Summary: In non-explicit crisis situations where the event might or might not actually happen, leaders who are afraid to act can put the team behind in the response.

Key Takeaways:

• Fear and shame are natural human emotions, but a self-aware leader can acknowledge these feelings and then set them aside to focus on response.
• Trust your team. No one is meant to carry the entire crisis response, even leaders – that’s why most plans include secondary/deputy roles.
• Predefined severity levels take the guesswork out of activation.

At the heart of good critical situation management is the ability to make good and fast decisions. The decision to act is especially important, starting with accepting that a situation is actually happening or is possible. When the situation is explicit – known and happening, like a fire, tornado, or an active shooter – it’s easier for the team to act. But what if the threat is less obvious/inexplicit? What if leaders can’t see that there is a situation?

In the hundreds of tabletop exercises I’ve done in my career as a consultant, some of the most challenging have been when the team had a leader or an influential member who did not take threats seriously. They either thought, “That could never happen here,” or “We would be smarter than to allow the mistakes it would take for that to happen.” It’s my job as the facilitator to make the tabletop exercise as realistic and challenging as possible so the team being exercised will either rise to the challenge or fail out. But they are tabletop exercises, and some people just cannot “imagine” something that isn’t real.

The teams with leaders who approach crisis with a “that can never happen” attitude invariably fail out and need further coaching or convincing. If you can’t believe something bad can happen while you’re in charge, then you’re not going to be fast or flexible enough of a leader to recognize a critical situation staring you in the face until it’s potentially too late to lessen the impact.

If you can’t believe something bad can happen while you’re in charge, then you’re not going to be fast or flexible enough of a leader to recognize a critical situation staring you in the face until it’s potentially too late to lessen the impact.

A true critical situation – not a tabletop exercise – requires decision, action, engagement, and the ability to adapt quickly to shifting reality. All characteristics of good leaders.

After working with a particularly trying leader who could not imagine his team would ever actually have a crisis, I started keeping track of the characteristics of people who fail to lead through a tabletop exercise, and what I discovered was interesting. These leaders fall into two categories:

1. Fear of Being Wrong
2. Being Invincible

Both types, I’ve discovered, result from leaders who have some degree of personal shame or guilt that comes from a fear of being judged.

Fear of Being Wrong

We’re all subject to human emotions running as undercurrents in even the most mundane things we do and decisions we make. And most of the time we aren’t even aware of these emotions unless we’re actively seeking self-understanding. In my work, I’ve come to believe that leaders who seem incapable of acting in a crisis – or who downplay the situation to the degree that action is delayed or inadequate – are operating under the emotions of shame and its close twin, guilt.

We could talk about where shame comes from, but like most deeply seated emotions, it has roots in childhood and adolescence. Leaders who think “it can’t happen here” share some degree of worry about their performance or abilities as leaders, and a fear of being “found out” or judged for it.

If we understand that the one thing a crisis situation requires first is decision, then someone who is operating with some degree of fear about being wrong is not going to be able to act on a threat that is not right in front of them. In the early stages of a non-explicit crisis situation, the true impact can be hard to determine. For example, consider the first notice of a cyber breach, an early tsunami warning, a food recall, or an early tornado watch – these events might presage a larger crisis situation, but they also might resolve without any required action.

In the tabletop exercises I’ve done, a leader who is afraid of being wrong is less likely to begin a response at first notice of a situation that might not happen. And that’s dangerous, because for each of the examples I listed, early and decisive action is often the difference between whether a situation is effectively handled – by stopping the threat before it becomes unrecoverable or being prepared for an escalation – or not – delaying action until the threat becomes explicit, at which point the response mounted may be inadequate.

In one particularly stark example, a leader who could not imagine something happening at his facility always had to have the last word and didn’t appear to trust his team. He was very focused on what his own upper management was going to say if he activated his team, as if activating meant he’d already failed at something – a classic example of shame response. He took over every conversation, stopped the exercise frequently, and talked over his chief building engineer, downplaying whether the designed threat could actually happen. He felt like activating and acting was going to get him in “trouble” because there would be a cost to being wrong.

The exercise itself was designed to test a very specific system that needed an extended shutdown timeline, and I had designed the exercise with the engineer in charge from the overall corporate office. The supervising engineer knew that a failure to act was going to lead to a massive loss, potentially of the entire facility. Not making an early decision to at least stage for a shutdown was going to push the situation into crisis. I knew this and the chief building engineer realized it pretty quickly, but the facility leader was too afraid of being wrong – and the potential judgment that could follow – to listen to his knowledgeable team. When the exercise went into interjects and movements that made the threat become explicit, the leader’s face drained of color, and he realized that his failure to act meant the loss of the entire facility.

I felt bad for him, but the company ended up engaging me to coach him in how to think about response, and he became a better overall leader.

Being Invincible

Another problem with shame is that it can create a false sense of ego to mask feelings of inadequacy. I’ve seen this in leaders who don’t quite deny that a situation could happen, but who feel like they would never make a decision that would allow the situation to begin with. In an exercise, they quickly take over the entire team, don’t listen to anyone else, micro-manage the response, and feel like if they aren’t in charge of every detail, a wrong decision will be made by their team. They feel overconfident in their ability to make 100% of the decisions 100% perfectly, so the crisis situation could never even happen.

For this type of leader, the right exercise to challenge them to grow is something completely uncontrollable, like a tornado or a terroristic threat. The role of shame for this type of leader is in many ways related to the Fear of Being Wrong leader, but it’s much more buried in their actions in how they respond. Over-confidence can cause them to feel like they have more power than they really do in a situation. In order to act, this leader has to feel they are in total control. This total control extends to how they incorporate their team (i.e., they don’t), but the real danger with total control is that they can’t adapt quickly to shifting realities. They can’t quite process when their control does not stop the situation from happening, and this can shut down their ability to lead. A tabletop exercise lasts about two hours where a true crisis situation can last for days, weeks, or even months.

No one can maintain perfect control for the entire duration of a crisis. The person who masks insecurity and shame with invincibility will wear out and become incapable of making bold and flexible decisions. By the time that happens, their team is probably equally worn out or disengaged. Most plans are designed with named secondary/deputy roles, and that can help alleviate the issue of an invincible leader wearing out – but only if the leader can be convinced to trust their team.

If this is You…

Fear of Being Wrong: The instinct to reduce the threat of a crisis situation by downplaying the possible impact is human nature. We all want to avoid dealing with something that is going to throw off our normal operational cadence.

The next time you hesitate to activate your team for a non-explicit crisis situation that may or may not happen, ask yourself if just having a thirty-minute meeting about the possibilities might give your team a chance to mentally prepare in case the event becomes explicit. Thirty minutes can fit into anyone’s schedule, especially with how it only takes moments to set up a video meeting, and it can make all the difference in how fast you can make decisions if the situation becomes explicit.

Being Invincible: Every leader has the instinct to try and control an uncontrollable situation. The next time you’re in a crisis (or even a tabletop exercise), ask yourself: if you were to get up and leave the room, would your team flounder without you? Is this because you’ve never given them the opportunity to practice responding? Are there things you can’t know because the knowledge is specialized? For example, is your Director of Rooms better informed about aspects of operations and capable of addressing any physical challenges? Try to speak and give direction very briefly, and then sit back, be quiet, and listen to your team.

How to Overcome

A good critical situation practice is to have levels of activation that accommodate anticipated events. In my practice and in the programs I build as a consultant, I use four severity levels to define potential threats. Having defined levels allows leaders to activate resources far ahead of when an actual event might become explicit. It takes the guess work and sense of being “wrong” out of activation and encourages more pre-emptive action.

Level 1: High and Critical. Immediate life safety impact, explicit event (fire, active shooter)

Level 2: Major/Priority. Threat to business or buildings (cyber breach, weather event)

Level 3: Low/Minor. Likely resolved with action, like a system outage or temporary area impact

Level 4: Proactive. Mitigation and preparation for an event that might happen and might get worse when it does (notice of a potential cyber breach, a brewing storm system)

An event can move up or down the levels based on the facts and situation.

If an event is non-explicit (meaning it’s Level 3 or 4), consider having the following:

• A subset of the full team charged with initial assessment and ongoing monitoring. Part of what keeps the Fear of Being Wrong type from activating is the hassle and cost of standing up a full team for something that might not happen.
• A short agenda focused on: What is the situation? What can we do to get ahead of it? What are possible impacts?
• Defined role checklists that keep the Being Invincible leader from taking over.
• Cultivating an organization-wide culture of meeting potential risks pre-emptively instead of defaulting to denial. This includes conducting frequent drills and tabletop exercises and focusing on crisis leadership skills.

The best thing every leader can do is incorporate self-understanding in crisis situation response. If you know that you feel a sense of fear, shame, or guilt around your response, you can practice taking a minute to acknowledge those feelings and then set them aside, so you don’t get trapped in paralysis. The difference between a response that saves lives and maintains operations or one that lets a crisis brew unchecked can hinge on a leader who is willing to take action and leverage their team to make good decisions in the moment.

A version of this article appeared in the February issue of The Dispatch, a Hyatt Hotels publication.

The post Don’t Let Shame Impact Crisis Response appeared first on Michelle Newcome.

The newsletter was ready and everyone had signed off. The issue’s topic was to coincide with a campaign about getting more women into security leadership in the hospitality industry. The other contributors had written articles supporting the initiative and giving the weight of their observations and experiences, and it was time for me to begin finalizing the layout. 

Only, there was a problem. 

I work hard to get exactly the right image for everything I write or am responsible for  – the image has to be evocative, graphically interesting, and it has to convey and support the content of the article it accompanies. A tall order, sometimes. 

I searched all my image sources for keywords: “woman security,” “security officers women,” “hotel security woman,” et. al.

Nothing. 

In desperation, I enlarged my terms:

“professional women” “business women” “group of women”

What the search returned did not reflect any women I have ever worked with in the security and resiliency fields. One image showed a group of three women, and two of them were wearing suits that had the shoulders cut out. Their pose was flirtatious. Others were groupings where the women were sitting around a table and a man was standing and presenting. 

It’s About Representation and Accuracy

I thought about the symposium I had attended back in January of 2020 – my last trip before COVID sent the world home – and all the amazing women who had presented about soft target threat assessment and response. They ranged from active law enforcement to industry experts. Their demeanor and attire was professional while not in any way derivative of what a man would wear. The officer from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, who presented a detailed analysis of the Mandalay Bay/Route 91 Harvest Fest mass shooting incident, had an undeniable presence in her dark suit and bright blue blouse. They all conveyed the gravitas of their positions without hiding that they were women. 

I’ve been in the crisis and resiliency field for a long time, and since resiliency is so closely aligned with security, I’ve worked with so many amazing women who have established careers in security. True bad asses, all of them. Sharp, professional, thoughtful, insightful, and passionate about their work.

I wanted whatever images I found to do them proud and reflect who they were in their profession. 

I wanted pictures that were accurate to the women I’ve been lucky to work with. 

How Can We See Ourselves in an Incomplete Picture?

It might seem like a small thing – not being able to find an image to fit a blog post – but it speaks to a larger issue. Women have made tremendous strides in the security field. I’m a member of several professional organizations dedicated to women in security. It’s not as common for me to be the only woman in the room as it was ten years ago. But those strides are not as deep into the forest in the hospitality field, and that was the point of the campaign we were launching – to get more women into professional leadership positions. 

A piece of that is for women to see themselves taking those positions when they are at the very beginning of their careers. Young professional women are Millennials and Gen Z – they have come up with Instagram, TikTok, and SnapChat in the Age of the Selfie. More than any other generation before them, they are reached by the photograph. If they can’t see themselves in posts and job ads and recruitment endeavors as leaders, then we’re creating a block in how they imagine themselves growing in their careers. 

If this generation’s emphasis on the visual as a marker of identity does not strike a nerve with you, think about the Greatest Generation and the impact of the poster of Rosie the Riveter. 

Women deserve to see themselves represented aspirationally at the height of their careers by seeing images of powerful women in security leadership. We can’t keep leaving the frame blank, or worse, filled with images of men centered and prominent. 

But, What Can We Do?

It’s pretty simple, really. If you’re a woman at the height of your career, volunteer for a photo shoot. Get yourself in the image. If you’re someone who purchases ads or approves campaigns, request your creative agency include images of professional women in leadership roles. Ask for an image where a woman in an amazing suit is standing at the table explaining something to a group of men and women. Be deliberate in the images you pick for recruitment, blog posts, and ads and campaigns.

If you ask for those images, agencies and creatives will begin to source them. And then it won’t take me hours of searching to find a powerful woman to give young women in hospitality security some hope that there’s a leadership position out there for them to claim. 

Questions for Consideration

• When you prepare materials for a presentation, blog post, training guide, or recruitment ad do you consciously include pictures of women?
• Do you seek out images of women that are diverse in terms of age and ethnicity?
• If you are working with an agency do you request images of women that accurately represent the field of security?

The post Women in Security: A Thousand Word Picture appeared first on Michelle Newcome.

Summary: Organizations need to turn their attention to how the aftermath of an attack is handled in order to best support victims and return to operations.

Key Takeaways

• The average active shooter/hostile attacker incident lasts 8 minutes. We have extensive training and protocols for the actual attack period via the run-hide-fight protocol, but we also need extensive guidance for the aftermath, which can last as long as a year afterwards.
• An Active Shooter/Hostile Attacker plan does not have to be proscriptive and precise, but it should spell out the questions and items the response team can be expected to address.

In July of 2012 the City of Houston in the US state of Texas released a now-famous video on how to survive an active shooter incident. The video used a protocol (Run-Hide-Fight) that has now become as much a part of our lives as other safety memory devices like Stop-Drop-and-Roll or Duck-and-Cover. Organizations all over the world have since embraced this simple cadence of actions with variations such as Run-Hide-Tell (UK) and Escape-Hide-Tell (Australia), and it’s now ubiquitous in training and workplace violence prevention efforts.

But videos and training efforts are mostly aimed at individuals who otherwise don’t have safety or security training, and they focus on surviving the attack, not what happens when the violence stops.

For safety and security professionals, or those in charge of responding to Active Shooter/Active Attacker/Hostile Intruder incidents, the period after the incident requires equal effort for training and protocols.

Why the Aftermath Matters

In order to understand why we should turn equal attention to the aftermath, it helps to examine the statistics for active shooter attackers. According to the FBI, as of 2018:

• 98% acted alone
• 37% committed suicide, usually on site
• 41% were apprehended
• 21% were killed
• 34% used a long gun (rifle, shotgun, or carbine)
• 66% used a handgun
• 65% brought a single weapon
• 35% brought multiple weapons, sometimes with hundreds of rounds of ammunition
• They were dynamic and quick, finishing their attack in an average of 8 minutes

This data is notable because in the same set of data from 2013 90% of attackers committed suicide. This means that more attackers are apprehended now, which has aftermath implications for the responding organization-based teams.

Also notable is that the average attack lasts only 8 minutes. This is the period in which the Run-Hide-Fight protocol is an effective tool for survival. But what happens at minutes 10 through the next year matters equally.

In this extended aftermath period:

• The training for employees needs to be updated to include how to interact with first-responders in the immediate aftermath
• Guests need messaging to hide in their rooms, and then further messaging that the attack has ended
• Accounting for people will take up to 24 hours
• Tracking people taken to hospitals will be especially difficult as multiple hospitals may be involved and health information privacy laws will be in effect
• The Special Situations Management (SSM)/Crisis team needs to be activated and begin response
• Assigning representatives who will interact with the injured and the families of victims requires advance preparation and training
• Apprehended attackers will extend the news cycle and subsequently the traumatization of victims
• Employees require support
• Family assistance areas need to be set up
• Operations need to be taken over by support teams
• Communications and media need to be managed, and any holding statements must be carefully crafted
• Shrines to victims need to be managed and protected until appropriate to dismantle
• Human resources procedures for fatality need to be deployed, and if the event caused mass casualty, supplemental staff may be needed
• The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) needs to be activated
• Camera footage needs to be considered for release to law enforcement/legal authorities
• Response protocols from the company will be collected as part of discovery from victims
• Facility recovery occurs and specialized vendors need to be engaged
• Survivors and the families of victims can either be further traumatized or helped to heal

The Danger of Poor Aftermath Response

As part of my work helping organizations assess response and build scenario-specific playbooks for incidents like active shooter and hostile attacks, I’ve been honored to interview victims to further understand how organizations can be better prepared for the aftermath.

Some of my key takeaways:

• Employees will need counseling for up to and possibly beyond a year
• Counseling needs to be by specialized trauma counselors
• Employees will either form a tight bond and need group sessions or some will become loners and drift away; both avenues need addressing
• Employees may need an anonymous talk line
• Employees who are not given adequate services will be severely impacted and likely unable to sustain their career
• Return to work needs to be carefully managed with counselors on hand in the first few shifts
• As possible, employees should be given the option to transfer to a different location with as little push back as possible. Some of them will not be able to face the location where this traumatic event impacted them.
• Support and operational staff who go to the facility in the aftermath to provide support and perform services need to be trained to be sensitive to what their co-workers have been through
• Leaders and managers at the site of the event need to be encouraged to seek services – this will encourage their direct reports, and it will keep them from feeling like they must be stoic at all costs

Actions to Take to Improve Your Aftermath Response

Professionals in charge of a facility need to create a plan that directly addresses the areas of impact. The plan should include both operational checklists with known items that must be managed, as well as task considerations for things that will require situational analysis for appropriate response. Precise and prescriptive checklists are not needed for everything – even knowing what types of decisions may need to be made in the aftermath can help the team develop an appropriate response.

Precise and prescriptive checklists are not needed for everything – even knowing what types of decisions may need to be made in the aftermath can help the team develop an appropriate response.

What your plan should cover:

1. Plan activation and team composition (the team will be activated after the event has happened, so consider who is needed for response; how to stand up a call center)
2. Working with Law Enforcement and Local Authorities (who will coordinate, actions law enforcement is likely to take, who has the ability to release camera footage, who will track the case for apprehended attackers)
3. Media and communication coordination (holding statements, spokesperson, how a media staging area can be managed, social media monitoring, website “dark site” with hotline information and grief expressions)
4. People support (family and victim assistance including visitor and guests, EAP activation, benefits administration, insurance activation for extended guest services, next-of-kin notification support, long term counseling and care, human resources)
5. Operational considerations (specialized clean up, shrines and memorials, replacement operations team trained to specific positions to take over, facility repair, risk management and insurance claim management, financial considerations, expense management and reporting)
6. Plan de-activation and team stand-down (how the team will determine it’s time to cease operations, how documents will be collected and the case file archived, who and how to conduct an After Action Review)

Making sure you have a plan that at least spells out these considerations will allow your team to react faster, make better decisions, and handle the aftermath with humanity and care for the victims and survivors.

A version of this article appeared in the December issue of The Dispatch, a magazine for Hyatt security professionals and general managers.

The post Active Shooter: Planning for After Run-Hide-Fight appeared first on Michelle Newcome.

This week might be hard, friends. We’re fatigued by feeling like every moment is a razor’s edge.

In an extended crisis at a big company even the most seasoned and well-trained leaders wear out in the second week. And when you wear out you risk making poor decisions.

Like most things, seasoned leaders know in a crisis you have to govern your mind most of all. Be rigorous with yourself.

Here are some tips:

• Set a time limit on falling apart. When you feel the emotions of the crisis, allow yourself to FEEL. But, also tell yourself you can do this once per day for a set period of time. It sounds harsh, but it does work.
• Make big decisions mid-morning. You’re more awake, have had a good breakfast, and are more likely to have a brain refreshed from sleep.
• Don’t engage in dead-end thinking. Also known as the Magical Unicorn. It’s the possibility that looks pretty from a distance, but is just not possible. Like basing your plans on having a vaccine next week.
• Double check your assumptions. Brainstorming, innovation, and new ideas will come from this period. But when it comes to practical reality ask yourself, “Can this really happen? What kind of effort would it take? What’s the timeline?”
• Talk it out with someone you trust.
• Stop scrolling by 10:30 pm. Get rest.

The post Avoid Dead End Thinking appeared first on Michelle Newcome.

Move Slowly – This Will Be Awkward

This morning my mama has to go to the grocery store. She lives 2,102 miles away from me in the Coachella Valley where there have been COVID-19 deaths and the average age is over 70.

One of the things I do for my clients is to build their plans and protocols. I’ve built plans for emergency shutdowns for some of the world’s foremost data centers and restaurant systems and hotels.

You document all the steps to take ahead of time because of the impact of adrenaline.

When the hormone that controls fight or flight is circulating in your body you lose your long term memory and time gets weird. You have to have those protocol checklists to help you remember every step in a complex process.

Over text last night I gave my mom an extensive list of how to grocery shop (which is truly ironic and funny).

Me: This is going to be awkward because you’ve been grocery shopping daily for 50 years. You have to just move slowly.
My mom: You know, it would be helpful to have this as a checklist I can print out.

If I can do this for complex mechanical facilities I can use those skills for my mama.

She thought this checklist I made would be helpful for all of you.

Remember today that adrenaline is circulating in your body. Fight it by only doing what you can control.

The post Grocery Store Safety Checklist appeared first on Michelle Newcome.

In the corporate world there is sometimes a tendency to not want to declare a crisis; making the declaration means admitting failure. The joke is “declare, then get your resume together.” You can probably see this in some of the early global response. But, now that we’re declared it’s time to face it head on.
So far we’ve talked about:

• Focus: CONTROL and EXERT INFLUENCE
• Situation Reports, Daily Briefings and Family Meetings
• Setting up containment traffic flow
• Be Ready for the Plot Twists
• Adrenaline and the Need for Grocery Store Protocols

Today we’re going to face some hard things head on so you can feel in control. Because I don’t have to worry about my resume (I hope).

Shelter-in-place and lockdowns are coming. Soon. For some places they are already here.

And that’s going to feel bad and you’re going to feel trapped and hopeless for a minute. But, let’s get ready so you can feel those feelings and then move right on into action.

TRIGGER WARNING: If you are feeling especially vulnerable today, don’t read this list. Set it aside, go outside and take some nice deep breaths. It’s here if you need it.

You Need a Checklist

I put together a downloadable checklist for you. Not everything on here will apply for everyone.

The checklist has items in these categories:

• Easy Stuff (do you have the right supplies? It’s spring, do you have house chores you normally do and might need things for an extended period? – like light bulbs and HVAC filters)
• Mental Health Stuff (routines, quiet time, hobbies, loving your people)
• Hard Stuff (this is on the second page. If you’ve never had time to put your life in order now might be a good time. Also, a link to CDC guidelines for taking care of a COVID patient at home)

Just remember: We can get through this together.

The post Get Ready for Shelter-in-Place appeared first on Michelle Newcome.

Today I vacuumed and mopped, did a few loads of laundry, made food with my son – a typical Saturday except for the usual errands. The sheer rote nature of these chores was soothing. And that made me think about a word we all mostly despise.

Routine

As a noun it means the practice of regularly doing things in a fixed order. As an adjective it means activities that are done as a normal part of the job or process. Synonyms are “boring, dull, predictable, tedious.” The word itself comes from French and the word “route” meaning a traveled way. The first use is from 1661.

I’m sure so many of us are longing for the old routines that we once despised. The long commute. The getting everyone dressed for school. The Saturday chores. We miss the tedious. But mostly, we probably miss having a route to follow.

Make Yourself a Role Checklist

Most crisis management plans contain role checklists with every item a person in that role must do in order to take action on the crisis. The lists spell out the crisis routine and the process. They give a route for that person to follow in order to increase the chance of coming through the crisis.

We’re now a week in and remember that we have plot twists coming. Stop and think about your new routines – they have probably revealed themselves to you in the past five days. And then be a good crisis planner for yourself and write them out. Give yourself a role checklist. Be deliberate about your new routines. Include:

• Things that you don’t want to skip or miss.
• Family meetings.
• Walks.
• Checking your financial accounts.
• Planning meals.
• Chores.
• Work hours. Homework hours.

Routine and control are close siblings and can give you a route to feeling soothed and ready for whatever is next.

The post Embrace New Routines appeared first on Michelle Newcome.

Between yesterday and today my CFO and I spent 14 hours on hold with our bank. As if a pandemic is not challenging enough, someone stole one of our checks from a vendor’s mailbox and then cloned it and cashed it three times in one day before we caught it in the daily reconcile.

To make this even more challenging, our biggest client pays us via ACH and that payment came in the middle of this and was rejected by our bank because our account was under fraud review.

Because we have our accounts in order with separate payroll and operating and savings we’ll be okay. But we won’t ever get those hours back and in the middle of this crisis time is a very precious commodity.

Imagine if we weren’t on top of our accounts and if we weren’t set up to the best of our ability to weather a crisis?

I want you to also weather this crisis. In the big plans I do for my corporate clients there’s always a checklist for the finance department. To make sure you are as solid as can be, I made you a Finance Checklist you can download here.

At the very least you need to do four things:

1. Have a real hard look at your cash flow. Know exactly where all of your accounts stand and what your real budget is.
2. If you are in a precarious position, face it head on. So many people are also in this position because of how big this crisis is. Be the person who comes out okay because you faced it now.
3. Tuck your money into bed daily. Check all of your balances every day. Fraud is typically rampant in a crisis because people who commit fraud know we are all distracted. If we hadn’t been doing this we’d have faced a huge delay in opening new accounts and restoring funds.
4. People who are good at paperwork have a better shot. There will be help and assistance. But, it will come with lots of forms and lots of paperwork. Be ready and get your stuff in order.

The post Get Control of Your Money in a Crisis appeared first on Michelle Newcome.