High Reliability Organisations

Pr. Claude ROCHET claude.rochet@univ-amu.fr
Dr. Philippe AGOPIAN pagopian@sdis13.fr
Anaïs SAINT anais.saint@gmail.com

 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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© Claude Rochet - Anaïs Saint 15/06/14

• 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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 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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 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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Preoccupation
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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The7HROprinciples

 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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 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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 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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 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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 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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HRO’s capabilities practices
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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

 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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 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:
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We could consider
three levels of HRO
culture and practices
Unrelevant for HRO

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Unrelevant for HRO
Defining maturity level for
each practice

Combining:
- Initiating and
sustaining
- Individual and
organizations
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HRO 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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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”

High Reliability Organisations

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