David Etkin

York University

DISASTER AND COMPLEXITY

1

“One water molecule is not fluid,

One gold atom is not metallic, One neuron is not conscious, One amino acid is not alive, One sound is not eloquent.”

Jochen Fromm,

The Emergence of Complexity

Fromm, J. (2004). The emergence of complexity. Kassel: Kassel university press. 2

TRADITIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

• Evolved from civil defence

• Ex-military/police/fire/EMS

• Command & control

• Works well when:

• Stakeholders agree

• Low uncertainty

• Well bounded

• Well understood

• Linear processes

Well-defined problem

3

The System as a ‘Machine’

• People and organizations do as they are told

• Create stability, order and control

• Bureaucratic:

• Rules and regulations

• Chain of command

• Formal operating procedures

• Maintain power structures and policies

• Little capacity for creativity, innovation or improvisation

• A good place for people who are not comfortable with

ambiguity and uncertainty

4

BUT WHAT ABOUT WHEN….

• Stakeholders don’t agree

• Conflicting interests

• High uncertainty

• Fuzzy boundaries

• Poorly understood

• Complex processes

Ill-defined problem

5

WICKED PROBLEMS

• Difficult or impossible to solve

• incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to

recognize.

• Complex interdependencies

• efforts to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems

• ‘The Plan’ does not work

• we never planned for this!

• The problem changes over time

• Traditional approach leads to paralysis, rigidity, slow response, communication gaps,

decision-making divorced from on-ground information

6

MISMATCH: NORMAL VS DISASTER MANAGEMENT

STRATEGIES

7

• “As these mega-disasters erupted, managerial confusion seriously delayed delivery of services, personnel, and other resources to people in need, exacerbating losses of life, injury, and property damage.”

• “In responding to these rapidly-developing situations, it appears that many managers inappropriately relied on slow, deliberative, incremental responses to events on the ground.”

• “Incremental administrative changes are adequate in addressing organizational problems and improving effectiveness during periods of stability and equilibrium.

• They are ineffective, however, when "wicked" problems alter the decision-making environment because there is little time to react to changing conditions.”

Source: Bolton, M. J., & Stolcis, G. B. (2008). Overcoming failure of imagination in crisis management: The complex adaptive system. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 13(3), 1 -12.

DISASTERS ARE MORPHING

! ! "

Complexity

Impa

cts

Source: de Smit, H. (2012). A Significant Evolution of the Disaster Landscape. Proceedings of the 2012 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research

Conference. G. Lim and J.W. Herrmann, eds.

8

CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

- SELF ORGANIZATION -

• As a balance to

randomness & chaos

• No single bird is in

charge

• Group intelligence

Flock of birds

9

- SENSITIVITY TO INITIAL CONDITIONS -

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

• a small change at one

place in a can result in

large differences to a

later state

• Ball rolling down a

bumpy hill

• Weather

10

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

11

- EMERGENCE -

"the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and properties during the process of

self-organization in complex systems“ Jeffrey Goldstein

Example: Stampede

• The movements in a crowd before it breaks into a stampede appear chaotic.

• When the stampede itself occurs there is order:

• a strong, directional flow in which individuals can be trampled.

• immediate precursors to stampedes recognizable

• stop-and-go waves and turbulent motions

12

- EMERGENCE IN DISASTERS -

Done by:

• Victims

• Volunteers

• EM workers

• Churches

• Businesses

• Government agencies

What they do:

• Search and rescue

• Damage assessment

• Coordinating groups

• Operations groups

• Relief supplies

• Providing shelter

• Emotional support

Does your emergency plan account for emergence?

13

OTHER BEHAVIORS

• Threshold effects that can be irreversible

• Limited predictability

• Surprises

• Multiple states that shift from time-to-time

• Cascading effects across different scales

• There is a difference between managing a ‘complex system’ (nuclear plant) and a

‘complex adaptive system’ (society).

• Our problem requires dealing with complex adaptive systems.

14

FOUR GOVERNANCE TYPES

Source: Duit, A., & Galaz, V. (2008). Governance and complexity—emerging issues for governance theory. Governance, 21(3), 311-335.

Exploration:

risk taking

experimentation

flexibility

innovation

Exploitation:

efficiency

production

implementation

execution

stability

Most institutions

Good for steady

state

Universities

Good for rapid change

Can be inefficient

Does well under

uncertainty and

rapid change

Failed states

Caught in social

traps

Trad

e-o

ffs

Where does your organization fit on this chart?

15

TWO PARADIGMS

• High Reliability Theory (HRT)

• Normal Accident Theory (NAT)

16

NORMAL ACCIDENT THEORY

17

(1) Linear & tight

o Centralized for tight

o Centralized for linear

(3) Linear & loose

o Centralized for linear

o Decentralized for loose

But – either works due to nature of the system

(2) Complex & tight

o Centralized for tight

o Decentralized for complex

An inherent contradiction exists

(4) Complex & loose

o Decentralized for loose

o Decentralized for complex

CENTRALIZATION / DECENTRALIZATION

OF AUTHORITY

18

HOW DOES DISASTER MANAGEMENT

FIT IN THIS ANALYSIS?

19

Disaster

Linear Complex

Loose

Tight

Co

uplin

g

1

3

2

4

Emergency

Catastrophe

WAYS TO THINK

• Improvisation

• The “Oh, crap” moment

• Predictability

• Think in terms of probabilities

• Become comfortable with uncertainty

• Control

• Influence, rather than control

• Explanation

• Multiple interacting causes.

• Ambiguity

• Surprising relationships

20

WHAT DISASTER RESPONSE MANAGEMENT CAN

LEARN FROM CHAOS THEORY

• “… the planned emergency response system will probably not be the one that emerges.

• The one that does emerge will probably have a tendency to be locally self-organizing, somewhat unpredictable in its inter-organizational linkages, and have a tendency to succeed or fail in unpredictable ways.”

Source: Miller, R. L. (2001). What disaster response management can learn from chaos theory. Handbook of crisis and emergency management, 93, 293.

21

END

Useful Readings:

• Miller, R. L. (2001). What disaster response management can learn from chaos theory. Handbook of crisis and emergency management, 93, 293.

• Thomas E. Drabek, David A. McEntire, (2003),"Emergent phenomena and the sociology of disaster: lessons, trends and opportunities from the research literature", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 12 Iss: 2, pp. 97 – 112

• Duit, A. and Galaz, V. (2008). Governance and Complexity – Emerging Issues for Governance Theory. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2008 (pp. 311–335).

• Perrow, C. (2008). Normal accidents: Living with high risk technologies. Princeton University Press.

• Marais, K., Dulac, N., & Leveson, N. (2004, March). Beyond normal accidents and high reliability organizations: The need for an alternative approach to safety in complex systems. In Engineering Systems Division Symposium. MIT, Cambridge, Mass.

22

• OECD (2008). Applications of Complexity Science for Public Policy: New Tools for Finding

Unanticipated Consequences and Unrealized Opportunities. OECD Global Science

Forum. Ettore Majorana International Centre for Scientific Culture, Erice, Sicily

• Kendra, J., & Wachtendorf, T. (2007). Improvisation, Creativity, and the Art of Emergency

Management. Understanding and Responding to Terrorism, 19, 324.

• Bolton, M. J., & Stolcis, G. B. (2008). Overcoming failure of imagination in crisis

management: The complex adaptive system. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector

Innovation Journal, 13(3), 1-12.

• Fromm, J. (2004). The emergence of complexity. Kassel: Kassel university press.

23