Management/Leadership

How to Survive Tough Times
By David M. Williams, MS
It’s been five years since 9/11, and a lot has changed. Terrorist threat levels are now as common as the traffic report, the traveling public tries everything to squeeze their toiletries into a Ziploc® freezer bag to avoid checking luggage, and emergency services has been reminded it still has a lot of ground to cover before adequately addressing the gaps present in emergency response systems.

Ten Years Later: San Diego Still Sets the Bar for Public-Private Cooperation
The year was 1997. A few large and powerful corporations had taken over many mom-and-pop EMS operations, many fire departments were still weighing the pros and cons of transitioning to ALS, and Oklahoma City was our only point of reference when we considered the role of emergency services in responding to terrorism.

What the IOM Report Means for the Local Leader
The Institute of Medicine (IOM)report lays out three broad recommendations for solving the emergency care crisis and ensuring emergency patients receive the best care possible. These recommendations are:

Hospital CEOs Urged to Eliminate Diversion
EMS has long been seen as the ugly stepchild of both healthcare and public safety. With the publication of the IOM report on emergency care, it’s as if the father finally reached out to his child and said, “You may be ugly, but I love you and need you anyway.”

Walk the Line: How to Be a Change Agent and Survive
In 2003, one year after Jeff Bowman became chief of the San Diego Fire Department, he took a big leadership risk and survived.

Motivate Employees by Meeting Three Basic Desires
Most employees start out motivated, but after about six months, the proverbial honeymoon with their new job is over, and after that, keeping them focused and working hard can be a challenge. Managers are often to blame for the absence of motivation among their charges, according to David Sirota, one of the nation’s leading authorities on employee behavior in the workplace, who with a team of industrial psychologists, has interviewed more than four million employees over 30 years.

Pandemic Flu: Are You Ready?
Preparing for a pandemic flu outbreak is about imagining the unimaginable. Tens of thousands of people becoming ill with a deadly disease, 35 percent of your personnel unable to work, shortages of gasoline and medical supplies, hospitals that are full and can no longer accept critical patients ... it’s an emergency that far exceeds SARS, or 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina.

Improve Your After-Action Reviews by Staying Focused, Applying Lessons Learned
Responders at all levels encountered “significant breakdowns in vital areas such as emergency communications as well as obtaining essential supplies and equipment” following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to a preliminary report released by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) in February.

Manager as Matchmaker: Making the Most of Social Relationships at Work
Have you ever had a firefighter whom everyone wanted to work with despite the fact that the guy didn’t know a halligan bar from a pry axe? Or perhaps you know a paramedic who has a 100 percent intubation rate and gets the IV started the first time every time, but no one wants to partner with her?

After the Hurricanes: Disaster and Logistics Management Lessons from Mississippi Power
By Dennis Cauchon
Melvin Wilson, 46, a marketing manager for Mississippi Power, was reviewing next year’s advertising campaign when Hurricane Katrina turned toward Mississippi. A day later, the marketing man was “director of storm logistics,” responsible for feeding and housing 11,000 repairmen from 24 states and Canada.

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