US bank knows it’s located right in the heart of the rally. They know that banks are a target. They saw what happened last year. They made a decision to avoid calamity in the places they can control. Kudos to them.
You need to be skilled at spotting trends. If you have a strong, professional relationship with your insurance agent, they should help you. This is an area that consultants are invaluable. The net result of learning from history is that you don’t repeat the bad stuff; only the good stuff! At least one business in downtown Seattle has figured it out. Have you in your business?
© 2013 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Crisis Prevention, Planning, and Response
I just got done speaking to a tremendous group of women business owners and executives in New Jersey. They just went through a devastating storm last October that was unprecedented in its impact to communications, transportation, and power loss. We spoke about that storm, as well as other crises that can impact their businesses like – loss of power, data breach, and employee issues.
Here is what I heard loud and clear from them…
- They want to improve their ability to communicate to employees and customers in a crisis. That means setting up layers of redundancy in case of loss of power, email, cell phones, or whatever other methods are being used.
- They want a plan that is in place to deal with any crisis that comes around the bend. It must be something that is repeatable, intentional, and practiced.
- Speaking of practice, most business owners and executives rarely set out practice plans (i.e. fire drills or corporate war game scenarios). How do you know it works if you never practice?
My recommendation is to set up a 3-step process for disaster planning…
Step 1 – Set a budget to include insurance premiums, outside consulting help, technology, and internal controls. This will be different for everyone due to insurance premiums, number of employees, and perils.
Step 2 – Go through disaster and crisis prevention response and planning. Allocate at least 8 hours out of an entire year to do this and re-commit annually.
Step 3 – Buy the insurance, monitor your plan, then relax and do what you do best in your business.
You can drive yourself crazy and easily drift into analysis paralysis if you allow yourself to. Make the process simple and move forward. The problem for most businesses is that they never spend the fraction of the time they need to prepare. Doing this little process by itself may save you tens of thousands of dollars, if not more.
© 2013 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Foresight 20/20 Video Series: Episode #2 – Lost in Cyberspace
Cyber crime is a huge peril that often gets overlooked by business owners and executives. This episode will focus on steps you can take to prevent a crisis dealing with the volatile world of technology.
© 2013 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Avoiding the Dreaded Nose in the Rear
A funny thing happened on the way to the living room.
My mother occasionally uses a wheelchair to move back and forth from the bathroom to the living room, and I’m the chauffeur. As we took the straightaway down the hall, Captain Jack and Bella burst in front of the wheelchair and made a beeline to the living room, obviously in a hurry to claim their favorite spots.
Bella was in front with Jack in close pursuit. As the entry into the living room came up, Bella put on the breaks to make the corner. Jack was following too closely and couldn’t stop. BANG! Captain Jack’s nose smacked Bella right in the rear and catapulted her about half a foot and she skidded into the living room. Jack shook off his nose and as he entered the living room, Bella greeted him with an indignant WOOF and a right cross (which narrowly missed the good Captain).
Funniest thing I’ve seen in awhile. I wish I could have captured it in video, but those things rarely do. My first thought – following too closely and road rage!
Rear end accidents happen every day on our roads, and the main reason is following too closely. If you’re business includes sending people out into the roadways driving huge machines with the capability of destruction and your company name on the side, then you’d better do your due diligence on prevention…
- Make sure you consistently train your employees on safe driving practices. Yes, they will get tired of hearing it but who cares. Keep pounding in the message and make sure they sign off that they heard it.
- Run Motor Vehicle Reports every year on any driver – both personal and commercial. If your driver has a Commercial Drivers License, they are required to tell you if they pick up any ticket, even one when driving on personal time.
- Set up a mentoring program for new drivers. Use veterans to ride with them, observe them, and mentor them. Offer incentives to the mentors based on results. Now everybody has skin in the game and you are the benefactor.
Bottom line – you CAN prevent auto accidents. You CAN avoid all the hidden costs that come with accidents. And, if you overlook this part, its more your fault when accidents occur.
If you take the time to committing to your drivers proactively, you will save tens of thousands of dollars because the accident just simply never occurs. You can’t measure that, but take my word for it. You’d rather not have accidents and keep the money in your pocket.
© 2013. Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Foresight 20/20 Episode #1 – Who Do You Love?
© 2013 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Crisis Case Study: The Shot in the Dark
This is in the category of the “You never know what can happen” in your business.
The local news led off with a story about an assisted living facility in a small rural area north of Seattle having a shooting on site. It seems that a facility manager got in an argument with an 86-year old resident. The elderly man went back to his room, got a gun and went and shot the manager in the stomach. It appears that the manager, who was immediately rushed to the hospital, will survive. The 86-year old is in jail. A tragic story for all involved.
This blog post has nothing to do about gun control, the response by the staff, mental health, or elderly care. It solely is a study that you can never know what unbelievable event can occur at your business. Who could imagine an 86-year old man going back to his room after an argument to get a gun and shoot his adversary? That only happens with inner city gangs, right? Wrong.
Have you trained your employees to be prepared for any event that could suspend operations, involve a 911 emergency call, or damage the company reputation? If you haven’t, you’re not alone. However, the company you keep is dangerous to your health. Not being prepared to deal with a crisis will cost your business huge revenues, loads of stress and anxiety, bad media coverage, and reduced morale. I estimate that even a minor crisis will cost the average small business $75,000 in hidden costs. That means even if you have insurance, this comes straight out of your pocket! It pays to be prepared…
I have an upcoming webinar to help small businesses anticipate, prevent, and be prepared to respond to crisis. It’s a small investment to make to arm your business with the strategy and techniques it needs to avoid a crisis and respond when one does occur. The webinar will be recorded so even if you can’t make it live, you will gain the benefit of the tools.
Click here to join us on February 22nd.
© 2013 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Crisis Case Study: When The Lights Go Out in the Stadium…
In the biggest stage of the year, one of the worst possible things that could happen did. Someone leaned up against the light switch panel and turned off the lights to the Mercedes Superdome.
This was a crisis for many different groups. With millions of people tuned in from around the world; with advertisers spending millions of dollars on commercials; and with your reputation on the line for future events; how exactly do you deal with the situation?
Here is my report card for the major players involved…
The Superdome staff (A-) – To go from lights out to lights on in less than 35 minutes is actually pretty good. To do so with the pressure of the world watching is remarkable. Certainly, a power failure was a known peril for the facility management leadership. This is an area that they are trained on and have protocol. You’d think it would be a no-brainer, right? Not so fast. People are trained at CPR yet having to respond in the heat of the moment is another matter entirely. This staff had to deal with coaches yelling at them, television crews freaking out, 80, 000 patrons, and hundreds of social media bloggers making fun of them. I wasn’t there to watch it unfold nor know all the details of communications. Bottom line is that they went from crisis to game on in the amount of time a pizza could be delivered to your house for the 2nd half. That’s a win.
CBS Sports (C+) – Lead broadcasters Jim Nantz and Phil Simms were part of the block of lights that went blooey ( a technical crisis term), so they were off the grid. Based on not hearing sideline reporter Solomon Wilcots, I’m guessing he was down, too. That left the other sideline reporter Steve Tasker with the task of pulling it together as they got the studio guys miked up and ready. Tasker was a little like the deer in the headlights at first, basically telling us things we already knew, like the lights were out. I’m guessing he hasn’t been overly prepped in being creative in the pinch, and he was adequate. The studio team was worse. They should have been better able to talk us through the delay as they are the ones being paid the big bucks. They were okay, but boring. My guess is they were busy eating some Cajun cuisine after watching Beyonce entertain at halftime That’s not good enough from them and Tasker being adequate kept them from falling to a lower grade. I have to believe that loss of power must be discussed as a crisis strategy by network big wigs. It didn’t appear that they were as well prepared as they could have been.
The Teams – Baltimore (D), San Francisco (A) – In the span of about 7 football minutes, the Ravens went from being up 28-6 to being up 28-23. It’s like when the lights flipped back on, so did the 49′ers. The Ravens ended up winning the game, but it took them a long time to find themselves again. One of the things an announcer did say was that these guys are professionals and it shouldn’t affect them. Wrong. I doubt that NFL players are prepared for this and let’s face it, most of these guys are pretty young. The momentum the Ravens did have dissipated quickly and the 49′ers players took a deep breath and charged on. Baltimore needed every bit of that lead to overcome what they lost mentally in that 34 minutes. Maybe they had ordered pizza and champagne for their celebration and forgot there was still a half of football to play!
What’s this mean for you? If you own or run a business, you need power and connectivity. And you need it almost always. If the Superdome can lose power during the Super Bowl, you can lose power at a most inopportune time, too. How is your team trained to handle it?
- Will they rise to the occasion like the Superdome staff and get back to full operations immediately?
- Will your partners who handle utility services and disaster recovery be able to help you where you can’t help yourself?
- Will they be like deer in headlights or will they take charge? How do you know?
- Will they respond like the Ravens and come out flat and bewildered or be like the 49′ers who found opportunity in the midst of chaos?
The only way to be sure is to have a plan, practice and test it, and continually monitor and strive to improve it. That’s how you build a championship team in any situation.
© 2013 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Crisis Case Study #2
Just yesterday, a shooter in a Portland, OR shopping mall opened fire with a gun and randomly killed two people and injured another. This type of shooting spree has become all too familiar in this country and around the world. The devastation, carnage, and terror are unimaginable.
As a case study for business, it brings up the need to know how to respond for your employees and your customers. This is a crisis that gets overlooked often when strategizing about insurance or risk management. Why? Because it is virtually unthinkable for most people. You would never think it would happen to you. I’m certain that this shopping mall and the businesses in it never expected it to happen. This is a small suburb of Portland…not even in the city. How do they deal with it?
Here are lessons to take away for you as a business owner. These lessons are more global than just a crazed shooter. These can apply to anything that is immediately dangerous be it a chemical spill, a workplace violence incident, a fire, or any other type of crisis…
1. Know what to do in real-time to keep your customers and employees safe. This should be known in advance, be communicated to all employees, and be practiced. You can’t expect people to know what to do if you’ve never told them or had them practice. This first “lesson” is the most important and the most missed.
2. Have an escape route. Know ways to escape and where to meet up.
3. Use technology to your advantage. Text messages, email, and instant messaging may save someone’s life or keep them away from danger.
4. Make sure all your employees are trained in CPR/First Aid. You read that correctly…ALL. Have an automatic defibrillator on site just in case.
5. Have a plan to make sure everyone is accounted for after the crisis is over.
6. Have a plan to inform families of how their loved ones are. This isn’t easy. Hopefully, the calls are that everyone is safe. Sometimes they are not. Who is making that call?
7. Have someone available to deal with the media. They should be well spoken, empathetic, and practiced in the art of dealing with difficult messages. This is another area most small businesses fall woefully short. The damage from a bad interview or being misquoted can have devastating effects on your reputation.
8. Train your employees on what not to say in the event of a crisis. There should only be one voice and that is the person I listed above. This makes it easier to avoid misinformation. Be careful with social media. Warn your employees not to get involved with the nose and chatter because it could come back to haunt you.
Bottom line – Nobody wants a crisis like what happened at the Clackamas Mall last night. As I said before, it’s virtually unthinkable. Yet here we are, whether in Portland or Aurora, CO. These incidents are horrible and they devastate lives and families. You as a business owner have a duty and obligation to take care of your “family.” Make sure you do the pre-work that is needed to minimize the damage if it does happen. It will be time well invested.
© 2012 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Crisis Case Study #1
What happens when you lose someone from your team? How much more tragic is it when it happens on site?
This past weekend, two NFL teams have had to deal with this. In Kansas City, one of the Chiefs players committed suicide by shooting himself at the facility in front of the general manager and coach, and just days before the next scheduled game. In Cleveland, a member of the Browns ground crew committed suicide at the team’s facility. The death of an employee, especially when they take their own life on site, can have a hugely detrimental impact on the rest of the organization. What if that happened in your organization? Are you prepared to deal with it? How do you know?
This past year, one of my clients lost an employee on site due to a heart attack. To add to it, the spouse worked there and was on site at the time. Last year, a Rotarian friend of mine who owned an auto repair shop had a heart attack and died. His employees tried in vain to give him CPR.
Too many of you think of crisis in the forms of fire, theft, and natural disasters. A workplace death, especially during working hours, can be as big a crisis as you can face. Knowing what to do in advance helps you, your employees, and your organization.
© 2012 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
