How can you identify your motivation for emergency management?

Identifying motivation for emergency management involves reflecting on personal values, a sense of community responsibility, a desire to protect lives and property, a commitment to public safety, and a passion for helping others during crises.

I know this will sound a bit goofy....but "to help others"...prepare, control&mitigate, and to learn planning cycles to learn and help manage the next event.

1. I see the value in what I do and how it helps my community. 2. I enjoy the challenges and problems that I'm tasked with solving. 3. I'm curious to see what's next and if I'm up for the challenge of solving it.

From a young age, I wanted to work in a field where the objective was to help people. Emergency management, as a profession, has plenty of like-minded individuals. This inherent desire to serve the community ties us together worldwide and is the driving motivational force. Understanding that planning, preparing, and mitigating for responses are just as crucial as the "operational" side of the house makes those seemingly mundane moments worth it. When the bad day comes, the long days and nights are taxing, but positively impacting one life is enough to keep going. With any profession, headaches, and issues abound, but we continue to serve simply because we want to help.

Emergency Management is unique because you need to interact with pretty much every department within your organization. It's one of the greatest benefits of working in EM because you get to interact with colleagues in various parts of your organization that you may not otherwise get to work with. You get to understand how your organization operates from the inside and it's weak points. This becomes such a benefit because you get so much exposure while also building a resilient culture.

I have worked in local government for over 20 years and for nearly all that time, I've been involved in emergency management as either a volunteer or now, as a professional practitioner. Helping people is key, but also ensuring the city I love is ready to cope with the changes in climate, the increase in weather events and anything else thrown at it. The complex system that is emergency management is fascinating, and I learn something new all the time.

One of the many benifits is the personal and professional connection to individuals, the depth of knowledge and the willingness to share knowledge and experiences is what makes it special. Additionally, when you work with organizations and show them the way to prepare through training, TTXs, and/or whiteboards.....and you see that look, the "I get it..." look.

There are always challenges in any industry. For emergency management (in a local government sense), there is complacency of communities to be ready - until something happens. There are staff who feel they are first responders when what we do is more coordination - so much emphasis is put on responding when resilience and readiness is equally important. Then in the recovery space, there is confusion about who does what and who should pay. The system will never be perfect (because humans are involved), but at least there is a system in place - right?

Challenges....staying current and up-to-date on the newest techinques, processes, and procedures to make things work. Funding for training and opportunities to learn/cross-train. scheduling is always a challenge....when is the best time to get everyone (or at least 70%) to get to and participate in the training.

Challenges working in EM is a great topic for discussion. 1. A twist as I echo my mentor and great friend John Riotte; investing the time and energy keeping current in your roll AND ensuring your family and friends are switched on and know what to do? Why, in a local or regional emergency YOU are moving to the EOC / or your assigned zone to help others while your family is moving to high ground without you! 2. Perishable skill sets - many in EM / crisis response are dual hatted or volunteers, they move every few years, etc. YOU must remain motivated to grow your bench and keep the TEAM focused and engaged.

I measure success by having the confidence in my team that I am not needed...they can function, operate, decide, and do without me needing to be there.....that is success.

Passion and purpose are intrinsic/self-motivators. For me, having experienced a variety of emergency situations, disasters and their consequences brings an ongoing desire to find ways to improve capabilities, competence, process and capacity for better readiness, response and resilience. I find it has been important to develop a sense of autonomy, around choice in what you’re doing or flexibility in how it can be done. I also am grateful for finding relatedness and connection with other people. Emergency management faces very relevant and difficult challenges. It takes time persistence to reach for successes, even if they are relatively small or incremental, rather than just finding ways to avoid failure. Always new things to learn.

Your survival, your communities ability to focus and execute in the face of a crisis and knowing your actions matter in life and death situations is a great motivator. I have maintained and have often discussed with my peers that training, drills, exercises, community partnerships are essential to keep your skills honed.

always teach "The Process"....show how "The Process" works... The Process never changes...the first x5 steps are the same and can get you ~15m to start phase 2 (Action/response) Event occurs OMG/WTH just happened? What do we know? What do we need to know? And who do we notify? This becomes a constant loop of information gathering.

How to identify our motivation? My 40 years in and out of this field have led me to these conclusions (generally). 1. EM partners and leaders have a helpful, servant leadership outlook. They prioritize a return to normal operations from Chaos. 2. They are and want to be part of something larger and better than themselves - part of a team that makes a difference in their community. 3. Life is not fair but I/YOU/WE can make a difference. These professionals want to stare danger in the face and kick it’s a$$. Communities are devastated daily by the effects of disasters (earthquakes, floods, fires, tornadoes, etc). Most of the time it’s “someone else”‘until it’s not. I have seen cities leveled in minutes and EM professionals restore order.

There is an inherent selling point to working in our field. The chance to protect our communities, neighbors and the businesses we count on is fulfilling for many. However, it’s also a job the exposes you to many dimensions of suffering. If your motivations change, the skills you cultivated in Emergency Management are not exclusively marketable here, protect your mental health.