I support the plan and accept the risk...

I Support the Plan & Accept the Risk...

This sign-off for disaster planning team meetings is an accountability measure that the "Incident

Even when you're little...you
can have a plan that you 
understand and support.

Commander" or person responsible for the whole thing approves the team's plan as presented...and accepts the inherent risk.  In supporting the plan, each of the section leaders makes the same affirmation verbally - a statement that, for better or worse, we're all in this together.  In a disaster response or family life, there is risk.  Period.  We, as disaster managers work to mitigate, reduce, shift, or otherwise minimize the risk as best as possible.  The reality is, no matter how hard we try, disaster work presents challenges and inherent residual (after our controls are implemented) risks...so does family life.  Hopefully, for most of the families out there the risks you face are far from those faced in a disaster environment...but no less significant in their ramifications.  

Sometimes the plan
is just to find a 
snuggy spot and 
snooze.

For our families, life requires planning...planning for marriage, for kids, for finances, for careers, for everything.  Too often, we do our planning around the event (wedding, birth, job interview) and not on the long-lasting "so what" parts of our life.  When we talk about those planning items we often need to systemize them and use consistent processes to understand the risks and how to best approach our courses of action for maximizing success.  In marriage, as an example, we know from statistics what many of the risks are to "splitting the sheets" as a friend recently put it.  Money troubles, infidelity, bad decision-making, impulsive commitments, and others all lead in the big league break-apart categories of analyzed divorce stats.  Looking at the root causes, truly unpacking, and understanding the risks, we can see a theme in those examples that all revolves around communication.  Gaining and maintaining, "gaintain" if you will, clarity in communication is part of our commitment by "supporting the plan and accepting the risk."  

Halloween candy route
planning...check!

Another key part of being able to honestly "support the plan and accept the risk" is to truly understand
the reality, not just our perception of it.  We often find what we look for or see what we want to see.  In sizing up the situation, gathering a common operating picture (COP) of our situation awareness (SA) is critical.  This "SA" or "COP" is directly related to our setting of accurate and shared expectations as a family...and most of our "sadnesses" in life are directly related to our unmet or unrealistic expectations, not our actual circumstances.  In family life, the "COP" can take the shape of a shared calendar, family budget, chore responsibilities list, or other tools that get us singing from the same sheet of music.  

Managing chaos, can
with practice become
a system like the 
scientific process.

Mica Endsley helped define Situational Awareness as "the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of the meaning, and projection of their status in the near future."  Similar to the OODA loop or RPDM models (links below), Mica's SA model in stages of Perception, Comprehension, and Projection.  FEMA in their Lifelines calls this "What," "So What," "Now What" and "What's Next."  Research indicates that perhaps the most important phase and most messed up phase is "perception" where we miss seeing or see the wrong thing.  

We need to try to get to "pentimento" or our ability to see "the underlying image, often hidden to the eye or overlooked during the initial view."  In a firefighting context, we can see without "seeing."  When you roll up to the house on fire, we can see the fire coming out of it...we can also "see" if there are kids based on stuff in the front yard, if folks are likely to be in there based on time of day/vehicles in the driveway, etc.  We should, over time, be able to sense or perceive when we ask our spouse how their day was and they say "fine" that it might have been anything but...and we should follow up with more questions.  In order to "support the plan and accept the risk," we've got to be able to see the situation clearly by employing observation and sense-making skills.  

Sometimes you 
just have to suck
it in and press
forward.

Another piece of being a team player in this space we call life is that it's dynamic.  Our plan for a big fire might be to stop it at the highway...sometimes the fire doesn't support the plan and races right past our best-laid intentions.  Just like in life, we have to recognize that our situations are dynamic and don't live in a vacuum.  Over time, it's important to use our gained situational awareness to refine our plan against the current risks and landscape.  Your plan to take a gap year road trip and see all 50 states may get derailed when sickness enters your family...time for a new plan...that's the commitment of the team, to lean in and support the plan/accept the risks in more than lip service.  

Among many other factors, we'll wrap up with our commitment to the journey as part of our ability to support the plan and accept the risk.  The verbal affirmation as a meeting sign-off, whether at home or at a disaster, implies that you're willing, ready, and able to contribute your resources to support the plan - you've got skin in the game and a vested interest to see the team win.  This means that you're going to lean in with your actions, look for problems/gaps, identify solutions, and sacrifice for the good of the whole.  It also means when we say "accept the risk" that, for better or worse, we're in this as a team.  When we take our marriage vows, we hopefully have thought through and communicated a plan that will (a) get us to the finish line successfully and (b) that we're fully able/willing to support.  It also means, that over the years, we're going to identify, mitigate, and take ownership when the risk swamps our ship.  

Supporting
the plan is 
worth it!

Hopefully, the parables in this post landed with you and you can move forward applying the principles to your own family life.  In disaster management or family life, our commitment to "support the plan and accept the risk" needs to be far deeper than lip service or catchy platitude.  It needs to be a come-hell-or-high-water, you-can-count-on-me bond that takes the driver's seat in your life.  New, sexy, shiny job posting...that comes in conflict with your plan for intentional quality time and raising great adults...you signed on for that risk, and to that plan...slug away back in the salt mines.  Like all of our posts, look at the principles, take the nuggets that resonate with you, make a plan...toss out the rest...and use the lessons that stick to go live your best life.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out three parts of life where you need to lean in and support the plan.  This may be calendar, budget, menu, diet, vacation, etc.  Unpack with your family what supporting the plan means, the risks inherent and how you'll support them.  Start small and practice doing this until its habitual.  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in terms of leaning in...for better or worse on practical items...not just shiny vows we recited back when.  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Recognition Primed Decision Making (RPDM)

- Col John Boyd's OODA Loop