As government builds emergency response and continuity plans, business continuity (BC) planning must develop with common goals in order for the community as a whole to benefit. Barry Dorn, associate director of the Program for Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Harvard University School of Public Health, said it best at a recent public-private partnership executive roundtable in Boston: "A disaster is not the time to exchange business cards."
Strengthening Boston's Partnerships
Boston's Local Emergency Planning Committee, in partnership with the Boston Fire Department and the NFPA, hosted a business continuity seminar for all committee members to encourage BC planning. The seminar was led by Donald Schmidt, chairman of the NFPA Technical Committee on Emergency Management and Business Continuity, and attended by a cross section of the city's leadership teams in the medical field, higher education, energy service providers, manufacturing, and government agencies at the local, state and federal levels.
"It's great when the public sector takes the lead and invites the private sector in," Schmidt said. "It builds stronger relationships and understanding." Following this seminar, many of the organizations sent representatives to a NFPA 1600 professional development seminar for more in-depth training on BC planning and emergency preparedness. "Using the introductory seminar to encourage businesses to attend the NFPA technical seminar was very successful. We hope to use this as a model to encourage future [business continuity] planning initiatives," said Donald McGough, Boston's director of emergency preparedness.
Boston initiated a study to serve as a blueprint for furthering cooperation, communication and coordination between local government and the private sector. CENTRA Technology presented the final report, Building Partnerships for Security with Boston's Largest Employers. This report built on the premise that the city and its biggest employers must improve coordination and communication to improve the city's public-private partnerships, with respect to emergency management, and government and business continuity planning. CENTRA conducted a series of meetings with key stakeholders across the city to assess the private sector needs and interests, identify gaps in the current process, develop recommendations based on those findings and incorporate identified best practices that could be used to improve Boston's programs.
Better communications between the Mayor's Office of Emergency Preparedness and the business community was one of the most pressing needs identified and one of the recommendations the city started working on immediately. Although most large companies and nonprofit organizations have direct contact with specific city departments on a routine basis -- such as fire, police and the Office of Emergency Preparedness -- the study recommended formalizing these relationships to provide for better flow of information. As one stakeholder asked, "What does the public sector want the private sector to do in an emergency?"
Summit Unites Entities
To further this process, Menino hosted the Meta-Leadership Summit for Preparedness in Boston to build relationships with business and nonprofit leadership in the city, with a focus on preparation for large-scale emergencies. The Meta-Leadership Summit is a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC's Foundation, Harvard University's National Preparedness Leadership Initiative and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It's designed to bring government, business and nonprofit organizations together to work more closely and better respond during an emergency.
According to the summit's Web site, meta-leadership challenges individuals to think and act cooperatively across organizations and sectors. Meta-leaders operate outside of their traditional professional boundaries by providing inspiration, guidance and momentum to cross organizational lines. The summit was many participants' first exposure to the concept of meta-leadership.
To ensure maximum participation in the Meta-Leadership Summit, the mayor hosted an executive roundtable four weeks before the summit. The roundtable focused on public-private partnerships, introduced participants to the concepts behind the summit and stressed its importance to the city. The roundtable discussion was led by Harvard University's Dorn and Leonard Marcus, co-director of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, Harvard School of Public Health.
The summit agenda began with an afternoon orientation, followed by a networking reception where the invitees made connections with other leaders, discussed the upcoming summit and its objectives and got to know one another on a personal level. The summit opened the next morning with welcoming remarks by Menino, followed by a full day of topics, such as leadership, making connections, building networks and where to go with these concepts after the summit concluded. The summit provided an exceptional opportunity for leaders from across the city to learn and work together with a specific goal and a combined vision. Additionally it was an opportunity to connect with those people who will be partners when real emergencies occur, and before government needs to reach out to the community for assistance.
"In Boston, like all communities across the nation, the private sector owns most of our critical infrastructure, employs most of our work force, and provides most of our essential goods and services," Menino said. "For this reason, it is vital to our overall preparedness and resilience." The roundtable was important in engaging the intended participants and demonstrating why their participation in the summit was important and what they could learn to make them better leaders in their respective fields.
Continuing the momentum that has been built is the next challenge. Developing more opportunities for training, planning, and development initiatives that will engage all stakeholders can maximize the progress made and improve processes going forward.
