Ep. 185: Mark Harris - On What Kidnaps and Other Acute Crises Can Teach Us

Today’s conversation is all about things going badly wrong. We cover this by talking about situations that feature in the plots of action movies. My guest is Mark Harris. Mark is a crisis management and crisis communications expert with decades of experience working at the forefront of these areas. Mark has worked on over 150 incidents of kidnapping, extortion, and hostage-taking around the world. He has also dealt with 19 cases of vessel hijacking, the majority of which were undertaken by Somali pirates. Prior to that, mark served for 14 years in the British Army. And as you will hear, saw service in Germany at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, in Cyprus as part of the UN Peacekeeping contingent, and as a Military Observer in Cambodia when he and his team were taken hostage by the Khmer Rouge.

Mark knows of what he speaks and his experience helping organisations and individuals deal with these types of acute crises offers a number of lessons that are applicable to a range of contexts. We talk about all of that including the dynamics of kidnapping, crisis preparedness, management and communication, and much more.

Show notes:

Mark on LinkedIn

CrisisFit

Mark’s blog post “Agile Leadership in a VUCA World”

Proof of Life

The Weaponisation of Everything by Mark Galeotti

Sheena Thomson Consulting

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Like what you heard?

Subscribe and/or leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/1PjLmK

Subscribe on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/all-things-risk/the-all-things-risk-podcast

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7z8jmcbiemLawrHmay65kH