Exam

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Leadership Tasks in Crisis Management Crises and disasters put leaders, and their leadership, to the test. In extreme circumstances marked by col- lective stress and extensive damage, leaders are expected to mount an eff ective response, protecting citizens and minimizing consequences. Leaders must organize a set of activities that includes sensemaking (understanding the crisis), critical decision making, vertical and hori- zontal coordination, meaning-making (formulating an authoritative defi nition of the situation), and commu- nication (Boin, ‘t Hart, Stern, & Sundelius, 2005; Boin, Kuipers, & Overdijk, 2013). Th ese executive tasks are hard to accomplish in the best of circumstances. Th e dynamics of crises and disasters make it even harder.

Joint sensemaking is particularly important to eff ective crisis management: if decision makers do not have a shared and accurate picture of the situation, they cannot make informed decisions and communicate eff ectively with partners, politicians, and the public. Many crises—ranging from 9/11 to Katrina, from

ORCHESTRATING JOINT SENSEMAKING

ACROSS GOVERNMENT LEVELS: CHALLENGES

AND REQUIREMENTS FOR CRISIS LEADERSHIP

ARJEN BOIN AND CYNTHIA RENAUD

Making sense of a crisis is an important task for leaders at both the operational and strategic level.

In the current article, we argue that there is a difference between sensemaking at the strategic and

operational levels of a disaster response. An “appreciative gap” may emerge between the two levels

as a result. Such a gap can cause stress and strife between the operational and strategic layers work-

ing on the same crisis event. Bridging the gap poses very specifi c demands on leadership at both

the strategic and operational level.

Sandy to Boston—have shown how hard it is to make sense of a fast-moving threat that defi es plans and eludes collective experience.

To develop a quick understanding of a new and inconceivable threat typically requires a large number of actors, operating at diff erent levels of the system, to share and compare their picture of the situation. Th e more actors and the more variety in organizational stripes and feathers, however, the harder it becomes to establish a shared picture of a dynamic situation.

In the response to large-scale disasters, we should distinguish between the strategic and the operational level. Th e strategic layer of decision makers is normally comprised of the top echelons of response organizations: police and fi re chiefs, city managers, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) leaders, elected offi cials, and chief executive offi cers of private businesses. Th ey typically gather at an emergency operation center (EOC) and manage a crisis from that location. Th is level of decision makers will bear the scrutiny of after-incident reviews.

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Second, most people fi nd it very hard to cope with stress and uncertainty (Kahneman, 2011). Th e brain likes to eliminate uncertainties by suggesting a variety of shortcuts or what psychologists call “heuristics.” Th ese heuristics work quite well in normal times, as they help us to make sense of situations we do not understand right away. Unfortunately, these heuristics do not necessarily lead to a correct picture of the situation. Moreover, the brain’s sensemaking capacities quickly deteriorate under stress. All this may lead individuals to cling to the fi rst available (and convincing) explanation of what is happening.

Th ird, group interaction often introduces additional barriers to a correct and shared picture of the situation. Th e particular way in which a group shares and discusses pieces of information (even the order in which it is presented), the relations between group members (trust, dislike, etc.), the setting in which a group convenes, and the behavior of the group leader all aff ect the outcome of group deliberations. Seemingly small factors may have disproportionate eff ects on a group’s sensemaking abilities.

Fourth, organization theorists have pointed out that many barriers within and between organizations often prevent the necessary fl ow of information and the sharing of perceptions. In his classic Man-Made Disasters, Barry Turner (1978) explains how specialization and division of labor in modern organizations create and institutionalize diff erent ways of seeing, which, in turn, can create collective “blind corners” (ways of not seeing). Th is may lead to situations where some people in the response network do not understand what others in that network take for granted.

In normal times, institutional mechanisms such as deliberation, specifi cation, and verifi cation (characteristic of the bureaucratic process) compensate for sensemaking shortcomings. But in crisis, such institutionalized information-processing mechanisms no longer suffi ce, as they are geared toward routine processes.1 In the absence of such mechanisms, an “appreciative gap” can rapidly emerge and divide the strategic from the operational level.

An important factor is that both worlds operate on diff erent time scales. First responders, as their name implies, simply get there fi rst. It usually takes more time for executives to arrive either at the command

Th e operational level is at the heart of the crisis: where the explosion occurs, the shooting happens, or the levees break. It is where ranking offi cers from all involved disciplines fi rst respond to the scene. It is where operational commanders (perhaps a sergeant or lieutenant) attempt to make some sense of the situation so they can begin to articulate orders and give direction to responding resources in an attempt to get a handle on the situation.

Operational and strategic leaders operate in diff erent worlds that are often separated by an “appreciative gap”—deep diff erences in perspectives, aims, and actions. In the current article, we explore how the diff erent dynamics of both response levels aff ect joint sensemaking. First, we conceptualize the idea of an “appreciative gap” separating the operational and strategic levels. We then probe these dynamics at both levels, after which we briefl y consider strategies that may help to bridge this gap.

Joint Sensemaking Across a n Appreciative Gap A crisis combines three elements that together pose deep challenges to crisis managers: there is a collective per- ception of threat, which must be immediately addressed under conditions of pervasive uncertainty (Rosenthal, Charles, & ‘t Hart, 1989). Sensemaking is the set of activities aimed at coping with that uncertainty.

When a situation is new and baffl ing, crisis managers must try to get information, analyze it, establish a picture of the situation, share that picture, and update it as new information becomes available (Weick, 1995). As simple as this may sound, joint sensemaking in crisis often fails. Th e literature off ers at least four types of explanation for this failure.

First, the chaos of crisis is not conducive to rapid sensemaking. Normal processes of information and communication often fall apart, organizational chains fragment, and key information (What’s the cause? How many people died? How many wounded?) is simply hard to come by. It takes precious time and trained offi cers to survey a disaster site, collect critical information, summarize it in an understandable way, and get that information to the right person in the chain. For fi rst responders, however, the collection of this information is rarely a priority.

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post or the emergency operations center after they have been notifi ed of the event. As a result, both levels of leadership exist for a time in diff erent “time zones.” Th e operational level has been on scene and operating for a period of time before the strategic level gets its act together.

Th ese diff erent time scales can deepen the appreciative gap in at least two ways. Initial sensemaking at the strategic level may simply adopt and build on the fi rst crystallized sensemaking eff orts emanating from the operational level without questioning that defi nition of the situation. Th e gap may also be deepened by strategic crisis managers looking for confi rmation in operational reports of their own initial impressions of the situation.

One might think that the Incident Command System (ICS), which off ers a platform for cooperation between large numbers of actors, is critical to joint sensemaking. Although the ICS system has been successful in facilitating joint coordination, it does not address the sensemaking challenges noted previously (Renaud, 2012).2 It provides for horizontal connections but is less eff ective in bridging the appreciative gap that separates the fi eld from the crisis center.

To accomplish joint sensemaking requires leadership. Leadership is understood here in terms of orchestrating the implementation of executive tasks in order to channel the eff orts of many toward a defi ned aim (Barnard, 1938). As the dynamics are very diff erent at the strategic and operational levels, joint sensemaking requires diff erent forms of leadership. It is to these diff erent dynamics that we turn next.

Crisis Sensemaking at the Operational Level For an operational leader, sensemaking begins from the moment he or she hears about the crisis. While getting to the scene, the operational leader seeks to make sense of the fi rst, often bewildering if not inconceivable, mes- sages. Driving to the scene, the leader will listen to the radio traffi c, trying to separate the real information from all the noise. Radio traffi c is loud and confused; people are yelling, sometimes crying. He or she might call the dispatch supervisor who is in the hub of the communication center and may know more than any- one else at this point. Somebody will be on the phone

wanting to know what is going on: it could be a boss, an elected offi cial, a media representative, or a family member. People will be asking for decisions before the leader even arrives on scene. All of this is likely to raise the responding leader’s stress level immediately.

A picture, however incomplete, begins to form and will shape the leader’s fi rst information needs: Are people hurt? Are there suspects outstanding? Are guns still blazing? What is the physical scope of the event? He or she will mentally revisit similar situations, recalling what went wrong and what went right. Th e initial sensemaking will steer fi rst observations on scene: as psychologists tell us, people often see what they expect to see.

Upon arrival, the operational leader will get out of the car and walk to the heart of the event. Th at walk is the last moment of peace the operational leader will have before getting completely overwhelmed by people, environment, questions, and demands. Th e fi rst visual clues emerge. Colleagues and complete strangers will share their situational assessment, typically mixed with requests for action or direction.

One of the (many) tasks of operational leadership is to create situation reports (“sitraps”) for the strategic level. Th is means that operational leaders must survey the disaster site and translate visual impressions and fragmentary information into an understandable and accurate report. As the report will set the tone for discussions and strategizing at the strategic level, it is extremely important to get it right.

Experienced fi rst responders make sense of a crisis situation by matching their fi rst observations with situational vignettes that are stored in memory (Flin, 1996; Klein, 2009). Th ey “feel” and “act” their way into a response, by testing their initial perceptions against subsequent observations (Weick, 1995).

Such a process can be surprisingly eff ective: quick and accurate sensemaking informs self-organization, improvisation, and life-saving activities. But it critically depends on the level of expertise and the “knowability” of a crisis. Experience can make a huge diff erence, especially when the threat has “knowable” components (Flin, 1996; Kahneman & Klein, 2009; Klein, 2009). In that case, experienced operational commanders will have a more accurate picture of an emerging crisis than their inexperienced counterparts in the EOC

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(Kahneman & Klein, 2009). But in unique situations, when experience off ers no guidance (or misguidance), strategic leaders may even have a better view of the situation than operational leaders.

Crisis Sensemaking at the Strategic Level Th e world of strategic crisis management is a diff erent one from the world in which fi rst responders do their job. As fi rst responders organize themselves at or near the disaster site, political and administrative executives rush to the crisis center or EOC. Th ese executives will spend most of their time in a conference room, with whiteboards, telephones, and computer screens, from which they will direct and oversee the crisis response.

Th eir eff orts to make sense of the situation diff er from those at the operational level along several dimensions:

Time: In the operational world, every second counts. At the strategic level, split-second decisions are extremely rare. Th e strategic level therefore has more time to think, especially in the initial phase of a crisis. But there is not much to “do”: there usu- ally are few truly strategic decisions that demand attention. Searching for something to manage, they tend to focus on operational issues. Th e subsequent search for operational detail may then come to shape the sensemaking process. Information: First responders see, hear, and smell the crisis; strategic leaders have to imagine it. Th is opens the door for various heuristics such as ana- logue reasoning (comparing the new threat to simi- lar threats that happened before). Strategic leaders crave information; fi rst responders often drown in it. Th is creates what we may term a “sensemaking void” in which strategic leaders struggle to grasp the immensity of the crisis. Information partners: Whereas the operational site is crawling with fi rst responders who all carry bits of information (and disinformation), the EOC is fi lled with people who all have information that has reached them through a chain of command. Th us, lots of vital information got lost in the chain or may have gotten embellished and explains why fatality numbers often appear higher in the early phase of a disaster. It also means that verifi cation

and any search for new information will require time and eff ort. Th is becomes even harder when key information providers are not represented at the EOC (think of businesses or “unknown” agen- cies that were not included in the disaster plan).

Media: Crises and disasters are media events. Media provide both a source of frustration and a rare opportunity for strategic leaders to portray leadership. Media moments (interviews, press conferences) often drive the organization of the sensemaking process in the EOC: “We need this information quick, because the governor needs to say something!” But media can also help to make sense of the situation as they bring their sensemak- ing results to the attention of the strategic level through the questions they pose. Strategic leaders do not always make full use of the media as an information source. In fact, they often view the media in adversarial terms. Detailed questions typi- cally fuel a new information search, which takes up critical resources (attention) and may have a paralyzing eff ect on sensemaking eff orts.

Politicization: Crises and disasters are also deeply political at heart (‘t Hart, 2013). Th ey provide an opportunity to demonstrate leadership and per- formance capacity; they also provide a stage for critics to launch or strengthen a narrative about how the incompetence, lack of caring, or political agenda is exposed by the crisis. Facts matter less than argumentation here. It means that “meaning- making”—off ering a credible and evocative narrative to the public—will be as important as “sensemak- ing.” Political leaders may thus be tempted to inter- pret a crisis in a certain way, which, in turn, will shape their sensemaking. In this respect, it is always interesting to witness the shadow line of command, made up of political advisors, that emerges in an EOC.

Overcoming the Gap: Cues for Leadership We have argued that an appreciative gap between stra- tegic and operational levels is likely to emerge in the initial phase of a complex crisis or disaster. Th e gap is

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created by the diff erent sensemaking dynamics that play out at both levels. It is further enlarged by the time and distance that separates the EOC from Ground Zero. Moreover, certain distractions typically occur in the EOC, ranging from demanding politicians to aggres- sive media inquests. All in all, we should not be too surprised that strategic leaders (think of FEMA leader Michael Brown immediately after hurricane Katrina) do not seem to be aware of “clear facts” on the ground (the number and locations of stranded survivors in New Orleans).

Sometimes the gap is bridged by the imposition of one picture over the other. Strong operational leaders can easily impose their assessment on inexperienced strategic leaders; sensemaking at the operational level will then drive the response. Th e opposite can also happen, if a strong political mandate trumps a search for facts. Each one of those situations means a diff erent path for the response. 

In the ideal situation, strategic and operational sensemaking processes are synergetic: they become iterative processes working off each other through effi cient deliberation and corrective feedback loops. Synergy can happen only when leaders at both levels organize sensemaking processes to be complementary.

To accomplish this, strategic leaders will have to: • spend time solely on sensemaking (without imme-

diately considering strategies and decisions); • explain to operational commanders what type of

information they need and why; • monitor changes in the situation; • understand how hard it is for operational leaders to

produce the information they seek; • listen carefully to operational commanders and be

alert to small clues of impending problems; and • be prepared to adapt their picture of the situation.

Operational leaders are crucial gatekeepers and play a critical role in the joint sensemaking process. At the same time, they do not always fully understand the responsibilities of the strategic level and the demands imposed on it. To avoid the unavoidable appreciate gap from widening, they should:

• separate sensemaking efforts from formulating needs (“I need more people”);

• not simplify (chaos is normal and diff erent assess- ments of the situation will exist);

• not be afraid to say “I don’t know”; • explain how hard it is to get certain information; • explain how they will try to get it anyway; and • respect that strategic leaders have diff erent concerns

(political, organizational). We argue that the strategic and operational levels of a

complex response operation require diff erent forms of leadership. To be truly synergetic, leaders at both levels must concentrate on the tasks that are pertinent to that level (Boin et al., 2005). Not only should they perform their tasks well, but they should also be aware of the tasks that leaders at the other side of the “appreciative gap” try to fulfi ll. Such shared awareness of the various leadership challenges at each level is critical to developing a joint picture of the situation. Most important, what is required is a form of meta-leadership: preparing strategic and operational leaders for the challenges they will face before the next crisis occurs.

Notes 1Media are the exception: their routine processes are particu- larly well geared toward crisis sensemaking. 2For critical assessments of ICS, see Buck, Trainor, and Aguirre (2006).

References

Barnard, C. (1938). Th e functions of the executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Boin, A., ‘t Hart, P., Stern, E., & Sundelius, B. (2005). Th e politics of crisis management: Public leadership under pressure. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Boin, A., Kuipers, S., & Overdijk, W. (2013). Leadership in times of crisis: A framework for assessment. International Review of Public Administration, 18, 79–91.

Buck, D., Trainor, J., & Aguirre, B. (2006). A critical evaluation of the incident command system and NIMS. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 3(3), 1–27.

Flin, R. (Ed.) (1996). Sitting in the hot seat. London, UK: John Wiley and Sons.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Th inking fast and slow. London, UK: Allen Lane.

Kahneman, D., & Klein, G. (2009). Conditions for intuitive exper- tise: A failure to disagree. American Psychologist, 64, 515–526.

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Klein, G. (2009). Streetlights and shadows: Searching for the keys to adaptive decision making. Cambridge, MA: Th e MIT Press.

Renaud, C. (2012, June). Th e missing piece of NIMS: Teaching incident commanders how to function in the edge of chaos. Home- land Security Aff airs, 8, Article 8.

Rosenthal, U., Charles, M., & ‘t Hart, P. (Eds.). (1989). Coping with crises. Springfi eld, IL: Charles C. Th omas.

‘t Hart, P. (2013). After Fukushima: Refl ections on risk and insti- tutional learning in an era of mega-crises. Public Administration, 91, 101–113.

Turner, B. A. (1978). Man-made disasters. London, UK: Wykeham.

Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Th ousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Arjen Boin is a professor of public governance and crisis management at the Utrecht School of Governance and an adjunct professor at the Public Administration Institute, Louisiana State University. He received his PhD from Leiden University, Th e Netherlands, where he taught at the Department of Public Administration. Boin has published widely on topics of crisis and disaster management, leader- ship, institutional design, and correctional administration. His books include Th e Politics of Crisis Management (Cambridge University Press, winner of American Political Science Association’s Herbert A. Simon book award), Governing after Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2008), Crisis Management: A Three Volume Set of Essential Readings (Sage, 2008), Designing Resilience (Pittsburgh University Press, 2010), MegaCrises (Charles

C. Thomas, 2012), and The EU as Crisis Manager: Patterns and Prospects (Cambridge University Press, 2013). He is the editor for Public Administration and a managing partner of Crisisplan BV.

Cynthia Renaud currently serves as Chief of Police for the Folsom Police Department. Prior to her tenure with the city of Folsom, she spent twenty years with the Long Beach Police Department where she worked a variety of assign- ments including patrol, detectives, internal aff airs, and the training division. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from California State University, Long Beach, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense) from the Naval Postgraduate School. Her thesis submissions in both pro- grams earned the Best Master of Arts Thesis and the Outstanding Th esis Award, respectively. Cynthia writes on a variety of law enforcement topics. Her published works include “High Risk Vehicle Stops: the Long Beach Police Department’s Method” (Tactical Edge Magazine, 2005), “Community Oriented Public Safety, the Long Beach Experience” (FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, January 2006), and “ The Missing Piece of NIMS: Teaching Incident Commanders How to Function in the Edge of Chaos” (Homeland Security Affairs Journal, 2012). Cynthia also teaches critical incident manage- ment classes for California’s Commission on Peace Offi cer Standards and Training (POST) and has presented at con- ferences both nationally and internationally on the topic of initial response eff orts to large-scale, critical incidents.