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Reviews

"Bruce Blythe has made several presentations for us and invariably our audiences have found him to be engaging, authoritative, and with keen insight into the dynamics of crisis management. Bruce is an excellent speaker and makes his points clearly and effectively."

David D. Dodge, President & CEO PHT Services, Ltd.

"In the burgeoning field of crisis management, Bruce Blythe remains preeminent as both scholar and practitioner. His publications and presentations are notable for being fresh, lucid and insightful. For The Conference Board, he has delivered both formal presentations and served as a facilitator for interactive workshops. In both capacities, he received rave reviews. Mr. Blythe is unusual in his ability to elucidate both theory and practice within the complex and changing arena of crisis management, with particular emphasis on the critical, human dimension. Simply put, he is a national resource at a time when such expertise and experience are desperately needed."

Kempton Dunn, Director, Program Development The Conference Board

"[Bruce Blythe's] book will be a boon to leaders, offering field-tested approaches, development plans and reference tips."

Publisher's Weekly

Books

Speech Topics

Strategic Crisis Leadership: The three fundamentals of leading in a crisis

When serious crises hit, senior management’s responsibilities are to protect the organization’s core assets, e.g., people, reputation, brand, and finances. Most crisis planning, however, focuses only on tactical response. It is vital to the well being of the organization that crisis managers at all levels be prepared to make high-leverage, defining moment decisions when needed. This calls for strong Strategic Crisis Leadership, which involves being the right kind of person during stressful times, knowing what to do to lead effectively, and executing decisions with efficiency. This presentation will provide take-and-use guidelines based on latest crisis leadership research, case histories, and the speaker’s vast Strategic Crisis Leadership consulting experience.

Workplace Violence: Effectively Mitigating Threatening Situations in the Workplace

Corporate managers must utilize an effective and defensible method for handling threats of violence. This includes a defensible workplace violence policy, guidelines on what to do immediately upon initial notification, and field-tested methods for assessing and defusing dangerous situations. A structured and legally compliant documentation method is also a vital component. Unfortunately, many corporate workplace violence programs cannot withstand public and legal scrutiny following a serious violent incident. This presentation provides guidelines for bringing your workplace violence program up to today’s compliance standards, with established best practices for effectiveness and defensibility. Most importantly, this presentation will truly help managers protect the lives of people that they care about in the workplace.

Objectives:

• • Learn take-and-use methods for effectively assessing and defusing threatening situations


• • Understand the components of a structured threat management methodology from initial notification to purposeful disengagement


• • Meet today’s compliance standards in a defensible manner

Hostility Management...in the Workplace and Beyond

In the time it takes you to read this presentation description, an average of 1 murder, 5 rapes, 40-armed robberies, and 60 aggravated assaults will take place in the United States.

In order to effectively manage hostile situations in the workplace or in daily living, you must program your mind as to how you will respond if such a situation should arise. Having a plan will:

• • Help you effectively defuse hostile people and avoid aggression or violence


• • Confidently anticipate the aggressor’s moves for avoidance advantage


• • Allow you to comply with legal and corporate guidelines re: hostility in the workplace

This training program teaches take-and-use strategies for reducing and defusing verbal and physical hostility through a variety of communication skills, spacing principles and escape responses. During this program you will:

• • Learn usable methods and strategies for reducing and defusing hostile behavior


• • Better understand and manage the mindset of potentially violent individuals


• • Develop a plan for effectively handling threatening situations within various levels of severity

Crisis Management: Negligent Failure to Plan

Bomb blasts, natural disasters, or even ethical misconduct claims – the myriad of potential incidents has expanded, and yet planning for crisis remains largely under prepared. An employer that fails to take reasonable steps to prepare may be the target of an emerging concept of liability, now labeled Negligent Crisis Planning.


It is the obligation and duty of management to be prepared for crises and protect the core assets of the organization, e.g., people, reputation and finances. The impact of a crisis can affect the shareholders, employees, and the organization itself; even the community. Management is now fully responsible for preventing crises whenever humanly possible, and to be prepared to respond effectively if serious crises occur.


Key strategies for minimizing the impact of foreseeable risks will be addressed. Learn how to become effectively and defensibly prepared at the strategic and tactical levels. Valuable take-and-use methods for preventing and responding to crises of all types will be addressed.


Issues to be covered:

• • Assessing the defensibility of your Crisis Preparedness Program


• • Best practices in crisis management


• • Positioning your organization to respond effectively and responsibly when crises hit

Managing Disaster-Related Behaviors

Existing crisis response plans don't account for how people would truly behave during disasters. Following the widespread directives for employees not to evacuate the World Trade Center in 2001 as precedent, recent studies have shown that many people are unlikely to follow crisis related directives by management and authorities. Examples include the multitudes people who did not evacuate New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, even when they had a chance . . . or employees who ignore fire alarms in their workplace. A study funded by the Kellogg Foundation revealed that 11% of employees would flee, even if told to shelter-in-place should a dirty bomb go off in the nearby vicinity of their building. Further, they found that 75% of Americans would not comply with an immediate recommendation to get a vaccination at a clinic at the onset of a Smallpox outbreak. This presentation will provide take-and-use management methods for increasing the likelihood that the workforce will comply with management's disaster related directives (before, during and after serious crisis incidents).

The Human Side of Crisis Response: Best Practice Components of a Crisis-Related Human Impact Program

In its simplest form, crisis management is about effectively addressing the needs and concerns of impacted people. When stakeholders perceive that the company isn't meeting their needs or doesn’t care, human-related complications and barriers to crisis resolution will arise, e.g., misunderstandings, hostilities, outrage, fear, revenge and blame.

The top lesson learned from 9/11, to the Indonesia Tsunami, to Hurricane Katrina has been that companies weren’t prepared to address the human-side of crisis. Effective preparedness and response for the human-side of catastrophe management is absolutely vital component for crisis recovery. In addition, NFPA 1600 (Section 3.3) requires that corporate crisis preparedness include not only damage assessment and mitigation for economic resources and physical assets, but also for people impacted by disasters. So, what can a company do to assure they are prepared to meet the needs of impacted stakeholders during serious crises from Avian Flu pandemic to workplace violence? Take-and-use concepts and guidelines will be provided to equip attendees in better addressing the needs of impacted stakeholders who may be adversely affected by crisis incidents. Best practice components for a corporate crisis-related Human Impact Program will be highlighted.