Preparing for the Unexpected

Political Risk and Supply Chain Management are two important topics in today’s world. I talk with the founder of LeanPM LLC and author of “Political Risk Management and the Global Supply Chain”, Ralph Kliem. In our talk we touch on: 1. Defining Political Risk, 2. Political risk drivers, 3. Key components of managing political risk, 4. The risk register and what information it should contain, 5. The skills and knowledge required to manage political risk, 6. Risk reporting and audit, 7. The Political Risk Management Plan, 8. Political biases in political risks, 9. Monitoring the supply chain and maintaining the risk register, 10. Risk triggers, 11. Identify political risks that can impact you supply chain. Ralph offers allot of great insights into political risk, and by understanding and monitoring political risk, you can help manage your supply chain. A great discussion you won’t want to miss. Enjoy!

Resilience is a journey, and I'm joined by longtime Resilience and Business Continuity expert, and author or 'The Continuity Moment Insight: The Catalyst in Your Resilience Journey', Harsha Sastry. During our talk we touch on: 1. The Continuity Moment Insight (Harsha's new book) 2. Resilience as a 'journey', 3. Episodes vs chapters or segments, 4. What Experiments means in resilience, 5. What Relevance means in resilience, 6. Innovation in resilience, 7. Changing perspectives, 8. Seeing the value in business continuity and resilience, 9. Collaboration, 10. The differences between business continuity and resilience, 11. BEIPGAS (you'll have to listen to know how this will help you), 12. What comes first, business continuity or resilience? (I love Harsha's response). Harsha share a wealth of knowledge from his new book, but also from his extensive work experiences. You don't want to miss Harsha's insights and what he has to share. Enjoy!

Risk Management - it's a really hot topic right now. I'm joined by long-time management consultant, the inventor of Applied Information Economics (AIE), and author of 'The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix it', Douglas W Hubbard. During our chat, Douglas talks about: 1. The challenge with Risk Assessments, 2. Probability defined (not as easily defined as you think), 3. Problems with the traditional risk matrix and matrices (sure to surprise you!), 4. Analysis placebo, 5. Using information incorrectly, 6. The long definition and short definition of risk management, 7. The 4 responses to risk action...can be ...a little murky, 8. Risk neutrality, 9. Changes in risk tolerance, 10. Risk and impact, 11. Value Statistical Life (VSL), 12. Tips to chat current risk practices. Effective risk management plays an essential role in effective decision-making. By applying the insights Douglas provides, you'll find yourself (and your organization) making smarter decisions based on techniques that have shown measurable benefit. (Adapted from the back cover sleeve). Enjoy!

I’m joined by recovering lawyer, an SME on national security and disaster preparedness / response, and the author of “How to Not Kill Your Business”, Erika Andresen, CBCP, JD, MPA. We talk about the relationship between Business Continuity and the Legal Team (it’s not what you’re thinking) and how Business Continuity contributes to Community Resilience. We touch on such subjects as: 1. Engaging the Legal Team 2. Regulatory & Compliance 3. The Board and Shareholders 4. Force Majeure issues 5. Building relationships with the legal team (and how they help BCM) 6. Linking BC principles to community resilience 7. Validating and testing plans 8. Community relationships and working together 9. How communities come together during disasters, and the small things that help Erika does a great job of placing new light on Business Continuity by discussing how it can work with the legal team, and how the principles of BC helps to increase community resilience. Some great insights you don’t want to miss. Enjoy!

I talk with award-winning IT, Continuity, Resilience, Risk and Security professional and noted resilience expert, Modebola Olowu. Modebola talks about personal resilience and how we can cultivate a practice the will work effectively at home and in the workplace. We touch on subjects such as: 1. What is resilience and the difference between the workplace and home, 2. Characteristics of personal resilience? 3. The art of Kintsugi? (This is a great analogy for resilience and I urge everyone to go find your gold!!), 4. Cultivating Resilience, 5. The Me Strategy, 6. The Proactive Strategy, 7. The Community Strategy, 8. Crises and their Opportunities, and 9. Ways to identify opportunities in crisis (e.g., change your perspective, find the 'loophole' etc.). It's clear that Modebola is quite passionate about personal resilience, and it comes across during our discussion. With allot of resilience talk focusing on technology, processes, and systems, Modebola teaches us how to take a step back and look at ourselves...our gold. Enjoy!

Today I talk with creative learning and knowledge management specialist, Stephanie Barnes. We talk about a topic that can radically change your workplace for the better increasing employee (and management) creativity and innovation. You might call it radical knowledge management. We touch on: 1. Defining Radical Knowledge Management (RKM) 2. Brainstorming 3. Neuroscience and RKM 4. Creativity 5. Art-based Interventions (ABI) 6. Trust & Resilience 7. Artificial Intelligence 8. How we've had the 'creativity educated out of us' It's a very different way of thinking and a very inspiring way of building teams and lighting that spark of innovation and creativity that many organizational leaders are separately searching for. Don't miss what Stephanie has to say - you won't be disappointed. Enjoy!

I'm joined by award-winning Business Continuity and Crisis Management expert, Charlie Maclean-Bristol, as we talk about building a framework for writing Business Continuity Management (BCM) test objectives, and testing practices overall. Charlie touches on: 1. Testing vs exercising 2. How COVID has impacted testing 3. 4 key components to consider when writing test objectives 4, Testing purpose 5. Measuring success and SMART considerations 6. Pre-test planning 7. Building capabilities 8. Post-exercise assessments, observations, and recommendations What started as a rather short discussion turned into a long chat about testing, and he shares some great insights into how we can improve our own testing capabilities. You don't want to miss Charlie's insights. Enjoy!

This week I'm joined by internationally recognized security intelligence and crisis management professional, and author of 'Strategic Corporate Crisis Management: Buildings an Unconquerable Organization, Brendan Monahan. During our discussion, we touch on: 1. The Plan: expectations, decision-making, delivering value, establishing triggers, assumptions, dealing w/ difficult people, testing/exercising 2. The team: membership, roles/responsibilities, support, policy, characteristics of a well-functioning team, keeping the team going, the often forgotten procurement team, cross-training 3. Resilience: Addressing silos, finding common ground, resilience in crisis mgmt., making connections, and what resilience means to your own organization It's a great discussion with insights that all organization's and professionals will learn valuable insights they can take back to their own places of business and help build that strategic - and tactical - direction needed during crises. Enjoy!

Today I talk with respected Sr. Program Manager and Enterprise Disaster Recovery expert, Ray Holloman, as we talk about tow (2) important subjects in today's business world: 'Disaster Recovery Testing in the Cloud' and 'Translating the Words, Rules, and Regulations of Resilience'. In our first segment we talk about 'Disaster Recovery Testing in the Cloud' and touch on such things as: 1. Testing approaches, 2. Reviewing your contracts and SLAs, 3. How to utilize the Cloud Data Centre/site, 4. How to talk with partners about your Cloud Testing (including audit questions), 5. Validating your needs and expectations...and more. For our second segment we talk about 'Translating the Words, Rules, and Regulations of Resilience' and touch on: 1. The Glossary and Terminology, 2. Understanding the differences in terminology, 3. Understanding regulations, 4. Audit / Compliance partnerships, 5. Characteristics of Resilience...and more. It's a great chat you don't want to miss. Enjoy!

Many organizations face challenges when it comes to applying creating emotional resilience for crisis situations. I speak with a founding member of the UK Psychological Trauma Society, internationally published author, Dr. Liz Royle. Dr. Royle talks to us about: 1. People before 'the plan', 2. People and trauma, 3. Fears, 4. The 3 R's (Resistance, Resilience, Recovery), 5. Crisis Team membership, 6. 'The Ripple Effect', 7. Areas of Risk...and lots more. Dr Royle provides allot of insight into how we can create emotional resilience by creating and utilizing some innovative human recovery processes during crisis situations. Some may believe having a disaster response plan is enough, but there's a human aspect that doesn't seem to get enough attention. Dr. Royle sheds light on what's missing and how we can address it. Enjoy!

Success for individuals, corporations, and communities comes from the creation of great teams. Though teams build success, they can also be misunderstood and under utilized. I talk with ER physician at Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto), award winning host of CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Art and The Dose, and bestselling author Dr. Brian Goldman about his latest book The Power of Teamwork. During our chat, Dr. Goldman talks about: 1. Defining a team vs a group, 2. Leadership, 3. How personalities can compliment a team, 4. The Dark Triad (Machiavellians, Sociopaths, Narcissists), 5. Introverts vs Extroverts, 6. Learning from mistakes (and why some refrain from pointing out mistakes), 7. Feeling unsafe in a team, 8. How to build teamwork (Visual Thanking Strategies, Improve?!?...), 9. The benefits of responding with Yes, and... vs Yes, but... 10. Tips to help kickstart your team building...and so much more. Dr. Goldman does an incredible job of discussing teamwork and how it's more than what many people perceive. He leverages his experience from his medical career to provide teamwork insights that apply to all organizations, industries, communities, and board rooms. You don't want to miss what he has to share. Enjoy!

Resilience - it's not just a buzzword. I talk with long-time respected Risk Management and international security expert, Robert Hall about Resilience. We touch on such things as: 1. Defining resilience 2. The need for societal engagement 3. Leadership 4. Risk 5. Community resilience 6. The UK Governments Resilience Framework (what it is, its strength, it's weaknesses, and it's future) 7. National Resilience 8. Building resilient futures 9. How volunteers can help with preparedness and response...and much more It’s a great conversation with some very interesting perspectives many people, organizations, and community leaders may not be thinking about. Enjoy!

To build resilience, whether in a team or an organization, a person needs to build psychological safety for themselves...but how. I talk with Psychologist, author, and the co-founder of the Academy of Brain-based Leadership (ABL), Dr. Dan Radecki, as we talk about the book he co-authored 'Psychological Safety: The key to happy, high-performing people and teams'. Dr. Radecki talks about: 1. Defining Psychological Safety, 2. The co-pilot (Pre-frontal cortex), 3. Biases (What it really is and how we can manage them), 4. The SAFETY model (Security, Autonomy, Fairness, Esteem, Trust, You), 5. How to build a resilient brain with NETS and TRAIN, 6. Understanding our triggers, 7. How mindfulness helps us with resiliency, 8. Building strong networks for resilience, 9. How to get started building a resilient team...and it's now what you think. Dr Radecki provides some incredible insights into how we can create resilience for ourselves, our organizations, and our communities but starting with ourselves. Enjoy!

The summer of 2023 is shaping up to be a crisis-filled time, so I talk to author, and crisis management expert, Regina Phelps, to make sense of it all. During our talk we touch on: 1. Wildfires and their big impact, 2. What professionals and organizations do to review their plans and responses to the impacts of wildfires (It's more than what you might think), 3. Permacrisis and Polycrisis (Let's face it, crises are here to stay for the foreseeable future), 4. Recent events in Russia and what it might mean for the Ukraine war, 5. Doing business in China (scary considerations), 6. Taiwan and computer chips (and the possible impact of its big neighbor), 7. Understanding the interconnectedness of supply chains and business operations (it's a tough one to get your head around)...and more. Another great chat with Regina about some key topics that impact our organizations during the summer of 2023; the summer of crises. Enjoy!

I’m joined by globally renown resilience team building expert, organizational psychologist, author, and entrepreneur, Kathryn McEwen. Resilience in the workplace is a topic organizations around the globe is tackling, and trying to understand what it really means and how to address it. Kathryn will help us understand this. During our discussion, Kathryn talks about: 1. Defining team resilience, 2. Building personal resilience at work, 3. Building resilient teams, 4. The impact and culture of organizational culture, 5. Measuring resilience, 6. Aligning team resilience with other disciplines (e.g., BCM, Risk, etc.), 7. DE&I...and so much more! Don't miss Kathryn great insights on how to build resilience - in ourselves and in our teams. It's one you don't want to miss. Enjoy!

Operational Resilience has become a major focal point for organizations. Join me as I talk with Fusion Risk Management CEO, Mike Campbell. Mike touches on: 1. Clarifies the confusion between organizational resilience and operations resilience, 2. The importance for organization's to focus on resilience. 3. Various components that make up operational resilience, 4. How an organization can begin to tear down silos (while building up resilience), 5. The new paradigm organization's face with employees working from home, 6. How the traditional 'everyone-back-in-the-office' approach may no longer work going forward, 7. How strong operational resilience can help organizations with decision-making, especially during disasters, crises, and incidents, when the demand for information goes up and the time to provide it goes down. A very enjoyable chat about operational resilience, with lots of insights for leaders. Don't miss it!

Despite what many have been saying, resilience isn't something you can simply state yo are or that an organization can initiate. I'm joined by researcher and author, Dr. Robert Sinclair, who talks about the personal characteristics that can be used to promote resilience. During out chat, Dr Sinclair touches on: 1. Defining resilience (it's more than you think), 2. Capacity for resilience and the Demonstration of resilience, 3. Stressors, 4. Characteristics of resilience, 5. Leadership and resilience, 6. Discuss the POWER model, 7. Organizational participation in creating resilience, 8. The dark side of resilience, 9. Tips for individuals about resilience...and more. Dr Sinclair provides some insight into resilience not many are covering. It's not something you buy off a shelf or simply implement - it's much more personal than that. Enjoy!

To face the scope and threats of the 21st century challenges, today's leaders must possess potent powers for logic, reason, discernment and strategic forecasting. Yet, they must also be empathic and therefore embodied, grounded and intuitive. (From book cover). I'm joined by transformational leadership expert and author or 'Leader to Healer', Nicholas Janni. This is a very inspirational discussion on leadership, and not one many will have considered before. Nicholas touches on: 1. Defining resilience, 2. Being vs Doing. 3. Leader as an Executor vs a Leader as a Healer, 4. Self-awareness, 5, Defining ones purpose (personal and as a group), 6, The importance of emotions, 7. Tips to begin making a transformative change...and more. Nicholas is very inspirational and offers some very interesting insights into how leaders can find answers to some of their challenges - during crises, disasters, and other situations - by looking inwards to make transformative change happen. You don't want to miss this episode. Enjoy!

Today I talk with globally recognized Crisis Management specialist, Regina Phelps. During a very enlightening discussion - intense and scary at times – We talk about: 1. A few comments about COVID being ‘over’ 2. What is a polycrisis? 3. Did 2012 predict today’s troubles? 4. Economic Risks & Impacts 5. Societal Risks & Impacts 6. Geopolitical Risks & Impacts 7. Evacuating Employees from troubled areas 8. Potential global and economic impacts if China attacks Taiwan 9. Expanding the BCM professionals focus As always, a very enlightening discussion with Regina. There are some insights here you do not want to miss. Enjoy!

Preparing for the Unexpected broadcasted live from the Continuity & Resilience Today (CRT) conference in Toronto, November 16 & 17, 2022. This episode captures interview segments we did with 3 conference speakers: 1. Kevin Newman (well-known journalist and anchor), 2. Chloe Demrovsky (President of the Disaster Recovery Institute International), 3. Brock Holowachuk (Past President of the Disaster Recovery Institute Canada). Enjoy!