Rethinking Crises – Achieving Resilience in a Post-COVID World
How do we manage increasing complexity and uncertainty? And how do we deliver public services that can adapt dynamically to crises?
Last week I attended the IPAA Queensland Challenger Series event – Rethinking Crises and Achieving Resilience in a Post- COVID World, where the panel explored how system approaches can be used in the public sector to solve the complex problems posed by crises and disasters.
The discussion was skillfully led by Dr Anne Tiernan, provoking thoughts from the panelists: Alistair Dawson (Inspector General Emergency Management), Professor Cheryl Desha (Griffith University) and Collin Sivalingum (Australian Red Cross).
There was an overwhelming sense from the discussion that after the challenging past years, government is at a crossroads. It is time to reconceptualise and reimagine our understanding of disasters, not just by looking back, but looking forward through diverse lenses and experiences to really gauge future possibilities. Collin Sivalingum, pointed out “Gone are the days when we can just look in the rear view mirror and look at historical data to inform our practice. We have to plan for the unexpected.”
So, what have we learnt from government’s ability to respond to disaster?
In his opening Alistair Dawson spoke about institutional amnesia being of serious concern for those who plan for, respond to and recover from humanitarian crises. Stark spoke to institutional memory-loss robbing individuals, organisations and networks of their ability to reflect on lessons-learned. This is evident, he noted, in recurrent events where things aren’t being carried forward but are being recreated when each crisis or disaster hits.
Professor Cheryl Desha reflected on how people have been faced with high levels of stress for a prolonged time. As humans, we fatigue. We are seeing a reduction in our ability to recover and while personal trauma from recent past is showing up in different ways and discourses, we are being robbed of our capacity to learn lessons and reflect on what worked, what didn’t and how we can do things differently next time.
The panel also reflected that the last few years showed that disasters can bring us together. Government exemplified how quickly processes can be activated when there is common purpose and shared responsibility. Although the broader question remains – How can we bring this way of working into our business as usual? There is opportunity to be creative with our future. The panel discussed ways in which individuals can encourage curiosity, invest in building back trust in our communities and strengthening relationships.
Where should we focus our energies to improve organisational lesson learning?
- Creating space for lessons learned – be strategic to learn from past experiences. If we were to look at map of all stakeholders supporting the system, it’s a web of complexity. We must learn together and involve the diversity of thoughts and experiences of stakeholders in the system.
- Building capability – be intentional with what can be gained by public servants when mobilised to respond to crisis. Building an agile workforce has proven to provide benefits in strengthening organisations as well as creating buy in for employees.
- Community preparedness – Building communities’ readiness and autonomy when responding to crisis. There is power in codesigning, investing in this process and this is something we need to be doing now. There is a need to leverage collaborating with community by using platforms to capture and facilitate these conversations.
- Timeframes – An improved funding model is required. Historically, funding timeframes are three years but need to be longer. Current government natural disaster funding arrangements are not efficient, equitable or sustainable.
- Data and insights – Ensuring decision makers have the data they need by integrating data and unifying systems. Enabling public and academic access to data allows for broader idea sharing. Sometimes those who own the data might not own the problem. Sharing data can empower people to help. Crisis management requires courage. It requires collective intelligence.
- Psychological first aid – Communicate clearly and reduce the need to reshare trauma by leveraging technology. Research shows, that in times of great stress, plain English is vital and can assist in a decreasing stress. People need simple and direct communication to eliminate further stress when not understanding what is required to get assistance. So often, people have to reshare their story to gain support due to the multiple siloed systems. The future holds possibility in reducing this tension with supported technology and centralised systems. Wifi technology has become a basic need and this needs to be incorporated in the planning.
While these next steps are no small feat, this timely discussion signified the value in such events and becoming an IPAA Queensland member. It’s not often we get to stop, listen to experts and reflect on how we can do better. In the recently published CSIRO Our Future World report, Chief executive Dr Larry Marshall calls us to action “Australia is at a pivotal point. There is a tidal wave of disruption on the way, and it’s critical we take steps now to get ahead of it.” Find IPAA Queensland’s summary of the CSIRO report and link to the full report here.
IPAA Queensland members can watch the entire event recording on the members portal.
This event was made possible with support from IPAA Queensland’s valued partner
ABOUT Lucy Matthews
Lucy Matthews is a member of the IPAA Queensland Emerging Leaders Working Group. She works for the Public Service Commission in the Design, Learning and Capability team.
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