United States – understand-culture

How emergency preparedness can save your business

What is a business continuity plan? SAP’s global HR value advisor, Chiara Bersano, has a unique perspective on the question. In 1999, she was working for a global company that operated a factory in Izmir, Turkey, when a devastating earthquake ultimately left more than 17,000 dead and 250,000 homeless. Her company’s employees, however, fared better than most.

So, what is contingency planning? If you ask Bersano, it’s creating an emergency-response framework that results in retaining a healthy, motivated, dedicated workforce during and after crises.

“The power of relationship building from a crisis is extreme,” Bersano says. “It’s building a relationship based on trust with the employees.”

Contingency

Because Americans believe in flexibility, going off plan, they do a significant amount of contingency planning.

Kennedy – Eisenhower during Cuban Missile Crisis

Sound recording of a telephone conversation held on October 28, 1962, between President John F. Kennedy and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. They discuss contingencies for dealing with Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev in order to end the Cuban Missile Crisis.

How would the US fight a Nuclear War?

A comment on YouTube:

“I served 6 years, USN as an MT (Missile Technician, C3 Poseidon missile system) aboard boomers in the mid 80’s. We were responsible for every system (from flight control equipment, hydraulics, heating/cooling systems, every aspect from loading to close out) and I remember every time we drilled for launch how much weight everyone carried knowing what it meant if it were an actual launch.

Knowing exactly what would come after, and knowing what the world would be like if we were to actually make it home. We all knew from extensive training exactly what these weapons would do, exactly how it performed when deployed from launch to detonation and the result, and I promise you it’s scarier than what you could possibly imagine.

I also know that it’s a necessary weapon and I pray deterrence will still be enough to prevent an attack on US soil. You cannot put this genie back in the bottle. Contrary to movies and what most believe, there is no detonation button to blow it up in space. When it launches it will reach its targets with precision, and it will destroy everything in it path and would only take our sailors minutes to launch every one of them. Let’s pray we never have to. There’s no do overs.”

1944 Induction of soldiers

A comment on YouTube:

“I’m 76 & all four of my uncles plus my father were WWII veterans! I went through Army Basic training, 20 years later, in 1964 & boy, was it different from this video! For example, the sergeants were screaming at you from ‘minute one’, not being helpful! Also, we had to get “skinhead” haircuts, not reasonable ones! Lastly, unless things changed drastically from the WWII era, this video was “soft soaping” entering the Army!”

Covid

February 2020. Deutsche Welle. Germany has already faced its first coronavirus infections. Officials have remained calm, and border closures or lockdowns are not yet on the horizon. But the country has no specific pandemic plan for COVID-19.

“We assume it can and will have a slight impact on the global economy,” said Germany’s Economics Minister Peter Altmaier. “The extent will depend on how quickly this virus is contained and how quickly the number of infections slows down again.”

‘We are in a gas crisis.’ Germany raises emergency level.

New York Times. June 2022. Germany’s economy minister triggered the second stage of a contingency plan a week after Russia cut back on gas to Europe, sending prices soaring and raising fears of shortages.

Germany warned residents and businesses on Thursday that the country was in a natural gas crisis that could worsen in coming months.

“The situation is serious, and winter will come,” Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, told reporters at a news conference in Berlin. He said the government had triggered the second stage of its three-step energy gas plan; the next stage would permit the government to begin gas rationing.

“Even if you don’t feel it yet: We are in a gas crisis,” he said. “Gas is a scarce commodity from now on. Prices are already high, and we have to be prepared for further increases. This will affect industrial production and become a big burden for many consumers.”

Plan a wedding in a week

It is said that American couples take 500 hours and 12 to 18 months to plan their wedding. But what if they shrunk that down to one week?

US Defense Planning

The RAND Corporation (from the phrase “research and development”) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations, universities and private individuals.

The company assists other governments, international organizations, private companies and foundations with a host of defense and non-defense issues, including healthcare. RAND aims for interdisciplinary and quantitative problem solving by translating theoretical concepts from formal economics and the physical sciences into novel applications in other areas, using applied science and operations research. (Source: Wikipedia)

US Prepares Contingency Plans For Sochi Olympics

2008. Russia did not accept the U.S. military’s offer of help in providing security during the winter Olympic Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. However, the U.S. says it was going ahead with plans to send two Navy ships to the Black Sea in the coming days.