THE SENTINEL: Exercising Leadership to Protect Facilities

According to its website, the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) is the premier professional association for facility management and supports the largest community of facility management professionals in the industry. IFMA membership comprises more then 17,500 facility professionals throughout 50 countries and its members have a voice in 126 chapters and 14 councils.

The mission of the New Jersey Chapter of IFMA is to enhance the value of the organization to the professional facility manager. The goal of the New Jersey Chapter is to serve as a user friendly,easily accessible resource of interaction, education and empowerment of professional skills and knowledge.

Complimenting the mission and goal of the New Jersey Chapter of IFMA, I was honored to be the guest speaker for their Wednesday, February 21, 2007 event at the Marriott in Somerset, New Jersey and presented, "Exercising Leadership to Protect Facilities" to over 50 facility management professionals representing New Jersey corporations and schools. The venue was generously sponsored by Bravo Building Services.

The agenda for the evening was:

Setting the Stage (Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned-the need for a culture of preparedness, leadership, partnerships and unity of effort)
A Crisis of Leadership (Public, Corporate and Professional Sports Scandals)
A Culture of Violence (School and Workplace Violence/Terrorism)
Exercising Leadership (Security Vulnerability Assessments, Risk Management, Target Hardening, Defense in Depth, Emergency Planning, Personnel Security, Sensitive Information Protection, Security Management, Crisis Management Committee's and Security Protocols including lockdowns, sheltering in place, evacuations, partial and full scale drills)

The presentation highlighted the cornerstone of facility protection as moral leadership, heightened vigilance and dedicated collaboration and the six pillars of practical day-to-day leadership as:

Affirmation
A Sense of Urgency
Dignity
Respect
Honesty
Compassion

As with all of my presentations, the program was punctuated with a moment of silence to reflect and remember those who are serving in our military and their families, especially those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The attendees provided significant insights into their work and current concerns. Their commitment and dedication reminds us that:

"Leadership is key for those responsible for facilities and vigilance demands updated, tested and effective emergency plans to protect the lives of individuals entrusted to their care and to safeguard the very survival of their organizations."