Effective Communications and Developing a Functional Response Capability – Keys to Saving Lives

"Wade, I want your assurance that an incident like this will never happen again.”

Geez, how do I respond to the Deputy Chief of Mission (second in line to the Ambassador) at my new posting in Mexico City? Only 24 hours prior I had departed Bogota, Colombia where I served as director of the rescue coordination center and worked under the US Embassy’s Chief of Mission authority. I had just begun in-processing at the US Embassy Mexico City on a Monday morning when my newly assigned supervisor collected me up saying, “Let’s go upstairs. The DCM wants to meet you.”

Up in the DCM’s office with a small number of senior embassy staff present, I was immediately introduced to the seriousness and gravity of the situation I had just walked into. Oh yes, I knew the importance of managing a rescue center and saving lives but now in Mexico, I faced an embassy staff that was still reeling from the recent murder of a Federal Agent and the wounding of another, their colleagues. “Game time,” I thought, but knew that we were not playing a game here. The embassy had high expectations, and to them, my arrival represented the instrument that would prevent such catastrophic events from ever occurring again. It wasn’t the pressure of satisfying expectations that caught my attention rather, it was the DCM’s insistence on me giving him my assurance that there would be no further loss of life among embassy personnel. Having come from an environment in Colombia where our rescue center was credited with having helped save more than a thousand lives while participating in over 600 rescue missions, there were, unfortunately, fatalities. Although our efforts were instrumental in saving lives, we suffered our share of losses as well thus, I could not possibly make such a promise to the DCM in Mexico City but did commit to building a capability at the mission that would significantly reduce the probability of experiencing another catastrophic outcome.

My first order of business was to assess the incident involving the two Federal Agents, primarily looking at it from three perspectives: preparation and planning, accountability and communications, and established embassy response protocols. Nevertheless, and for the purpose of writing this article, I will only focus on communications and embassy response protocols. The following is not a criticism of the embassy in general nor any specific USG agency working out of the embassy. Rather, I am writing this article to stress the importance of implementing an effective communications plan and capable response mechanism into your company’s overall travel program. These two tenants of travel will serve your organization well when preventative measures fail, because early recognition that a situation has developed along with possessing a capability to respond immediately and appropriately, are two critical keys to saving lives.

Effective Communications?

“When a call comes in asking for help, the caller’s expectation is that whoever receives the call will immediately render assistance.” Lessons learned from a Rescue Coordination Center Director.

Relative to this incident, one of the two Federal Agents in distress managed to establish cellular telephone contact with personnel from their own organization that were situated within the US Embassy, Mexico City. Ultimately, the distress call made its way from the Federal Agents’ office and over to the Regional Security office, where one of the Assistant Regional Security Officers (ARSO) took lead on the embassy’s response efforts. But not without delays. Ultimately the ARSO, with assistance from many US government agencies present in the embassy, were successful in getting friendly assets to the incident scene and evacuated the two Federal Agents. Tragically, one of the Federal Agents succumbed to his wounds.

I learned that there were a lot of communications going on during this incident, so much so that the victims’ cellular telephones were tied up, which caused difficulties with the ARSO’s attempts to establish a dedicated communications link between the embassy and the distressed. Difficulties in maintaining communications between a responding entity and the distressed causes unnecessary and frustrating delays. As the embassy worked on its response, there were even calls being placed to the distressed by US government officials from Washington, D.C., who simply wanted to learn more about the situation. Their calls only served to tie up the only communications means between the ARSO and the distressed, which was frustrating in that there was nothing anybody in Washington, D.C., could do for the victims. There were many other calls being made and I will say with confidence that in times of duress, the only communications channels that should be functioning are between the distressed and the entity that is working on their response. Calls placed by any other entity adds unnecessary levels of confusion and slows down the overall response. However, and given the US embassy did not possess a Personnel Recovery Center at the time of this incident, communications procedures were not yet defined, and so, just about everybody who was “in the know” about this incident, were using their cellular telephones and tying up key communications channels. The forensic communications chart I developed in the aftermath of this incident looked more like a bowl of spaghetti, which doesn’t bode well for a professional organization that is responsible to maintain accountability and protect its people.

It took quite a bit of effort as there are many Departments and Agencies located inside of the US Embassy Mexico City, but I ultimately managed to establish an incident response mechanism in which all communications with distressed persons would flow directly to the Personnel Recovery Center (PRC). Any other necessary communications channels to the distressed were to be coordinated solely by the PRC. These actions ensured immediate and effective communications as the incident manager began to coordinate a response with select members of the embassy and with appropriate Mexican authorities. Our newly implemented incident communications chart looked rather streamlined and would prove its effectiveness in future incidents.

Response Protocols.

It is one thing to be aware that an incident is unfolding. It is entirely another thing to possess the capability to respond immediately and appropriately when a call comes requesting assistance. During the embassy’s Federal Agent incident in 2011, there was no dedicated or formalized response mechanism at the embassy. Although the ARSO did great work in finally generating a response, there were delays caused by poor communications and multiple agencies performing parallel actions that were not centrally coordinated. All these separate but parallel actions contributed to a scenario of confusion, miscommunication of fact, conflicting instructions given to responding assets, and a slowed, disjointed response.

Recognizing the importance of building a cohesive and collaborative response capability at the embassy, I quickly rolled up my sleeves and began working with the local leadership of all departments and agencies within the embassy and appropriate Mexican government authorities outside of the embassy. Within a matter of months, the US embassy Mexico City possessed a capability to manage incidents effectively and expeditiously by streamlining communications, eliminating parallel yet independent coordination, centralizing response efforts, and by leveraging the willingness of our host nation partners to launch and recover assets on our behalf. These were no small tasks to achieve but given the urgency of our overall situation coupled with the recent Federal Agent catastrophe, I was able to assemble a group of willing partners who were dedicated to preventing life-threatening incidents from occurring altogether. More importantly my embassy partners were now prepared to respond in a unified and cohesive manner whenever prevention failed.

Effective Communications and Response Protocols for Businesses.

So perhaps you are now asking, “how does this story apply to me? To which I will say, if your Company sends employees on work-related travel, your company has a duty of care responsibility to account for, protect, effectively communicate with, and to assist travelers who might become endangered. Corporate leaders or managers must maintain accountability for their travelers and travelers must know how to effectively communicate with their leaders. Too many times I have heard about companies sending their employees on international trips without coordinating a plan to communicate with and account for the traveler. As a former Team Sergeant once told me early in my military career, “Son, bad news doesn’t get any better with time. Tell me the bad news early so I can do something about it - before the situation becomes unmanageable.” Unfortunately, without an effective communications plan, corporate leaders and managers are usually the last to learn that an incident has occurred involving one or more of their employees. Worse, I find that many companies are ill prepared to respond when a traveling employee becomes endangered. As a matter of common practice, most corporate travel policies focus on budgetary constraints and procedures while excluding any advice or instruction for the traveler on what immediate actions to take should a safety of life issue arise. Also unfortunate is that

I usually receive calls for assistance right on the heels of a life-changing or catastrophic incident.

Summary.

In closing, every company that conducts international travel will eventually experience at least one significant, undesirable incident; the outcome of which, usually depends on a company’s level of preparedness and the traveler’s understanding of what immediate actions to take when a situation arises (awareness). No longer a Green Beret or US government employee, my current focus is using my knowledge and experience to assist corporations in better protecting their traveling employees and themselves from any further harm or reputational damage that will likely arise on the heels of an undesirable outcome. Specifically, I work with designated corporate leaders and managers to help improve a company’s existing travel policies by incorporating duty of care and safety of life principles, by providing focused and tailored training venues to increase travel awareness, and by helping companies fully develop their capabilities to quickly detect and rapidly respond to developing incidents (awareness) with the ultimate goal of improving the probabilities of a successful outcome should travelers become endangered. You can learn more about our services by visiting us at https://hpglobalconsulting.com and thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Be safe all…