
The Leading in a Crisis Podcast
Interviews, stories and lessons learned from experienced crisis leaders. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Being an effective leader in a corporate or public crisis situation requires knowledge, tenacity, and influencing skills. Unfortunately, most of us don't get much training or real experience dealing with crisis situations. On this podcast, we will talk with people who have lived through major crisis events and we will tap their experience and stories from the front lines of crisis management.
Your host, Tom Mueller, is a veteran crisis manager and trainer with more than 30 years in the corporate communications and crisis fields. Tom currently works as an executive coach and crisis trainer with WPNT Communications, and as a contract public information officer and trainer through his personal company, Tom Mueller Communications LLC.
Your co-host, Marc Mullen, has over 20 years of experience as a communication strategist. He provides subject matter expertise in a number of communication specializations, including crisis communication plan development, response and recovery communications, emergency notifications and communications, organizational reviews, and after-action reports. He blogs at Blog | Marc Mullen
Our goal is to help you grow your knowledge and awareness so you can be better prepared to lead should a major crisis threaten your organization.
Music credit: Special thanks to Nick Longoria from Austin, Texas for creating the theme music for the podcast.
The Leading in a Crisis Podcast
EP 40 Ariana Grande concert bombing part 2: crisis response at the Manchester Arena with Amanda Coleman
How do you keep your team going when every second counts and the stakes couldn't be higher? Join us as Amanda Coleman, a press officer with the Greater Manchester Police at the time the incident occurred, shares her gripping experience managing the aftermath of the Manchester Arena terrorist attack. Amanda opens up about the initial misjudgment of staffing needs, the rapid burnout of her team, and the critical lessons learned from the delay in requesting help. She provides a vivid recount of the logistical challenges and the emotional challenges of coordinating political visits, family support, and public unrest.
Amanda doesn't hold back on discussing the emotional and logistical hurdles faced by senior leaders during such traumatic events. Discover the human touch she maintained even while delivering press briefings under immense pressure, and the surprising significance of a simple prop that provided emotional stability. Learn about the rare unity within the organization immediately following the attack, and the intricate balance needed to manage community relations alongside high-profile visits like that of Prime Minister Theresa May without disrupting critical operations.
The mental health toll on crisis responders and affected communities is a focal point in this episode. Amanda sheds light on the often-overlooked issue of PTSD among responders, sharing valuable lessons on recognizing the signs and encouraging individuals to seek help. Hear her insights on keeping affected individuals at the center of the response, the need for flexibility in crisis plans, and the importance of long-term support. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to understand the complexities of crisis management and the critical importance of mental health support.
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
And welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis podcast. On this podcast we talk all things crisis management. We deliver that through interviews, storytelling and lessons learned from experienced crisis leaders. I'm Tom Mueller. With me again is Mark Mullen. We're continuing our conversation now with Amanda Coleman, who was on duty as a public information officer for the Greater Manchester Police following a terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. Let's pick up the conversation now. Let's pick up the conversation now. Amanda, you talked about you know sort of the scale of the incident. How was your staffing levels? Were you able to scale up and add people to support the effort or was that a struggle for you in those early hours?
Amanda Coleman:Oh gosh, where do I start with that? That my, you know, massive learning and I and what I say all the time is, no matter how many staff you think you've got, you will never have enough to deal with any kind of serious incident. And I suppose my stupidity of being quite complacent in that I had reasonable size staffing so I was fairly confident we would be able to last for, you know, five days, six days, um, bearing in mind we were working 24 hours a day. Um, you run out of people really quickly. Um, yeah, I should have pressed the button that night for for the mutual aid kind of additional support that other police service, uh, comms teams would have have provided, because there's always a delay, isn't there to get additional people there, and I didn't. And what it led to is some people really invested in wanting to do the job, do the job really well, who wouldn't disconnect, who were kind of really burning themselves out very, very quickly. So, yeah, that night wasn't, um, overnight when it happened, wasn't really a massive issue in terms of like staffing levels. There was, uh, four of us in overnight.
Amanda Coleman:Um, because it was a lot about being proactive and just, you know, kind of dealing with the initial incident. It was the next kind of day where it became way more complicated, because you've got political visits, you've got, you know, people wanted to do certain things, you've got kind of family support aspects that needed to start to kick in, and you know. So that's when it got way more complicated. So I spent most of that night messaging people to say who were saying you want me to come in, jump, do you want me to come in? To say no, please go to bed and try and get some sleep because I need you fresh for tomorrow. Tomorrow's going to be hard. So we were working 12-hour shifts. 12-hour shifts becomes like 13 by the time you've got your handovers at either end, got your handovers at either end.
Amanda Coleman:Um, we, we definitely needed um people much more, uh, quickly than they actually came and much quicker than they came. And and that was my, that was my learning point because, um, we ended up getting people you know, kind of a week into it. Um, by that point I've got lots of really tired staff because you, you've inevitably got one of the members of staff who was ill at the morning of the arena attack at the night he had terrible kind of cold stroke, flu, and so we had to send him home and he was ill for the first few days and when he came back in towards the end of that week he was really apologetic. I'm so sorry that, you know, I've not been here and you've had to deal with and I'm like we really need you because you're fresh, you're a fresh set of eyes, you can check what we've done, you can see if we've missed anything. Um, you can give your views, you know, and.
Amanda Coleman:But it's hard when you've been kind of part of all of what we all expected to do was to be there when something happened. Um, so, yeah, I mean really difficult and trying to give people time off, trying to, you know, trying to do a rota. I'm not good at working out who we've got and where we put them and the rotas. I mean it's just not where my brain is, so, um, so yeah, staffing level was nowhere near what we needed and and, um, we ended up having to get extra help, but I should have asked for it much, much quicker and a related question how long did you have to staff that way?
Marc Mullen:Amanda a related question - how long did you have to staff that way? W as it a two week, three week, two month? How long did you have to maintain your office?
Amanda Coleman:We used to work kind of long hours but not 24 hours. Um, the metropolitan police in London have a 24-hour desk that they set up that way because of, uh, the amount of things they have to deal with. Um, so, yeah, we were 24 hours virtually for the for the full week, um, after which we then reduced slightly to extended, but slightly less than 24 hours. But really I suppose, staffing wise, in terms of the work we were doing, unless something that came in was absolutely urgent, critical, we didn't really do any other work for probably nearly a month you know it's definitely three to nearly four weeks because there were just so many angles to it. There was like the community impact, many angles to it. There was like the community impact, um, you know, there was hate crime incidents and trying to deal with the kind of public unrest on that level. T here was a load of transport infrastructure and kind of nightmares because of where the the arena is, on one of the main railway lines and one of the main kind of transport hubs, and there was all the family kind of support elements. There was a big police investigation. That that, you know, kind of was was, um, just went on for quite a while, quite a few years actually, before it came to some kind of thing, some kind of conclusion, um, so there's just that, with so many elements to it, that it really takes a long time.
Amanda Coleman:And then when do you start to move forward? And I would say you can't do that unless the community is ready to move forward. And whilst people talk about, well, we're in recovery mode, kind of operationally fairly early on, to be fair. Operationally fairly early on, to be fair. Um, we were myself and then the kind of head of communications, the, the manchester city council, was saying we can't talk that publicly because nobody else is in the same space. So, um, it wasn't until there was a kind of tribute concert, a one love concert that was held about three, three and a half weeks sort of afterwards, when it almost like the mood shifted a little bit and people felt like we were going to start to, um, to move forward in some way. Um, I have to say I hated that concert because I was sat in the office just just with a massive kind of you know turmoil, my head and stomach going. Oh, my God, you know, I really just need this not to nothing to happen. You know, please, let it just just be fine.
Tom Mueller:A normal concert tonight, please.
Amanda Coleman:Yeah, yeah, because because it's and it's weird, because the first time I went back to a concert at the at the arena, um, I found it very unnerving. It was really weird because it was way after all, this had happened. But it's surprising kind of how it seeps into you and it sinks into you and you know, and you'll know, as you know, people dealing with kind of emergencies and crisis. I kind of go to different places and I see all the problems in a way that I sometimes wish I wasn't seeing all the problems. But yeah, it's a difficult one, but yeah, I think the toll it has on staff, and particularly communication staff, often gets overlooked.
Amanda Coleman:You recognise the impact it has and policing in the UK has got very good mental health and wellbeing support for officers who are caught up in the immediacy of something. Health and well-being support for officers who are caught up in the immediacy of something, um, but often other people, like you know, communications kind of public information officers kind of don't see them in the same way. And actually the information that you've learned, that you see, the things you get to know, you can't ever unlearn or know. So I think the support's really needed there as much as it is anywhere else.
Marc Mullen:Right, well, and you dealt with the real dynamic, which is a response inevitably ends. They clean it up, they replace the glass, they clear the way, but people don't recover that quickly and it takes time. And so did you deal as the incident went on or as the response went on? Did you deal with the tension between command center that wanted to be done with it and your understanding and knowledge that it wasn't time to be done with it yet?
Amanda Coleman:Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that bit of the focus that we always had on how it was affecting people and and um the families and how they were feeling, because that was always so central it was, it was it was easy to go. This is where people are. We got a system where we would always make sure that the if there was any public announcement about anything, that the bereaved families would always get information first, the if there was any public announcement about anything, that the brief families would always get information first. So if there was any issue that they had or any concerns, you know, they could raise things, and I think that's that's the way it kind of helped to go. This is where people are and I think that focus on um, those people right at the center of what had happened, um made it a lot easier to argue.
Amanda Coleman:Your case of this is where you can't kind of airbrush and try and move forward. I think it's just a natural thing for a response organisation. It's an emergency response. We've done that bit. Now we need to do this bit. It's very kind of focused, isn't it, on getting through those situations, but because we'd made the, the response support, that kind of put the the families at the heart of it. Um, it was much easier to say you know, this is where the people are. Um, and things like social media much as they're a nightmare in lots of respects for emergency response um, they are really helpful in terms of kind of where people are, what people are feeling and how things are kind of developing. So I think, again, it's using that information to feed it back to support what you're trying to say if response officers are not seeing the same situation.
Marc Mullen:So did your response leaders catch on to that, so that you didn't have to worry about them standing before the mic and saying something like they want their life back or anything like that?
Amanda Coleman:yeah, no, no, that was never an issue. I say because all our statements always started with with a kind of reference to the people who were affected. Uh, right from that, uh from that first night, right the way through, that was always the starting point or whatever we said. So you know. So it made it a lot easier then for people not to say that. And also, I think we were all kind of really heavily personally invested in wanting to, to, to help do our best to get through the really difficult time that, yeah, it became your life and actually that you know, I suppose for me there's quite a privilege for being able to in some way, hopefully help through some of that.
Tom Mueller:Amanda, I know the chief constable conducted the press briefings that you had overnight at 3 am and then again at 7 am. How easy or challenging is it to prep that sort of crisis leader to do the press statement, and do they get time to rehearse it a little bit, or do you hand them a statement, they step out and deliver it?
Amanda Coleman:Yeah, I mean every situation is different. With with this it was quite difficult because there was some really clear boundaries about what we could and couldn't say about what had happened because of the nature of the incident. So we would have normally have done, uh, some, some kind of statement to the media and then answer questions. We were in a position, particularly that first night, we couldn't answer questions because we knew all the questions would be about the areas that we couldn't talk about. Um, so it was very much about kind of reading um, a prepared, agreed statement, focused in the right way, um, and that kind of covered as much as we could. Um, rapid I mean it's senior police officers, particularly when they get to that sort of chief constable level have dealt with lots of different things. So to a certain extent they're quite used to dealing with challenging situations.
Amanda Coleman:I think the issue with this was it was the very personal kind of emotional element um, you know, it's happened on your watch, you're the person in charge and this has happened, which adds a kind of different dimension to it. It was, we did run through it, but you also want it to be as natural as possible. You don't want it to feel as though there's no emotion in there and actually it's about trying to be human and that's what we were. You know we tried to do, so there wasn't a huge amount of rehearsal. I think one of the most challenging things and it's always the little things you remember was we didn't want to have like a scrap of paper when it was being filmed because it would look really, you know, kind of look a bit ropey. So we were searching around to try and find some kind of folder or something which would allow them to hold the piece of paper and not look, I mean, it's just these weird things that you end up having to deal with and it and we used to have um sort of a, a booklet surround thing for certificates for long service and good conduct and all these things, and we ended up having to kind of repurpose one of those we found in the office, um, which became the kind of you know the prop that I think helped him to be able to deliver what he needed to deliver.
Amanda Coleman:So it became a bit of like a sort of I suppose a bit of an emotional support. So where's my folder? I need my folder, and it was like that for the first sort of you know few press briefings, because it's a tough one. It's a really tough one because you've got a lot of things you've got to wrestle with as a senior leader. Because you've got a lot of things you've got to wrestle with as a senior leader. You've got so much to try and grapple with the impact of it, the national kind of pressure you get in terms of government leaders wanting to speak to you, the drive to be visible to the officers who were involved in all the response. I mean it really is a huge, huge challenge. But yeah, it's weird that that's the one thing I kind of remember from that night.
Marc Mullen:Did you have any challenges with unofficial spokespeople, the people in the community or the experts in their fields th at would step up and start to take get the media attention and start delivering a separate message. Or were you able to control the message fairly tightly?
Amanda Coleman:yeah, I wouldn't say we could control the message, because I don't think, I don't think anybody can, um, but I do think this was one of those really rare occasions where, because of what had happened, because of the loss of life, because of the trauma to particularly lots of young people and um, and as well as families and actually we didn't have a lot of of that from from um any source really um, and historically as myself smiling historically the police can be quite leaky in terms of information, you know, leaking out into media sources, and this was one of those occasions where I don't remember any of that actually happening because everybody was too invested in trying to make do the best they could at that point in time.
Amanda Coleman:That it is a very weird situation where, in in the aftermath of the horrific evening and then into the next few days and weeks, the organization came together in a way I'd never seen it. It was a really positive experience for quite a few weeks until, inevitably, these things never last, do they? Infighting and problems and issues and all the rest of it.
Amanda Coleman:But there was a nice period where I think there wasn't that leaking of information, there wasn't that attempt to cause any problems and I think people externally were very supportive. The same, it was challenging on the kind of community relations and hate crime issue because of the different communities, that, um, that we had and trying to balance this with some horrific things, that messages and state, the things that would come across social media around it, um, but you have to try and navigate that the best way you can because just the emotion's so high, isn't it, when something, uh, something happens amanda, in a minute I'm going to just kind of ask you to summarize your key lessons learned from a communications perspective.
Tom Mueller:I wanted to just ask you briefly - I believe the Prime Minister, Theresa May, came out to the site the next day following the explosion, and so now you've got senior government leaders coming into town. That is a whole different dynamic to your response and your plan for the day. How did you guys deal with it and did it really affect your day?
Amanda Coleman:Oh, yeah, yeah, um, and it's difficult because I understand that politicians and senior politicians have to be seen to be there supporting, doing things. You know, I, I totally understand that, and they get heavily criticized when they're not, don't they? So I kind of understand that. I think the challenge that that we had was it wasn't it was less than 24 hours after it had happened, it was the kind of afternoon after, uh, the attack had happened the evening before and it brought with it extra work, extra responsibilities, extra challenges, things that needed sorting out, liaison with you know comms, people from, from the government, a time when you're already short-staffed and you've already got like a million other things to do, um, and, unfortunately, like with a lot, a lot of things, um, if it's a problem with the media, even if it's not to do with, if it's a kind of practically, where are they going to stand, it becomes the press office's job, because you're the media people and this is the media, so you'll do it. When actually it's not, it's like a front of house, you know operational, where do you want them to stand to not be a problem to the. You know access to the, to the building. So, yeah, it's it. It's not the best, it does add massive challenges.
Amanda Coleman:Um, I I do understand why it happens and there's a real positive to. I mean, in the days that followed it wasn't necessarily kind of straight away, but in the days that followed, the Queen at the time and other royal members royal family came to visit hospitals and also to the police headquarters to see some of the responders and that was a massive boost to people. So I kind of I do understand that was a massive boost to people. So I kind of I do understand that. I think the challenge we had was just how quickly they made their way from from London up to Manchester, for that, which we had never anticipated, that wasn't part of the plan and became another aspect of the work that you have to try and deal with.
Tom Mueller:Do you recall - was there an election cycle running at that point?
Amanda Coleman:ctually I can't remember that.
Amanda Coleman:No, I don't think there was like a national election, but we had we just 10 days before the attack happened. I think it was about 10 days before we'd had elections for a local mayor because they were setting up a new kind of mayoral approach, a bit like they have in London and he'd only been in post um literally like just over a week when the attack happened. I mean, he's a very seasoned politician and the guy who's elected Andy Burnhams, and he'd been a local MP and we obviously you know there was a reasonable working relationship there anyway, um, but that just shows, and you just never know when these things are going to happen, and new political leaders have to be ready for whatever happens the minute they've been elected, and sometimes I don't think we recognize that at all of holding elected office right is you need to be prepared quickly and you need to liaise with your key emergency services and build those relationships and all of that and for some it's not a priority, but glad to see it worked out well in this case.
Marc Mullen:You have to learn the art of being there without getting in the way, which is very difficult.
Amanda Coleman:I think there's a whole new episode of your podcast just on that. You know being there but not getting in the way.
Marc Mullen:Too bad, the people that need to hear it won't listen to it Real quick. You mentioned earlier about how long it took one of your staff to finally realize they need help. How, how have you since then dealt with the whole issue of ptsd and the challenges of even as you yourself said, you walk in the stadium and you're on edge. So is there something else that should be considered or planned or prepared early on, because you know it's coming?
Amanda Coleman:Yeah, absolutely. I know. When I'm doing any work with any organization, I say you know your crisis plan needs to include where you're going to provide support. How quickly can you get that support there for people? Because some people will have it after the first shift. Some people, like, will take year. You know, a year, even longer um to to admit, and you can't push people to take help. You know, no matter you do, you do the best you can.
Amanda Coleman:Um and the organization the police that was was really quite um good at recognizing the, the emotional impact that it would have had. Um and, as I say, even to the point of um, including the communications team, albeit, you know, they didn't quite realize that. You know, one of the press officers who'd been dealing with the families um who'd been bereaved was in a briefing with a, with a welfare officer and with a few others, and he was like I know you're not front line staff, but you know you can still be affected, and she just kind of stopped you can I just tell you what I've been doing for the last week, you know, speaking to families who've just just been bereaved in this horrific way, and he was like I'm so sorry because they don't think people recognized the kind of roles that we were doing. So for me that's essential. It's got to be a strand of any kind of crisis response. You've got to get the messages out to the workforce to make sure they know how to access help, and we need to encourage a conversation about it.
Amanda Coleman:And I think that was the big thing was actually trying to get people to comfortable saying I'm struggling, I need some help, and not feeling as though they've got to be that sort of you know. Well, you know it's like me. I used to think I could deal with anything. I could deal with anything. I'd seen so much stuff it was fine I could deal with it and I didn't. And it took me a while to recognise I didn't.
Amanda Coleman:But in the end I accessed some really good counselling which helped me to kind of work through it. But you, you know, we've got to make it easier for people to to access you know support and to recognize what they need it is. It's an interesting statistic that I kind of always remember. That was something like 10 of the workforce had access some sort of help within the first um six months or so, um six months to a year. And if you think about the size of the workforce and the amount of people who would have been not necessarily on duty that night and dealing with things, it shows the kind of impact it can have. So, yeah, you know we all need to get better at being comfortable with being vulnerable and recognizing we're not indestructible.
Tom Mueller:Yeah, we normally think of PTSD, as you know, for our military service members and dealing with that, but issues like this have, you know, a similar kind of impact even for, you know private companies that have to deploy people out into communities. For you know private companies that have to deploy people out into communities, right, and they're, you know, talking to people every day who are impacted by an oil spill or a chemical release or whatever it is, and they're angry and your staff are dealing with that emotion and they're under attack. You know, day after day, being in the communities, all of that stuff takes a toll.
Amanda Coleman:I think one of the challenges as well, certainly in the uk, that there that stuff takes the tolls. I think one of the challenges as well it's certainly in the UK that there's been, and I don't think we've, I don't think we've got a plan yet for it and is that organizations like emergency response are getting really good at providing that support. But when you think about the people who were in the middle of it, the people who have been bereaved, when it's not necessarily the support's not there in the same way, which is rightly kind of really upsetting for them, and you think, oh, hang on a minute, how come those people that were responding on that night have got all this support, but I've not? So we've got to get that support to those affected people in the same way as we do to the responders.
Tom Mueller:Well, Amanda, if you don't mind, just take a minute and summarize for us sort of your key lessons learned that you think would be worthwhile for younger generation of responders coming up behind us to take away from your experience here.
Amanda Coleman:Yeah, the biggest thing for me is always to keep focused on the people who are affected and make sure that your response never lose sight of them and where they are and what they need. And that may mean rewriting plans, um, and focusing things in a slightly different way. Um, the resource in which we mentioned um. You know you will always need more support. Make sure that you've worked out where that's going to come from. I know from an emergency response position you get. You know there's a network of how you get additional support businesses. It's not always as easy to identify. So I think it's about recognizing where you can get that support from um and um and the and the well-being element. So not losing sight of um, how much of an impact it can have on people and over an extended period of time. So make sure that that support is in place and that people can access it pretty quickly and for an extended period of time as well.
Tom Mueller:Amanda, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your experiences with us from that incident back in 2017. Really appreciate your sharing those lessons learned. And, for folks who are interested in Amanda's books, check the podcast notes and we'll leave some links to her publications out there that you can check out if you'd like to. So, amanda, thank you again.
Amanda Coleman:Thanks very much, Tom. Thanks Marc.
Tom Mueller:All right, and that's going to do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast. We really appreciate you being with us today, so thanks again for joining us and if you like what you're hearing, please like and subscribe to the podcast and tell your friends and colleagues about us as well. We'll see you again soon for another episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast.