5. • individual and social knowledge
• traditional and affective
knowledge (Weber)
• facts and values (Simon)
• optimising and satisficing (Simon)
• objective knowledge of bureaucracies
and cultural knowledge of clans (Ouchi)
• objective and tacit knowledge (Polanyi)
• incremental and radical learning (March)
• enduring and perishable information.
Dichotomies in knowledge
6. Wisdom: ability to take decisions
on the basis of principles,
experience and knowledge
Knowledge: understanding of how
things function (or should function)
Information: description of
physical and social situations
Data: basic facts and statistics
COMMUNICATION
DIKW pyramid
8. • general and specific
lessons from major events
• lessons from monitoring
drills and exercises
• cumulative experience of particular
phenomena, practices or problems
• lessons that arise from
particular situations
• lessons from human error
and technical faults.
Sources of lessons on disaster
9. • Rigorous, impartial, independent
investigation of accidents
• Recommendations for changes
in rail safety were non-binding
• Railway industry strongly resisted changes
(e.g. better signalling, continuous brakes,
electrical rather than gas lighting)
• Trains without continuous braking
survived in the UK into the 1970s
• Crucial improvements resisted c. 60 years.
UK HM Inspectorate of Railways
(Board of Trade/Royal Engineers. 1840)
(since 2005 HSE Rail Accident Investigation Branch)
10. Why are lessons not learned?
• cost considerations
• indifference or corruption
• opposition from particular interests
• accidental or wilful ignorance
• political expediency
• cultural rejection of DRR.
11. There is a common tendency to blame
organisational failures on human error
rather than systemic inadequacies.
"Details are still sketchy, but we
think the name of the bird sucked into
the jet's engines was Harold Meeker"
12. Numberofcasualties
Cost of retrofitting
a building
unreinforced
completely
reinforced
completely
reinforced
largely
unreinforced
Cost of retrofitting
a buildingCostperlifesaved
Lack of incentive to "learn lessons"
20. In times of peace
In times of crisis
Organised
non-structural
protection
Enhanced
structural
protection
Planning,
warning and
preparedness
Fusion with
sustainability
agenda
26. INSTRUMENTS OF
DISSEMINATION
• mass media
• targeted campaign
• social networks
• internet
Augmentation
MASS
EDUCATION
PROGRAMME
SOCIAL
CAPITAL
HABIT
CULTURE
The creation of a culture of civil protection
30. Source: Lam (2000)
embrained encoded
embeddedembodied
Narrow
learning,
inhibited
innovation
Dynamic
learning,
radical
innovation
Superficial
learning,
limited
innovation
Cumulative
learning
incremental
innovation
Professional
bureaucracy
Machine
bureaucracy
Operating
adhocracy
'J-form'
organisation
Professional
model
Bureaucratic
model
Occupational
community model
Organisational
community model
A classification of organisational learning
33. Enduring knowledge:-
• fundamental concepts and procedures
• consensus knowledge
• information that reinforces, sustains
and maintains existing practices
"Perishable" knowledge:-
• poorly collected and conserved
'transient' information
• fruit of an organization's adaptation
to rapid and profound change.
37. • the post-nuclear world...?
• collapse of
life-support systems
• persistence of radiation
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki no
guide to modern nuclear war
• preparations were
preposterous
Can we learn from this example?
38. Lessons of GEJET:-
• complex
• emergent
• verified by future history
• not yet accepted by all
decision-makers or publics