organisational resilience following a major disaster

Organisational Resilience following a Major Disaster

Mr. David G. BroadbentB.A.(Hons), M.A.P.S., F.A.I.M., F.I.S.Q.E.M.

Safety PsychologistTransformationalSafety.Com

© TransformationalSafety.Com

Technical Session # 4ATopic : Organisational Resilience following a Major Disaster


• Types of of Major Disaster Scenarios• Natural Types of Disasters

• Agricultural diseases & pests• Damaging Winds• Drought and water shortage• Earthquakes• Emergency diseases (pandemic

influenza)• Extreme heat• Floods and flash floods• Hail

• Hurricanes and tropical storms• Landslides & debris flow• Thunderstorms and lighting• Tornadoes• Tsunamis• Wildfire• Winter and ice storms• Sinkholes

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• Types of of Major Disaster Scenarios• Man-Made and Technological Types of Disasters

• Hazardous materials• Power service disruption &

blackout• Nuclear power plant and nuclear

blast• Radiological emergencies• Disease/s

• Chemical threat and biological weapons

• Cyber attacks• Explosion• Fires• Civil unrest




Organisational Resilience following a Major DisasterOrganisational Resilience following a Major Disaster


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• Impacts of Major Disaster Scenarios - Individual– Intrusive symptoms

– Persistently re-experiencing the event in thoughts, images, recollections, daydreams, and/or nightmares

– Feeling upset, distressed and/or anxious in the presence of reminders of the event

– Avoidance symptoms– Avoiding places, thoughts, conversations and/or people

associated with the event – Problems recalling some aspects of the event – Losing interest in formerly enjoyable and important activities

of life – Feeling “removed” from other people – Feeling numb





• Impacts of Major Disaster Scenarios– Arousal symptoms

– Being on the alert for danger – Being jumpy and easily startled – Experiencing sleep disturbances (such as not being able to get

to sleep, waking up often, or having vivid dreams or nightmares)

– Difficulty concentrating – Irritability or angry outbursts





• Impacts of Major Disaster Scenarios - Organisational– Rigidity of the organization when proposing change or a new

direction. – Broken connections, between for instance older employees and

newer employees that despite mutual willingness, can't be put back together again.

– No flow between different divisions of an organization or between the organization and the outside world. It's difficult to have flow when there are broken connections.

– The organization or the department appears to be standing still in time.

– Large groups of people in the organisation are focused on the past instead of the future.

– High degree of staff turnover and exponential increase in people management costs.

– Significant decline in operational integrity – increased risk of recurrence





• This cannot be allowed to continue!• It is organisationally irresponsible!• It is ethically irresponsible to expose our people to the

ongoing effects of Major Disasters!• From every perspective we have an organisational

responsibility (both corporate and ethical) to mitigate loss and strive toward recovery (both corporate and ethical).


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• What is Resilience – and why does it matter– Resilience is generally viewed as the ability to positively

adapt and/or “bounce back” from adverse situations – Staying positive when the going gets tough.

– Hamel and Valikangas (2003) capture this well:

Resilience is not about responding to a one time crisis... It’s about continuously anticipating and

adjusting... It is about having the capacity for change before the need for change becomes obvious

The Goal is an organization that is constantly making its future rather than defending its past





• Do we really need to be concerned about this?– The Black Swan

– Rare (outside the bounds of known likelihoods)– Unpredictable (unable to anticipate)– Severe (unprecedented impact)– Event (good or bad)


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• Just a few Black Swan Disasters?– Challenger (7) / Columbia (7)– Deepwater Horizon (11)– Texas City (15)– Chernobyl (>56)– United 232 (108)– Kansas City Hyatt (114)– Piper Alpha (167)– Herald of Free Enterprise (186)– Tenerife (583)– Bhopal (>2200)





• Resilience Engineering (RE)– Resilience – the ability to adjust its functioning to sustain

operations during expected conditions and in the face of escalating demands, disturbances, and unforeseen circumstances.

– Resilience Engineering – the tools that promote resilience: anticipate, monitor, respond, learn’

Erik HollnagelEditor: Resilience Engineering Perspectives Volume 1:Remaining Sensitive to the Possibility of Failure


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• The Resilience Engineering (RE) Hallmarks– Anticipate – knowing what to expect;

long-term threats and opportunities– Monitor – knowing what to look for;

near-term developments and threats (critical steps)

– Respond – knowing what to do;capable of addressing expected and unexpected conditions

– Learn – knowing what has happened (experience) and what to change (improvement)





• High Reliability Operations(HRO)• “HROs are organisations that function effectively

under challenging multi hazard environments yet manage to get the job done over sustained periods of time with minimal, if any, negative event occurring. They are known for making ‘good’ decisions that consistently result in safe and reliable operations.”

David G BroadbentDirector: TransformationoanlSafety.com“Safety at the Sharp End”, Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA, 2012





• The High Reliability Operations (RE) Hallmarks– Preoccupation with Failure

– When near-misses occur, these are viewed as evidence of systems that should be improved to reduce the potential for accidents/disaster.

– Rather than viewing near-misses as proof that the system has effective safeguards (a false belief), they are viewed as symptomatic of areas in need of more attention.

– Reluctance to Simplify– Simple processes are good, but simplistic explanations for why

things work or fail are risky. Avoiding overly simple explanations of failure (unqualified staff, inadequate training, communication breakdown, etc.) is essential in order to understand the true reasons why “bad things happen”

– Sensitivity to Operations– Preserving constant awareness by leaders and staff of the state

of the systems and processes that affect the integrity of the operaion/s. This awareness is key to noting risks and preventing them.





• The High Reliability Operations (RE) Hallmarks– Commitment to Resilience

– Leaders and all employees need to be effectively trained, and prepared, to know how to respond when system failures do occur.

– Deference to Expertise– Leaders and supervisors, must be willing to listen and

respond to the insights of staff who know how processes really work.

– If this is lacking shall not be a culture in which high reliability is possible.





• The Causes of Tomorrows Disasters Exist Today!





• What are the advantages of combining RE & HRO to achieve Organisational Resilience?– RE emphasizes adapting – to maintain success.– HRO emphasizes reliability – avoiding failure.– Fundamentally, the only difference is PERSPECTIVE!

– Together they provide Exothermic Protection coupled with unprecedented ability to maintain a high level of Resilience following your Black Swan (Major Disaster)





• Things to REMEMBER?– Performance conditions are always imperfect: resources and

time are finite, training and procedures are incomplete, and planning is approximate.

– The reliability of individual components or subsystems cannot always effectively predict how they combine to create unique pathways to system failure.

– Safety is what you do, not what you have (continuous adaptation to changes and disruptions—it must be core business – not an add-on).

– People create safety within inherently imperfect systems.





• Things to DO?– Make boundaries explicit, and build a “preoccupation with

failure.”– Give people coping skills (adaptive capacities) at boundaries.– When introducing change,

1. avoid introduction of local factors that intensify volatility for the front-line worker, (control) and

2. preserve local factors that support flexibility in off-normal conditions (adaptability).

– Pay attention to: 1. avoiding human failures at critical steps, and 2. improving system health (removing the accumulation of

latent system weaknesses)– Expand Human Error from a myopic operational focus to an

organizational focus.– Monitor how you monitor system health and safety.






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