Claudine SchWeber, University of Maryland University College
claudine.schweber@umuc.edu
Joanne Tritsch, Mary Baldwin College
tritsch@gmail.com
Global Forum on Urban and Regional Resilience
Virginia Tech, Oct, 14, 2014
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An organization or community that has
“internalized continuity management to the
extent that all strategic decisions…are made
with a view towards making critical enabling
processes resilient from the beginning”
 Brazeau 2008, p 28
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“ability to positively adapt to change and transform
experiences/situation to advantage and emerge stronger”…Elliot et
al,2010,p216)
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“capacity to cope with unanticipated dangers after they have
become manifest; learning to bounce back” (Comfort, 1994, p. 158)
facilitating a “rapid, flexible, innovative and effective response
when a future crisis presents itself” (Boin & Lagadec, 2000, p. 188)
Resilient individuals can “respond quickly and effectively to
change while enduring minimal stress.” (Mallak, l998,p 8)
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 Natural disasters: Hurricane Katrina 2005,
Hurricane Sandy 2012, East coast earthquake,
2011
 Community crisis: Ferguson, Mo.2014
 Health concerns: Ebola virus, Swine flu, H1N1
and fear of spreading/pandemic
 Organizational Crises: Federal Gov’t sequester
2013, General Motors recall 2014, ** Johnson &
Johnson Tylenol crisis 1982
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• Continuity of operations (coop): “an
institution’s [community’s] ability to maintain or
restore its business…when some circumstance
threatens or disrupts normal operations” (Pirani and
Yanofsky, p 2)
• Ensuring that ‘essential functions’ can continue
during and after the event; re-establish full
functionality quickly; continuity of mission-critical
services (SchWeber, 2010)
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Anticipation
(preparation)
Crisis:
Trigger
Event
Management
during event
(response)
Resilience
(recovery)
Thriving or
Hyper –
resilience
(better off)
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Ability to:
 Adapt to the unexpected situation, problem-solve,
develop solutions out of available resources. 
bricolage (Levi-Strauss, C. 1996); expand or obtain access to
resources beyond those normally available
 Make decisions quickly “in unfamiliar contexts’ , when
faced with the crisis (Winter, 2007)
 Develop consistent communication with new media
technologies (Cason & SchWeber,2014)
 Repair lost trust (Tritsch)
 Preparation Response, Recovery
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making use of resources, tools available to
accomplish the task, despite the fact that
resources are less than what would be
preferred
 the art of creating a new entity from a diverse
range of things available
 Something made or put together using
whatever materials happen to be available
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*Levi-Strauss, C.
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“decisions in unfamiliar contexts”
“only by going forward is it possible to learn
what the options are for going further
forward” (Winter, 2007, p 510)
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Consider whether these decisions represent
“System 1 or System 2” thinking:
--System 1=fast, automatic, intuitive
--System2=slow, deliberative, requires
attention, complex considerations
(Daniel Kahneman, 2011)
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Electronic tools in which user can be author
and audience.
Weblogs, podcasts, social networking sites,
microblogs, mobile text messages, wiki,
image/video sharing, instant messaging,
listservs
NMT can aid or hinder communication—no
one sole ‘owner’ of the communication
 Cason & SchWeber, 2014
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Internal and external organizational communication have distinct purposes
focusing on different groups of stakeholders, but they also overlap in the
area of effective crisis/emergency planning
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A “psychological state comprising the
intention to accept vulnerability based upon
positive expectations of the intentions or
behaviors of another” (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer,
1998, p. 395).
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Involves “making a confident judgment about
a party’s responsibility” (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2011, p. 5).
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result of “an intentional or unintentional
breach of trust or the perception of such a
breach” (Reina, & Reina, 1999, p. 10).
Once damaged, “there is a tendency to
privilege negative evidence over positive
evidence” (Lewicki, & Bunker, 1996, p. 127).
Damaged trust “leads to behavior which
bolsters the validity of distrust itself” (Kramer,
1999, p. 594).
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Self-protection and risk aversion
(Gillespie, & Dietz,
2009; Lewicki, & Bunker, 1996)
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Pessimism concerning co-worker motives and
competencies Retaliatory and(Dietz, & Gillespie, 2011;
Jones, 2008)
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revenge seeking
(Baumgartner, Fischbacher, Feierabend,
Lutz, & Fehr, 2009)
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Increased cynicism and general bad behavior
(Kramer, 1999; Wang, & Wart, 2007)
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Greater effort is required for trust repair than
for damaging or even initially building trust.
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“The mistrusted party must not only reestablish positive expectations, but also
overcome the salient negative expectations
that are likely to have arisen from the trust
violation” (Kim, Dirks, Cooper, & Ferrin, 2006, p. 50).
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Integrity breaches are more harmful to trust
than competency breaches
In breaches of trust, a single error of
competency is often viewed as a mistake,
where a single error of integrity is often
viewed as a signal of greater dishonesty.
Honest acknowledgment , apologies, offers of
redress may mitigate damage
 Tritsch
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•
•
•
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Preparation: communication
◦ Compatibility of communication modes among varied
personnel—emergency management, police, organization/
community leaders (e.g. 9/11 problem)
Federal gov’t web options: Ready site http://www.ready.gov;
health/CDC http://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia
,http://emergency.cdc.gov/; weather
http://www.weather.gov/socialmedia; nws.social.media@noaa.gov
Local government: Montgomery County, MD http://montgomerycert.org/
= Alert sign up; Twitter information; social media link; Washington DC:
Homeland Security & Emergency Management Agency;
http://hsema.dc.gov/ = sign up for DC Alerts; ‘Be Aware’ links re utility
outage, etc; Arlington, Va: Emergency http://emergency.arlingtonva.us/
= sign up link for Alerts; how to deal with an active shooter; emergency
plan details; Arlington Prepares smartphone app
Plan B, C????
Practice, Practice, Practice
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Participants’ examples
Ferguson, Mo. (handout)
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Workforce resilience
 Ability of employees to continue to fulfill
essential functions despite stress
 Closely connected with personal resilience
positive adaptation to change; ability to
recover from disruptive change without
acting in dysfunctional or harmful ways
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Personal and family impact
Department and staff adaptability
Cultural dynamics of team, unit
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ability of employees to continue to fulfill essential
functions when [affected by stressful situations].
Workforce resilience elements:
◦
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◦
◦
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Leadership in unit, organization
Training and support for new, additional positions..+ rewards
Support for colleagues with increased work-loads
Knowing the organization’s plans for action
Contact for questions, concerns –public and confidential
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Plan for impact on staff and families
Provide support for changing roles : family notification
process, communication
Identify family assistance support, e.g., transportation
out of area, to medical facility
Identify and contact alternative contact sources,
especially of existing communications not operative
(e.g., power outages).
--FEI Crisis Management: Keys to organizational resilience (2012)
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HRO: organizations that “operate
continuously under trying conditions and have
fewer than their fair share of major incidents.”
 HROs are not error-free…but errors don’t
disable them.
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 *Weick & Sutcliffe, 2007,p 14
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1. Preoccupation with Failure: attention to details and previous
failures
2. Reluctance to simplify: create a broader picture of what is being
faced than simple summaries
3. Sensitive to Operations: attention to front line/ real work as it
occurs or occurred
4. Commitment to resilience : ‘intrinsic ability of an organization
(system) to maintain or regain a dynamically stable state which allows
it to continue operations after a mishap and/or in the presence of a
continuous stress”;--Improvising workarounds that enable the system to
keep functioning; require knowledge, understanding, of technology,
system, co-workers, self.
5. Deference to expertise: cultivate staff diversity in skills, knowledge;
decision-making pushed down, around; rank does not drive authority to
take action, implement (e.g, flight operations emergencies)
 Weick & Sutcliffe, pp 9-16
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Resilience requires development and maintenance of
HRC (high reliability communities).
How might (some of) the HRO principles be applied
to communities?
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to Move from
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To
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To thriving 
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