Funny word. Not funny ha ha. Funny in the sense that in the security, risk and emergency management world there seems to be a lot of it. Almost contradictory on some level. Somewhere in the back of minds of many is a wish that during an emergency event, a highly sensitive security situation or where risk to persons, business, property and/or reputation that we don’t feel the need to interpret the instructions or guidance we’ve been given to respond appropriately for the situation at hand.
Of course the root of the word is interpret.
in·ter·pret
Verb
-
Explain the meaning of (information, words, or actions)
So that could be anything and everything from what your plans says, what your supervisor or responding emergency services authority said to you or others or what you think you saw someone else do and so on.
Let’s not forget what got you there in the first place. You interpreted the need for a threat risk assessment which led you down a path that you and maybe your colleagues and supervisor thought a full emergency response plan was needed.
You proposed that the amount of time and cost associated with such a venture would cost X$. Your manager thought it didn’t need to be so robust and felt a couple of the procedures could be removed bringing it down to Y$.
The executive team reviewed the idea and again and saw it a little differently. It was a more “compact precise plan” in their eyes only costing A$.
So the plan rolls out. An incident occurs which unfortunately you didn’t have a complete procedure on but a couple that slightly referenced this type of incident. The costs associated are 10 times the amount if not more of the original proposal of X$. The reputation impact is still being calculated and really won’t be known for some time.
Your legal team actually thinks that once it gets settled in court it’s going to cost more. The judge presiding interprets the reasons why your organization did or didn’t do something slightly differently impacting your organization with orders from the bench to rectify this concern moving forward. And yes that costs money.
So with all of the various interpretations along the way, could all of this possibly been prevented? I wish. The answer is most likely no, but the impact of sitting back and taking into account all of the interpretations and the best worst case scenarios helps.
Plan the Work. Work the Plan.