High Reliability Organisations

CONTRIBUTIONS OF AN « HRO CULTURE » TO THE MANAGEMENT

OF CATASTROPHIC ACCIDENTS: THE CASE OF FRENCH RESCUE

TEAMS

Pr. Claude ROCHET [email protected]

Dr. Philippe AGOPIAN [email protected]

Anaïs SAINT [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]





© Claude Rochet - Anaïs Saint2

Introduction

In 2013, we interviewed expert firefighters and doctors about managing

catastrophic accidents (Saint et al., 2013).

We propose to reanalyze them with the High Reliability Organizations theory (Roberts, 1990 ; Weick et al., 2001…):

are the HRO principles appropriate to deal with a disaster?

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• What is a disaster?• Why should we use the HRO literature?• The seven features of high reliability organizing

Conceptual frame

• An exploratory study• Results from our previous research• Current methodology

Epistemological & methodological insights

• Principles of HRO• Interdependency of these principles• Discussion

Results & discussion

• Enriching and formalizing the criteria• Could people CMM help?• Toward a HRO maturity model

Avenues for research and implementation

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Conceptual Frame

The XX and early XXI centuries have been the theatre of multiple catastrophes related to the growth of human made complex technological systems and their interactions with natural disasters… the need for theories about

disasters management has found answers in the crisis management literature.

Crisis causes “extensive damage and social disruption, involve multiple stakeholders, and unfold through complex technological, organizational and social processes” (Shrivastava et al., 1988)…

A disaster = the paroxysm of a crisis

« out of bounds » situation, non-routine event, conjunction of physical conditions and social disruption, unusual size, disruptions to the communication and decision making capabilities of the emergency response system itself, and an initial breakdown in coordination and communication.

Like a crisis, it may be characterized by the necessity of urgent decision-making and organizing (Combalbert, 2005) but goes beyond crisis recovery

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Conceptual Frame Dealing with a disaster requires an extreme adaptive capability. That is why we chose to use the Berkeley university theory about High Reliability Organizations (Roberts (1990) & Weick et al. (1999)).

“High reliability is the capability to efficiently and continuously manage strongly unstable operational conditions that can become extremely dangerous and non-expectable” (Vidal, 2011).

In a case of a disaster, a temporary multidisciplinary organization is formed to deal with the event. It creates a management situation (Girin, 1990) where the main HRO principles could be used.

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Conceptual FramePreoccupation with failure

Repetitions and controls (Roberts, 1990) Preoccupation with small errors and nearly-accidents (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) “Wisdom” behavior to deal with events (Weick, 2004) Prevention plans (Roberts, 1990)

Reluctance to simplify

Relevance and frequent replacements of the mental representations (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) Conceptual slack (Schulman, 1993)

Sensitivity to operations

Simulations and exercises bound to context (Roberts, 1990) Frequent interactions with environment (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001 ; Vidal, 2011)

Commitment to resilience

Improvisations & arrangements (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) Trend to action rather to inertia (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001)

Deference to expertise

Less confidential data (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) Transfer of the places of decisions according to the problems (Vidal, 2011) Expert adaptation & arrangements outside the rules (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001)

Teamwork Attention to the others’ work and team correction (Baker et al., 2006) Communication and interactions to achieve coordination and adjustment (Baker et al., 2006) Feeling of a common goal (Baker et al., 2006) Anticipation of others’ needs (Baker et al., 2006)

Organizational learning

Debriefing & feedback, (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) Learning loops (Vidal, 2011)

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Epistemology & Methodology

As our goal was to explore the HRO culture, but also to give back the control of their future to the organizations, we followed the path of Le Moigne (1995) and von Glasersfeld (2001), avoiding to definitely state the existence of a unique reality apart from the human observer.

We can assert a radical constructivism as an epistemological basis for our research.

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Epistemological & Methodological Insights

Nine interviews with experts of catastrophic accidents. All of them had been conducting several large rescue operations, characterized by the important amount of casualties.

=> what matters in these situations is the decision, the choices the manager will make.

This study permitted us to understand how the experts used their experience and their training to create mental representations of the situation in order to anticipate (Klein, 1998). It seems that the higher the level of expertise of the actor, the easier the mental

representation will be made: avoiding the time constraint, the expert is less anxious and can take the right decisions in an easier way (Klein & Hoffman, 1992).

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Results: capabilities’ ubiquitousness…

In four interviews, we have identified all the seven capabilities of the HRO culture. In three of them, we noticed only one characteristic was missing and in the last two interviews, we identified five of the seven characteristics of the HRO culture.

Reluctance to simplify was existent in all interviews (“We never live the same catastrophe twice. You could have the same accident in the same place, you won’t have the same victims, nor the same seriousness”)…

And so were sensitivity to operations (“Because we have had the same training, the day of the disaster we will use the same language and understand the situation in the same way”),

Commitment to resilience (“You always have to adapt yourself to the situation, because it’s never as you imagined it during training… so you will have to invent solutions”),

And teamwork (“What becomes more important is the common purpose, not the individual one”).

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… although differently weighted

Eight interviews on nine alluded to organizational learning (“we examine what happened, and the difference between what happened and what should have happened. Then we look for the causes and consequences of this difference.”).

Seven interviews on nine alluded to preoccupation with failure (“you have to anticipate errors and traps.”).

And only six of them alluded to deference to expertise (The one that will be able to save the situation is generally the one that will be able to act outside the schemas we learnt. »). Possible causes: strongly hierarchical organization?

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Results:Interdependance of capabilities Capabilities are strongly interdependent and should not be considered

separately.

Examples : Reluctance to simplify is connected with deference to expertise: “The one who

will make the difference is the one who will know how to modify the situation. He knows how to manage the new events, and he will adapt even outside the procedures.”

The actors combine teamwork and preoccupation with failure: “You give orders to the others, but you take care of your order until the end. You give attention to what will do the team, because they could do something else than what you wanted. Because they have not understood, or because they lack of experience.”

Sensitivity to operations and organizational learning are also cleverly combined: “We organize debriefing after the simulations, as if it had been a real catastrophic accident. It’s useful to obtain everyone’s perception about what happened, what was positive and what was negative.”

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Enacting HRO’s capabilities through practices

Reluctance to simplify

Deference to expertise

Combinig teamwork

Preoccupation with failure

Comitment to resilience

Sensitivity to operations

Organisational learning

Adapting procedures

Debriefing

Upgrading mental maps

Mobilizing others’ competencies

Correcting errors

Simulations

Training Common understanding

Improvisation and arrangements

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Results:HRO culture encompasses at the same time the individual, the organization and the situation

HRO culture complete the classical disaster management

Reliability is still an issue when a disaster has already happened (chain reaction) and after the recovery (rebuilding resilience)

NRO has systemic characteristics : failure in one practice implies the failure of the whole

Shared attitudes fill the gap between organization and the individual to determine High Reliability.

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Next step: How to implement and improve an HRO culture?

Merging HRO principles with Christian Morel principles to avoid « absurd decisions » to design a full set of capabilities

People CMM could help defining an HRO maturity level:

We could consider three levels of HRO culture and practices

Unrelevant for HRO

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Adapting People CMM to assessing HRO capabilities

Unrelevant for HRO

Defining maturity level for each practice

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Applying the IDEAL life cycle

Combining:- Initiating and

sustaining- Individual and

organizations

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CONCLUSIONHRO capabilities complement the crisis management tools.

HRO emerges from the interactions of these capabilities connected by practices.

As a future field of research, we propose to explore the possibility to apply people CMM to assess the maturity of these practices

Although some capabilities appear to be more critical than others (as full scale simulations) an HRO as a system requires each practice to be level 5

Training people to implement an HRO is a permanent process with decreasing costs and increasing returns

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

Pr. Claude ROCHET, Dr. Philippe AGOPIAN & Anaïs SAINT

“Contributions of an « HRO CULTURE » in the management of catastrophic accidents: the case of French rescue teams”

Education

High Reliability Organisations