The bigger you are as an organization, the more difficulty you will have in asking for help, or even accepting help when offered. If and when help does arrive, larger organizations will have trouble integrating the assistance into their response activities.
See this from an after action review (AAR) of the Minneapolis response to the killing of George Floyd and subsequent civil disobedience:
“Field personnel who we interviewed felt that in the first two days of the protest and unrest, MPD leadership, and presumably the City, attempted to keep the incident low profile and did not request
additional resources, such as using callback or requesting assistance from other agencies. Further, officers stated that officers and agencies offered help and MPD leadership declined the offers. As a
result, officers lost faith and trust in leadership.”
Smaller cities and counties survive by partnering with one another. They can’t go it alone and they know it, so they know how to ask for help and how to use it when it arrives. “Big Bad Cities” could learn a lot from them.
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
