Leadership Matters

CHAPTER 2MEET UNIQUE CHALLENGES WITH UNIQUE SOLUTIONS

It was while working with Interpol in the counterterrorism community that I first encountered the saying ‘hope is not a plan’. We can't just hope that something will or won't happen, but there is only so much contingency planning we can do. When we are presented with unique challenges we need to respond with unique solutions. This is the domain of true leaders who need to develop creative solutions, build teams and confront challenges that haven't been anticipated or planned for.

As the pilot lowered the collective and eased back on the cyclic of his helicopter we commenced the descent, landing in the grounds of the local school. It was the unmistakable smell that confirmed for me that we had arrived at our destination. The smell of death, once experienced, is not something that ever leaves you. For me, it is a legacy of decades of walking into scenes of decomposing bodies and spending hours alone with a lifeless body in a state that is beyond the imagining of most normal people, and for their sake that is a good thing.

Inside the temple at Wat Yan Yao, which had lost the serenity and peace associated with a Buddhist temple and now resembled a gathering of the dead from a horror movie, we were faced with unprecedented and indeed unique challenges. To meet those unique challenges, we needed to find unique solutions.

Our central challenge was and remains the world's largest disaster victim identification attempt ever undertaken. ...