Page 46 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

Fundamentals of Collaboration 15

to develop very rapidly; however, when the acute crisis passes, relation-
ships will often break down in the absence of a dedicated effort to process
the experience and maintain connectedness. The bottom line is to identify
and prioritize functional collaboration as an explicit goal and, from the
start, cement habits and integrate efforts that foster self-sustaining col-
laboration into routine activities. If difficulties arise, specific workshops
on communication and dealing with conflict may be useful to schedule as
well as individual coaching on communication and conflict resolution on
a case-by-case basis.

Recording Lessons Learned in a Concrete and Accessible Format

Individuals and organizations accrue a great deal of experience over the
course of doing disaster work as well as during less stressful times. While
much of this experiential learning becomes intuitive, it is easy when
stressed to lose track of lessons learned and revert to less effective func-
tional states, in the absence of mitigation. It is useful to take time to iden-
tify strategies that have worked and that haven’t worked and to make note
of this information in a manner readily accessible to everyone (e.g., in a
manual or handouts or online). Furthermore, what has worked should be
actively incorporated as lessons learned into trainings and everyday work
practices. A conscious distinction should be drawn between what works
during crisis and what works when there is no crisis and to develop plans
for all circumstances. This information then can be used to modify future
training exercises in an ongoing process of progressive improvement based
on explication, articulation, and integration of implicit learning.

Decisions and Work Flow

As noted, multiple factors cause work impairment and impede collabora-
tive process, requiring additional attention and effort to maintain a rea-
sonable level of efficiency. This is notable with regard to inability to make
decisions, distorted judgment, and disrupted work process, specifically,
communications distortions, inadequacy of time devoted to working out
problems, a sense of urgency causing groups to reach decisions prema-
turely without mutual clarification, false assumptions about one another’s
needs, and misperceptions of meaning lead to divergent opinions about
what decision was made and what are the expected next steps, and who is