Crises and disasters are regular occurrences in organizational life, putting leaders into the spotlight and organizations under tremendous pressure to respond appropriately — whether it is to preserve life or salvage reputations. With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, we wanted to discuss some important texts on organizational crises and their management, and in this episode we present two. The first text is a classic case study — Karl Weick’s famous paper from 1990 titled “The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster,” published in the Journal of Management. The Tenerife air disaster (also referred to as ‘airport disaster’) occurred at Gran Canaria Airport in 1977 when fog and poor communications between the tower and the pilots of two Boeing 747s resulted in a collision that destroyed both planes and resulted in the death of 583 people. Weick’s retrospective analysis shows how several factors set conditions that “encouraged the occurrence and rapid diffusion of multiple small errors.” 

The second article helps answer the question, “How does an organization rebound from crisis?” We explore an article from Edward Powley on activating organizational resilience — “Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis,” published in Human Relations in 2009. The article describes three different social mechanisms that are put into action according to Powley — liminal suspension, compassionate witnessing, and relational redundancy. Respectively, these mechanisms cause the organization to temporarily restructure itself to respond to the crisis, leverage interpersonal relationships within the organization more intensely, and leverage social connections across boundaries to reach out and help others outside the organization.  Together these readings can help us understand what it takes to analyze an emerging crisis situation and mobilize to confront it. 

Read With Us:

Powley, E. H. (2009). Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis. Human relations, 62(9), 1289-1326.

Weick, K. E. (1990). The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster. Journal of management, 16(3), 571-593.