0 Barriers to learning from crisis

There are significant barries to leaning that exists in that kind of envrionment, which

prevents organisations from learning from their crisis. These barriers are discussed here.

Toft & Reynolds (2016) holds that many organisations are not able to learn from crisis

because of the rigid core beliefs they follow and the ineffective communication. Accordingly,

rigid organizatioanl beliefs results in misundersandings owing to the wrong assumoptions and

distraction presented by decoy occurrences. Smith (2002) gives an example of murders

commited by Harold Shipman, in which the investigation by the coroner were hindered by

disbelief at the idea of a doctor killing patients. Reason (1997) explains that supposing it is

assumed that doctors act in a professional way, then the availabel controls will reflect this

assumption.

Drennan, McConnell & Stark (2014) noted that another barrier to learning from crisis

arises from ineffective communiction coupled by diffuculties in handling of information, which

arises from different causes. According to Drennan, McConnell & Stark (2014) one f the

leading isue is the availability of informatation, which may hindr an organisation from

identifying vulnerabilities. Contributing to this subject, Taylor (1989) notes that lack of

information could result from difficulties in gathering and analyzing data regarding the crisis.

Smith & Elliott (2007) noted that the second barrier arises from misundestanding that arises

from the language being used to communicate. According to Smith & Elliott (2007), while there

may be enough information being passed, the language of discourse between the organisation

and key stakeholders may be highly technical for non-experts to understand. As such, Stephens,

Malone & Bailey (2005) noted that some stakeholders may be excluded from the learning

processe particulary those stakeholders with limited resources. In fact, “legitimized” expertise
could be empoyed to prevent some external groups from taking part in the debate. Related to

this aspect, is the role played by experts. Some of the experts distort communication or

undermine the efforts of learning so that their views can be accepted and they may be obsolved

from blame.

Other barriers to organisation learning comes from the tendency by many organisations to

give little attenton and interest to lessons from crises that occurs near-miss occurances or crises

from other organisations. According to Toft and Reynolds (1997), the lack of enough attention

could be due to decoys in te organisation that diverts the attention of managers from focusing on

core issues. Therefore, Toft and Reynolds (1997) asserts that though specific lessons can be

learned by an organisation that can chgang the manner in which the organisation operates and the

controls enacted in future, a more radical organisational change is required.

Starbauck and Milliken (1998) noted that a barrier that arises from many situations is

cogntive narrowing and event fixation. In this case, the management of the organisation assumes

that crises are distinctive and constrained in time and space, and this hinders the learning

process. Sturges (1994); Lee (2005) points out that absence of interogrnizational learning will

arise if a crisis is overlooked asa function of a certain operating system of the organisation or its

culture. The perception that “such a thing cannot happen in this orgnization” hinders managers

from learning from events that occur in other organisations.

Coombs (2014) underlined that lack of corporate responsibility from the orgnisation

affected by the crisis as well contributes to lack of learning. In such orgnisations, they tend to

follow the existing regulatory requirements. More so, the inclination to blame others also limits

leanring. These type of organisations also tend to focus a lot on single-loop instead of double

loop learning. The inability of organisations to challenge failture through applying effective
double-loop learning appears to ensure that such organisations do not learn good lessons from

crisis they face.