Page 44 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

Fundamentals of Collaboration 13

good enough is desirable, and perfect is the enemy of good), here are
approaches and illustrative examples. The reader is encouraged to think of
and develop his or her own:

Regular Meetings
During a crisis, it is helpful to meet on a regular schedule. The frequency
of meetings should be determined through a careful need assessment, with
ongoing reassessment as a designated task and role. When the level of dis-
tress is high and/or the situation is developing rapidly, it is useful to meet
more often and for longer periods and to expect meetings to take longer
than they normally would. The purposes and goals of meetings should be
articulated clearly, and purposes and goals should be discussed and agreed
upon by consensus or by a designated leader. This has to be as explicit as
possible because what is assumed and unspoken, in fact, may be differ-
ent for different participants, leading to problems that are avoidable. There
may be several possible purposes to such meetings: support and debriefing,
sharing information and other resources, planning and logistics, assigning
and keeping track of work projects, identifying unmet needs, developing
groups to address specific problems, and so on. Some of these purposes
may be served during one meeting, while in other cases, if necessary, there
should be separate meetings for different tasks, as required. It is important
to balance task orientation and structure with enough open, unstructured
time for people to bring up important, unanticipated issues, including deal-
ing with various personal and interpersonal problems and organizational
issues. It is important to maintain boundaries and tasks and have clear
roles and leadership. As the situation cools down, meetings will be less
charged and may be less frequent, going from daily or twice a day to once
every few days, to weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Ad hoc meetings should
be scheduled as needed, but, if the same need keeps arising, this is a sig-
nal that more attention may be required. It is important to keep networks
active in between disasters and resist the urge to let networks decay.

Staying in Contact Outside of Formal Meetings

It is necessary to have designated personnel available to provide sup-
port and to address issues that may come up: from emotional unrest to
logistical issues to furnishing key information. In addition, while people
develop informal relationships, it is important not to be left alone under