Purposeful Dialogue: Have a Goal for Your Communication
A Story
[Note: The full document Strengthening Purposeful Dialogue: A Handbook Of Guiding Principles, Protocols, and Strategies is available for download.]
DISASTER RESPONSE AT COM-FSM
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a Tsunami Warning to expect tidal waves to hit Pohnpei Island in two hours. Administration decided to call off work and classes and send everyone home to secure their homes and families. The students were asked to find means of transportation to leave the campus and go home. All vacated the campus in less than one hour. The security car went around using their loud speaker and warned everyone still on campus to leave. Bullhorns were used from the administration and other buildings to direct everyone to leave.
One hour later the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center called off the warning. The college’s Emergency Management Team reviewed the response determined that it was a mistake to ask people to leave the campus.
- It seemed the primary goal of communication was to clear the campus even though it was the safest place to be in a tsunami. Both the gymnasium and the library were already designated as safe places on campus during a typhoon.
- The college might possibly have been sending people living near the shore to a place of greater danger, especially in the forecast two-hour period and even more especially given the nature of the road from the college to Kolonia.
At the same time, local authorities may have already been evacuating family members from low-lying areas because of the higher risk of danger in such areas. The potential for chaos was extremely high. Such a scenario happened in Saipan during the 2011 warning that followed the Japan tsunami.
Protocol
Think strategically about your communications and be sure they have the appropriate goal(s). Establish the goal(s) ahead of time, phrase them in action language, develop communication strategies to achieve each goal.
Strategies
In this case perhaps the communication should have had as its goals some of the following:
- Account for the safety and location of all employees and students on campus.
- Coordinate communication with other Emergency Management units.
- Coordinate communication with all campuses.
- Provide ways for students and employees to communicate with their families and loved ones.
- Achieve all emergency response goals within a specified number of minutes.
Creating goals should lead to a strategy (or strategies) for successful communication. That approach is especially critical in emergencies or high-stress situations because people do not process information as well as they would in normal circumstances. For example, if this was the first time students got such a message through campus security using bullhorns, might it induce as much panic as it would a safe response? Also in this case, thinking strategically about how to communicate might involve multiple layers of such communication:
A Model for Using Goals to Develop Communication
- Clear signage marking buildings as emergency shelters.
- The same emergency message sent through multiple media: Facebook, email, radio, prerecorded automated telephone, email and electronic message board.
- Illustrated posters displayed in high traffic areas that preview the steps to take in a given emergency.
- Regular emergency practice drills so that people have some familiarity with what might occur and what message might be received.
- After-action review of both drills and real emergencies to determine what modes of communication worked best.
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