Translator: Veronique Bisson Reviewer: Lalla Khadija Tigha
This is a story of the day I thought I was going to die.
It was September 14th, 2012,
and I was working at the US Embassy in Tunis,Tunisia.
I was in a safe haven inside the Embassy with 103 of my colleagues
while thousands of protesters,
and within that group, a core group of attackers,
had surrounded our Embassy
and were trying desperately to get in to kill us.
Now remember 72 hours earlier, we had lost 4 colleagues in Benghazi.
We were fortunae that day.
none of us died.
But what was most important wasn’t what we did during the crisis,
but what we did before.
See, we had leaders, in Embassy Tunis, that took security and safety very seriously.
They modeled the behaviour that they expected to see of us.
So whether it was participating in a drill, or answering the radio,
we understood that we were expected to make safety our number one priority,
regardless of what our job was at the Embassy.
They would tolerate nothing less from us.
The second thing they did is they knew us.
They got to know us.
They developed trust.
We trusted them, they trusted us.
So let me step back for a second.
We started with September 11th, when we lost our 4 colleagues in Benghazi.
It was a very difficult day for Embassy Tunis.
We had a very close relationship with our colleagues working in Libya,
we were the adjoining country.
So we took that very personally,
like most of the Foreign Service did, or all of the Foreign Service, really.
That was a very very long night for us.
We were up, trying desperately to think of anything we could do to help,
and unfortunately, we weren’t able to.
On September 12th, we had a protest at the Embassy.
And remember this is Tunisia a year after the Arab Spring,
so we were supportive of the concept of protest,
even if they were potesting against us.
And when the protest was large, it went well.
On September 13th, we got word by a social media
that there would be another protest at our Embassy that Friday, the 14th.
So that morning, the Embassy team got together
and we talked about what we thought was going to happen,
and one decision that we had to make
was whether we were going to send people home that day.
Now, ultimately the decision was that we would stay put,
based on what had happened on Wednesday, we thought we would be fine.
And, to me, this posed quite a conflict,
because, as the Head of Logistics for the Embassy, I had the largest team.
And I really wanted to get them off-site if I could.
So, I was able to come up with a way that we could get most of my folks offsite
to have them test a new capability that we had just gotten --
the ability to telework --
and we wanted to see whether we could do that effectively.
After I had sent most of them home, the remainder of my team and I got together
and we walked around and we took pictures of the Embassy
and we played something called the “What if?” game.
It’s just something we had learned in our training.
What if somebody wanted to hurt us?
What if they came over the walls?
What could they use against us?
We locked up the gas pump.
We remembered that we had received a delivery the day prior
of almost 20,000 liters of fuel.
We dispersed the vehicles on the compound.
So we sent folks home, with some of these cars.
And then we waited.
At around 11 o’clock in the morning, the protesters started to show up.
And things very quickly got out of control.
Many, many thousand, more than we had expected.
And as they came over the wall and things quickly spiralled out of control,
the marines working at our Embassy sounded what’s called the “Duck and cover,”
that’s the alarm telling us that we need to get some place safe
and we all filed into the safe haven.
So you if think about it, we actually had a best case scenario that day,
because you had a team that had high trust, you had a team that was well trained,
but initially, none of that mattered.
Speaking for myself, when the fire alarms went off,
and I could smell smoke, and I’m in this room,
and I remembered what it had happened less than 72 hours earlier,
my brain shut down.
I remember I felt like I had tunnel vision, my legs got weak,
I leaned up against the wall and I kind of slowly sat down.
And I was terrified.
I was terrified.
I had sent my kids to school that morning.
The school was across the street from the Embassy.
I didn’t know where they were and their school was on fire.
And there were looters.
I was afraid I was going to die.
I had fallen desperately in love with somebody and I hadn’t told them yet.
There were a lot of things on my mind.
Now studies have shown that stress, and fear is an extreme form of stress,
has the equivalent effect on your brain as a 15% drop in IQ.
This is why training is so important, because you have to work from muscle memory.
I knew that I had to get control of my fear.
I found out that my kids had been sent home earlier that morning.
As I was running around doing everything I did,
I had missed that piece of information that was key,
so I knew they were fine.
I e-mailed my parents.
I told them I loved them.
And I asked them, please,
should the worse happen, don’t let my kids forget me.
And I sent an e-mail, and I made that person know exactly how I felt.
(Laughter)
Now, I learned an important lesson that day,
that you can’t anticipate how you or anyone else are going to react.
This is why, it’s so important, especially as leaders,
to know the people on your team.
And it’s important for you as a teammate to know your teammates.
This allows you to adapt in the moment.
Now my job that day, even though I was Head of logistics --
my job that day was to keep Washington informed.
So I was on the phone, we had our open line,
because ours wasn’t the only post in crisis,
as we were experiencing
Cairo, Sana’a, Khartoum Islamabad -- similar things.
By about 10 pm, we were able to leave the Embassy.
And it was immediately clear, as I exited the building,
that the smoke was hanging in the air and there was tear gas.
Even in the dark, I could tell that things were going to change.
I went home and I packed my kids suitcases
because I knew I was going to have to send were them away.
And in fact, they left two days later and we would be reunited 9 months later.
The next morning, I went to the Embassy.
And in the light of day, I could see the extent of the devastation.
But my first priority, once we made sure nothing else was on fire literally --
my first priority was putting the flag back up.
It had been taken down during the attack and the pole had been broken,
so we went and got the big flag that we use for the 4th of July,
and we put it up, and that was a tremendous boost to moral.
This is our motor pool Friday morning.
This is our motor pool Saturday morning.
110 vehicles were destroyed, and that includes both personal vehicles.
This is the gas tank that we had locked up.
The local staff put their lives in jeopardy
when they saw that they were trying to set fire to this.
And one of the greatest honors in my career thus far,
was that I was able to nominate four of them for heroism awards.
Because, had they not intervened,
there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be standing here today to talk to you.
90% of our windows and doors were damaged,
over 18 million dollars in damage.
Now, despite the seriousness of the situation,
because it’s also really important to maintain a healthy sense of humour.
So, in that spirit, I would like to share a career milestone with you.
I’ll just share it.
[A moment of levity -- After 11 years in Foreign Service,
I was finally allowed to use the Ambassador's toilet]
(Laughter)
This was while we were in the safe haven.
I actually posted this as a Facebook memory last year,
forgetting that I’m now friends with the Ambassador.
(Laughter)
And, fortunately, he’s got a great sense of humour,
and he said I could use his bathroom anytime.
(Laughter)
So I’ve taken the lessons from this event
and I now help to train my colleagues before to go out to the field.
There are 13,000 members of the Foreign Service,
serving alongside 25,000 host country nationals
in 276 embassies and consulates.
Now my current assignment
as the Director of Crisis Management, in the office of the Secretary of State,
what I always emphasize is that it’s important to do the work before the crisis --
You can’t do that during.
And ultimately, crisis leadership, whether it is before, during or after,
is about communication.
You must trust your team.
They must trust you.
You must know your people,
you can’t predict how they will react.
You must lead by example.
if you take security seriously, so will they.
And this is critical because during the crisis,
you have to make decisions.
And those decisions can turn out to be wrong,
and you can still be OK because if your team trusts you and they believe in you,
they’ll just rally and keep going.
We could argue that the decision to not send people home on Friday morning
was the wrong decision,
but it was fine because we were able to move pass it.
The other thing we talked about is making sure that you give everyone a job.
That ensures unanimity of effort and gives people something to focus on.
Now that day, my job was communicating with Washington.
Another crisis, also in September -- it was September 11th of 2001 --
on that day, my job was to make sandwiches.
Rank and position don't matter in a crisis.
In the Foreign Service we are taught that there’s no job above you,
there’s no job beneath you.
You do what you need to do to accomplish the job.
You have to remember that, for many, the initial reaction will be shock and fear.
And to overcome that, you must have trained, and trained, and trained.
Now crisis can happen at any time,
and we were certainly caught by surprise that day in Tunis.
But we were able to manage it successfully because we had done the hard work before.
We were well trained,
we worked effectively as a team, and we trusted each other.
Now hopefully, none of you will experience a crisis as dramatic as this one.
But the lessons apply regardless,
because whether you are a leader or a team member,
what you do before a crisis will set you and your team up for success
and will help you manage whatever may come your way.
Thank you.