DISASTER RECOVERY 
JOURNAL

P. O. Box 510110
St. Louis, MO 63151
(314) 894-0276 
Fax: (314) 894-7474
Internet www.drj.com 
E-mail drj@drj.com

PUBLISHER &
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
richard@drj.com

SENIOR EDITOR
Janette Ballman
janette@drj.com

MANAGING EDITOR
Jon Seals
jon@drj.com

COPY EDITORS
Richard Sandhofer
richards@drj.com
Pamela Clifton
pamelaclifton@hotmail.com

ADVERTISING 
Robert Arnold
bob@drj.com

_____________

Corporate

President/CEO
Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
richard@drj.com

Vice President 
Robert Arnold
bob@drj.com

CONFERENCE COORDINATOR
Patti Fitzgerald, CBCP
patti@drj.com

CONFERENCE REGISTRAR
Merce Knese
mercedes@drj.com

CIRCULATION
Laura Baugh
laurab@drj.com

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Patrick Corcoran, IBM Bus. Cont. & Rec. Services
Jeff Dato, MBCP, KPMG
Edward S. Devlin, E.S. Devlin & Associates
Judith Eckles, SunGard Availability Services
James Hammill, CBCP, JMH Consulting Inc.
John Jackson, Independant


INTERNATIONAL
CONTACTS
England: Thom Hetherington
Business Continuity 
Phone: 0161-237-1007
thomh@tempus.demon.co.uk

Australia: Anthony J. Harvey
Journal of Business Continuity
Phone: 0011-613-953-0055-8
fax: 0011-613-953-0528
sector@notability.com.au

Japan: Shinji Hosotsubo
Quake Japan Co., Ltd.
Phone: 03-3215-2880
fax: 03-3215-2881

Brazil: Jose Carlos Ferreira
Disaster Recovery Mercosul
Phone: 55 11 3666-9506
conc2000@uol.com.br
www.drms.com.br

Click Here for a Printable Version

Working Together, Learning Together

By DALE A. CURRIER, SPHR, CPT

San Diego, March 1999. After driving through the night I arrived at the DRJ Spring World conference hotel to meet three colleagues from Syracuse – Tom Phelan, Victoria Ladd-de Graff and Deidrich Towne. Headed to a performance technology conference in Long Beach, I took a small detour so we could celebrate successfully fighting one of Mother Nature’s worst ice storms.
Admittedly, I had no idea what the DRJ conference was about and was embarrassed to admit I wasn’t an IT or DR professional. I’m an HR, performance technology and training guy. Heck, to say I was “challenged” in this field was a major understatement!
My early career was law enforcement, emergency medical services, fire rescue, and industrial safety and security – collectively referred to in the public sector as emergency planning and management (EP/EM). I now help teach critical incident management and terrorism related courses to public safety personnel. I’m intent on bringing together the EP/EM folks in businesses with public sector responders so we can work together more effectively during actual disasters and emergencies.
Like others, I realize that creating and supporting partnerships between public and private organizations is critical to success during emergencies. I’ve also seen where DRP, EP and EM are all of the same thread.

Sept. 11, 2001. Three days before the DRJ Fall World 2001 Conference in Orlando, our world was rocked. Many of the BCP and DR plans discussed at earlier conferences were put into action. Deidrich and Tom were scheduled to teach the PPBI “Fundamentals of DR/EM,” the pre-conference course PPBI designed and developed. Tom, a National Disaster Medical System DMORT team member deployed to the World Trade Center. I took the first flight out to teach with Deidrich, continuing the practice of having one IT person and one EP person teaching.
Sunday night, my DRJ conference bag in hand for airplane reading, I flew home. I was getting interested, maybe a bit “hooked” on what I was learning about DR. Comparing and contrasting the DR/EP and EM philosophies, models of practice and goals, lots of similarities surfaced.
As DRJ Fall World 2002 approached I had been reading DRJ regularly. Looking closely at the pre/post conference courses and main conference session content I noticed that much of the material extolled the importance of ensuring emergency response performance via exercising the DR plan and employee training.
Missing (the “gap” for a performance analyst) were presentations on how to use performance analysis techniques to get the performance you need when you need it. Also missing was how to provide cost-effective, legally defensible training. Being a performance analysis, HR and training professional, bells went off and red flags flourished in my head!
A proposal emerged for a one-and-a-half-day, pre-conference course to address the information gap I’d discovered. Some folks looked a bit askance at my idea! With pre-conference slots already committed, I was offered a three-hour workshop opportunity.

Orlando, March 2003. Showtime! About 100 DRJ Spring World 2003 conference attendees signed up for the workshop. Good news. About 50 actually appeared. Great news!
In a wink, time was done. People stayed, asked for more information, and were genuinely interested in what some may have considered a non-IT/DR topic.
I just received the evaluations. The participants confirmed my earlier belief that this was a topic that is important to disaster recovery and emergency planning managers. Many asked if it could be a longer course.
I offer eight of our discussion points – items you can look at and address today.

Key Points
1. You must accurately identify the real performance problem in order to find the true cause. Don’t waste time and money treating symptoms.
2. Eighty-five percent of performance problems are directly related to organizational or environmental causes. Fifteen percent are related to lack of employee know-how and/or motivation.
3. Lack of feedback is the No. 1 cause of performance problems.
4. Incomplete or non-existent documentation is often a major problem. Between 25 and 30 percent of workers can’t read well enough to understand the documentation they are expected to use.
5. Training fixes problems dealing with lack of know-how. Only 10 to 20 percent is actually used in the workplace!
6. Designing and delivering training that accurately addresses the knowledge, skills and abilities workers *really* need to perform as expected is not a simple, easy task. Content experts don’t often make the best trainers.
7. Training and education are different. Be sure you select and deliver the right stuff in the correct context.
8. Immediately after training you can expect performance to actually decrease until new tools and habits become comfortable for the learner to use.
This is a start. Consider looking at your DR activities in relation to these eight items. If experience repeats itself, you’ll be amazed at how much work there is to do! Let us know if this information helps you and we’ll work toward providing more in the future.
See you in San Diego in September!

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