Title
Emergency Management Is Not What You Think: A New Framework
Record Type
Video
URL
https://youtu.be/FHwrqit5U2o
Contact
Jonathan Gaddy
Year
2,022
Publisher
Imara IHG

Summary
Jonathan Gaddy challenges traditional emergency management, shifting focus from activities to outcomes like community resilience. Using the "strategic triangle," he explains why managers lose autonomy during crises and how to maintain legitimacy and public value when resources peak.
Description
In this lecture, Jonathan Gaddy, Deputy Director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, challenges traditional ways of thinking about emergency management and introduces a strategic framework for understanding power, legitimacy, resources, and outcomes.
Moving beyond the classic four phases model (preparedness, response, mitigation, recovery), the talk explores why these are activities, not outcomes—and why emergency managers must instead focus on stakeholder readiness, community resilience, and organizational capacity. Using concepts like public value, legitimacy and support, and the strategic triangle, the session explains why emergency managers often lose autonomy during crises—precisely when attention and resources increase.