People – The Greatest Variable in Recovery Exercises
At MHA , we strive to develop and implement a repeatable, successful exercise process. This process is validated throughout the year at many of our clients.
But, even with all the pre-planning, documentation, coordination and facilitation there is one factor we can’t totally eliminate issues with and ensure success and that is “People”.
Even with the best pre-planning and documented exercise task list in-hand, if you can’t ensure your exercise participants will cooperate, work together, think outside the box you and mesh as a unit, you are headed for trouble.
If you are the Exercise Coordinator, you must assess the personalities and eccentricities of those attending the exercise. Know ahead of time what to expect from all of those involved. Get to know each person and how you can maximize their performance.
This is your team and you are the leader.
A good example is a recent exercise we attended.
A staff member of ours, who is very insightful, knew a couple of the team members were more introverted and needed specialized attention to make them comfortable and maximize their potential for success. Others needed to be reined in and clearly told to follow the rules of the game. Make sure there are no silos and people are stepping up to help each other.
Thus recent exercise was one of the best examples of people working together, cooperating, stepping in to help others when needed and taking accountability for success of the exercise.
Yes, we expect success, in each and every exercise and when you set this as the mark to meet at the beginning, you can see a difference in performance.
Know your team, who they are, what makes them tick and how they all fill the right seats of your recovery machine.
Maximize your people and you will maximize the process.
Michael Herrera
Michael Herrera is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MHA. In his role, Michael provides global leadership to the entire set of industry practices and horizontal capabilities within MHA. Under his leadership, MHA has become a leading provider of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services to organizations on a global level. He is also the founder of BCMMETRICS, a leading cloud based tool designed to assess business continuity compliance and residual risk. Michael is a well-known and sought after speaker on Business Continuity issues at local and national contingency planner chapter meetings and conferences. Prior to founding MHA, he was a Regional VP for Bank of America, where he was responsible for Business Continuity across the southwest region.
