In the technological world, confusion often exists over what exactly “resiliency” and “redundancy” mean; in the world of emergency response, the same confusion can exist. Resiliency and redundancy are not the same thing. Redundancy means having a backup that is immediately available should the primary, whatever it is, fail. Resiliency is the methodology, policy or procedure employed to make the organization tolerant to stressors, and therefore less likely to fail at a critical juncture.
In other words, resilience as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” One of the examples it provides: “The rescue workers showed remarkable resilience in dealing with the difficult conditions.” It defines redundant as “exceeding what is necessary or normal,” or “serving as a duplicate in order to prevent failure of an entire system upon failure of a single component.”
David Alexander of the University of Florence (Italy) defines resilience as an “amalgam of attitude, preparedness and redundancy.”1 Hence, we could assume that in order to build resiliency within our organization, we must first consider building in some redundancy.
As EMS executives, managers, leader and supervisors, it is imperative to understand the fundamental differences in these definitions and determine, first, what is the proper balance of redundancy and second, how do we build resiliency within the organization?
In a perfect society, where vulnerability and risk don’t influence our need for preparedness, we wouldn’t need to concern ourselves with being redundant or the ability of our organization to rebound from a catastrophic event that either disrupts or increases demand exponentially. However, that utopia no longer exists, and the discussion on vulnerability and risk is a great topic for another article.
In a post-9/11 world, emergency responder organizations strive to quickly and effectively rebound from any type of “all-hazard” event by taking one of three paths. The quick fix for many is to augment the tools and capability that already exist. For others, it means duplicating some of what was already there. Others find ways to use resources more effectively. Each of these approaches is correct in its own way, of course, considering the organization and the catastrophe for which it is preparing.
The DHS, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has produced volumes of guidance documents and directives for entities to use in their decision-making process in preparing themselves. Yet, despite all of this literature and the billions of dollars in funding available, the basic question remains: What is the direction for my organization? Redundancy or resiliency? The answer is quite simple–both.
Redundancies are absolutely necessary to eliminate single points of weakness in an organization. An excellent example is the entity with a single communications center. As a mission-critical component of the organization, operations would come to a standstill if it were to fail. Some entities maintain backup sites, which are fully-functional duplicates of the primary site that sit and wait to be used. Others have two or more communication centers, each with the ability to take on additional capacity in the event one of the others fails. Redundancies such as this allow that organization to be resilient in time of a critical failure.
Although communications centers and the overarching ability to communicate are critical infrastructure issues, which also include technology systems and radio communication networks that must be considered by all organizations, the trend for all-hazards preparedness and continuity of operations planning (COOP) is important not only for response organizations, but also for homeland security.
COOP and Disaster Recovery are not concepts that came about after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but rather, they’re critical concepts that must be addressed by everyone. Several published surveys reveal that only about half of American businesses have disaster plans in place, and many of those are inadequate or were thrown together in response to a threat or actual disruption that occurred.
One concept to consider when examining ways to increase resiliency is to explore the decentralization of operations. If a significant disruption affects the central headquarters, then having policy, procedures and processes in place that allow decentralized control of operations is an extremely effective way to continue critical functions. The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) has five borough commands that could conceivably manage and direct operations in the event of a disruption at its headquarters.
Recently, there seems to be a shift of emphasis from disaster recovery toward business continuity. The idea here is to maintain operations throughout a crisis as opposed to having the resiliency to bounce back from one. Continuity planning can and will help entities “afford” to be prepared and will help executives strike the balance between being redundant–spending money on things that may never be used–and being resilient, having the ability to bounce back quickly from disruption or disaster.
According to Assistant Chief Joseph Pfeifer, FDNY’s chief of counter-terrorism and disaster preparedness, “Many organizations believe they are prepared for the next terrorist event by wrongly assuming there is a predictable threat that can be managed with the purchase of new equipment. Unless organizations develop a resilient response strategy that can adapt organizational and operational elements to respond to new terrorist incidents, they will find themselves with the same difficulties emergency responders did on 9/11.”2
For EMS agencies, the simple belief that “having more stuff,” or being redundant, is no longer enough. Resilience is absolutely necessary for emergency response organizations. Alexander puts it succinctly: resiliency is attitude, redundancy and preparedness. How do we as leaders in the emergency response community put it all together? Simply put, we plan and prepare.
References
- Alexsander D. Integrated emergency response. In Global Risk Forum. Retrieved May 1, 2012, from http://riskacademy.grforum.org/userfiles/Resilience%20and%20Vulnerability.pdf.
- Pfeifer J. Command resiliency: An adaptive response strategy for complex incidents. Retrieved May 2, 2012, from www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA439581.
