1. You talk about learning how to “fail safely” in your new book, “The Devil Never Sleeps.” Tell us what this means.
In the book, I explore centuries of disasters and provide leaders with universal lessons that we can learn from. We tend to think of each disaster as a random fluke, but there is a lot of familiarity and connective tissue that links them. If we can learn to fail safely – to take those lessons of disaster management gleaned from both success and horror stories – we can measure success by whether things were “less bad” because of our investments.
2. What are some initial steps we can take to start preparing for a world with more frequent disasters?
During the book tour, someone asked me what the difference was between being paranoid and being prepared. My answer? Perfection. You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to prepare for every contingency. But there are basic investments that I outline that can provide lessons to leadership on the corporate, board, institutional and personal level. These are lessons from my own career in this space and from history.
The first of these lessons is the title of the first chapter: “Get Your Head Around It.” In other words, begin to view disaster and crisis management as standard operating procedure. Embed emergency and crisis response into the fabric of your company or institution.
Second, have very strong situational awareness capacity. I’ve found leaders often make bad decisions simply because they are unaware of what’s going on, rather than through malice or maleficence. You can take steps to change that.
