Jan-Kees Schakel, Paul C. van Fenema and Samer Faraj study a covert operation by the Dutch polic

Faraj, Samer

Schakel, Jan-Kees

Van Fenema, Paul C.

LSE Research Online

6/29/2016Shots fired! Why is switching between organisationalpractices so difficult?blogs.lse.ac.uk /businessreview/2016/06/29/shots-fired-why-is-switching-between-organisational-practices-so-difficult/Imagine you work for the police and are involved in large covert surveillance of a notorious criminal. The team isexperienced and includes a helicopter, cars, a high tech listening post, and over a dozen agents observing the site.Just after your team has taken positions, your subject gets shot. You can see the shooter, but are unable to move.Your colleagues cannot see what is happening, but you have difficulty getting into contact with them. The localpolice do not have a clue of what is going on – it’s a covert operation after all. They can’t start helping you out of theblue. It all happened to Jim, an experienced police officer. From his helicopter he observed the operation. Theescape of the murderer left the team highly frustrated and angry. While in the media conspiracy theories bloomed,questions were being asked in the Dutch House of Representatives. The tenor was all the same: how could acriminal be shot in plain sight of police officers with the murderer getting away with it?An evaluation was conducted with predictable recommendations about how to improve future coordination:preparations should be more systematic and include more scenarios, leadership should maintain distance, andtraining and communication should be improved. While all these measures may better prepare police teams in theirperformance, they do not address the core challenge: events occurred that forced a superbly equipped multi-disciplinary team to switch from one type of operation to another that they had not planned for: from covertsurveillance to high-speed pursuit in order to arrest.Being able to mount a fast response is crucial not only for fast response organizations such as police, fire, anddisaster assistance but also for many traditional organizations that can face sudden threats in their day to dayoperations. Based on the study of why a large, highly equipped, and experienced police team failed to switch fromsurveillance to pursuit, we identify a number of issues that explain why switching from one well-honed practice toanother is difficult. To learn from our police case, it is critical to recognize switching as an ambiguous andchallenging moment of transition because most organizations are unprepared to switch from one mission to anunexpected other. Members have to reframe unexpected events, make sense using fragmented information,reshuffle team members, deploy new technological configurations, and operate under a changed external1/4landscape. Five coordination challenges were uncovered.Challenge 1 RelationshipsIt is not uncommon for officers within temporary collaborating teams to coordinate their actions based on roles ratherthan knowing their colleagues in person. As one explained:“I have been working with these units for a long time…I know them by name. I know some by face, but that would beit.”As long as an operation unfolds according to expectations this kind of loose role-based coordination is sufficient.However, when faced with the pressure to switch, who-knows-who becomes an issue. We saw team membersattempt to reconnect with team members, and reassess how to relate to each other and the new situation. Workingon relationships matters to find a new balance.Challenge 2 Team KnowledgeTeam members working in geographically distributed setup rely heavily on explicit communication. As an intervieweeput it:“People look via the eyes of the other … we are very dependent on each other”.To reduce the need for sharing situational knowledge, teams rely on standard operating procedures. Theseprocedures, however, are specific to the initial operation. The need to switch practices leads to a disruption as thereare usually no operating procedures for switching. During such confusion team leaders are expected to reestablishsituation awareness:“When the situation is not clear and there is no overview, the commander should intervene [and say]: Radiodiscipline, all quiet! [officer] A, what has happened? [officer] B, what has happened? Message for all posts!”If you are a leader you need to stop people in their tracks and ask: what is going on. In our case, synchronizing wasdelayed as the team leader got diverted to initially chasing the escaping murderer himself.Challenge 3 Communication Technology ComplexityCoordination problems were exacerbated by difficulties with the technology that was supposed to link together allparticipants. Our technology-infused workplaces – think ERP, complex customer management software – do nothelp. We may need technologies that are as flexible as practice switching requires. Technology that can easilyinvolve people, get configured to cater for business processes across organizational boundaries and is very simpleto use by everyone. In the police case, technology seriously hindered coordination. Given the need to customizetechnology for every operation, organizations need to think of common technology platforms that enable optimalconfiguration for different situations.Challenge 4 Team CompositionObservation officers actively make use of their environment. The team was composed to blend in:“It is best when an officer is wearing a T-shirt and shorts and sandals, so he won’t looks like a policeman at all. Thenthe suspect will think: I don’t know who that is, but he presents no danger.”After the shooting, however, the team found its adaptation to be inadequate for the new task. Asked what would beneeded to arrest the shooter, the commander replied:“I would have positioned my people very differently. Differently equipped, more cars, more heavily armed men,wearing bulletproof vests…”2/4Prior to the operation there were no indications of a threat against the subject. Hence, no scenarios were in place tocater for such eventuality. Yet could you arrange for a workforce that can be flexibly recomposed?Challenge 5 Field ObstructionsThe operation was planned as a stealth observation, so special attention was given to the terrain. This provedinadequate for the apprehension after the murder. For example, the helicopter was positioned beyond SchipholInternational Airport. When it needed to start a pursuit it found itself severely restricted by the airport’s landingcorridors:“I just thought, f***, a liquidation, we’ve to get those guys! I am up here in the helicopter. Their ass is mine. And thenyou realise that the helicopter is not moving. I screamed: ‘Hey guys, they are driving away!’ Really, the thought thatyou see everything happening, but that you are stuck…To the police, the physical environment matters for positioning resources. In your case this might be similar, forinstance when your business deals with (city) logistics. So how could you enhance flexibility when organizing yourresources for your physical business environment?To conclude, when confronted with a sudden need to switch practices, teams face stubborn coordination difficultiesin reconnecting with each other, synchronizing knowledge flows, recomposing the team, reconfiguring thetechnology, and adjusting to the field conditions. Most organizations are adept to deploy and support one particularconfiguration and may be very effective at doing so. Nonetheless, events or trends are likely to disrupt a givenconfiguration. Leaders thus face a dual challenge of configuring their organization to excel at specific work practicesand also to be able to swiftly switch practices in response to the element of surprise.♣♣♣Notes:This article is based on Shots Fired! Switching Between Practices in Police Work , in Organization Science,2(2016):391-410.The post gives the views of its authors, not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School ofEconomics.Featured image credit: Still from a video made from the Dutch police helicopter showing the shooter justbefore he pulled the trigger – provided by the authorsBefore commenting, please read our Comment PolicyJan-Kees Schakel is researcher at the Dutch Police and associated researcher of the knowledge,information, and innovation research group (VU University) and the research group on complexcollaboration (McGill University). He earned an M.Sc. of Van Hall Larenstein (environmentalstudies) and an M.Sc. (cum laude) and Ph.D. of the University of Amsterdam (business informationsystems). His research concentrates on the coordination of information, knowledge, and expertisein fast-response situations. He can be reached at jan.kees.schakel@politie.nlPaul C. van Fenema is a professor of logistics and organization science at the NetherlandsDefence Academy. His interests include collective value creation, (digital) ecosystems, and intersecting routines. Hehas published in MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, and Journal of International Business Studies. He wonthe Outstanding Author Contribution in the 2015 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence for co-authoredresearch on interorganizational shared services.3/4Samer Faraj holds the Canada Research Chair in Technology, Management, and Healthcare at the DesautelsFaculty of Management, at McGill University. He is the head of the research group on complexcollaboration and directs the Desautels Ph.D. program. His current research focuses on complexcollaboration in settings as diverse as healthcare organizations, knowledge teams, and onlinecommunities. Copyright © 2015 London School of Economics4/4

Shots fired! Why is switching between organisational practices so difficult?

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