In setting goals, seeking ‘least worst’ outcomes might lead to faster adaptation and decision-making, write Nicola Power and Laurence Aliso

Alison, Laurence

Power, Nicola

LSE Research Online

4/10/2017How multi-agency teams made decisions in a simulatedterror attackblogs.lse.ac.uk /businessreview/2017/04/10/how-multi-agency-teams-made-decisions-in-a-simulated-terror-attack/Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm. If I’d listed these six cities to you a little over 18 months ago,you might wonder if I was considering a weekend away to explore the rich culture, history and tourism that thesegreat European cities have to offer. Today they are synonymously linked as the six cities that were victim tomalicious acts of terrorism that killed and injured hundreds of innocent civilians.The increasing threat and growing reality of terrorism in Western Europe means that reliance on our EmergencyServices to protect, defend and save the lives of the public has grown more than ever. Not only must responderssave lives and protect the public, but they are increasingly required to do that whilst putting their own lives at riskagainst an active and hostile threat. Psychological research has explored these extreme contexts to try and identifyhow to prepare and train our Emergency Services teams to make better and faster decisions under great pressureand uncertainty. We will outline one such piece of research.In our recent paper, we explored the decision-making of commanders from the UK Emergency Services who tookpart in a simulated ‘Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attack’ exercise. Specifically, how commanders from differentorganisations managed their goals, considering the potential conflict that might arise between joint multi-team goals(e.g., save life) and role-specific individual agency goals (e.g., neutralise threat).Fifty commanders took part in our simulation, which centred around a scenario of three men who had opened firewith automatic weapons at a busy city centre train station, with 80+ civilian causalities on the station concourse.Simulations lasted for approximately one hour, with commanders working in multi-agency teams of between threeand five team members. Commanders logged their decisions electronically during the simulation as if it was a real-world attack.Our research revealed two core findings:1/3First, despite commanders assuming that their goals were consistent, their self-reported goals showed they werevery much role-specific. The Ambulance Service were predominantly attack focussed, consistently prioritising thegoal to ‘treat casualties’. The Fire and Rescue Service were initially defence oriented (i.e., to protect respondersduring high-risk extrication procedures) but then shifted towards attack goals to ‘rescue casualties’. The PoliceService demonstrated goal conflict between attack goals to ‘neutralise threat’ and defend goals to ‘protect the widercommunity’. All commanders sought to ‘save life’, but this vague catch-all goal meant something different to thevarious agencies with regards to whose life was most at risk at the given point in time; the casualties, the widerpublic, or the emergency responders themselves?Second, at the multi-team level, we found teams who prioritised attack goals logged faster decisions early on in theincident; but those who prioritised defend goals logged faster decisions later in the incident. This contrasts with thetheoretical literature on goal-directed choice, which suggests that approach goals (i.e., attack) are adaptive forhuman behaviour as they motivate individuals to strive towards the achievement of positive outcomes, whereasavoid goals (i.e., defend) can degrade performance as they motivate individuals to avoid negative consequences.We suggest that these findings are explained by the context of the task environment. Arguably, the early phases ofthe scenario were ambiguous but predominated by one main decision task: to cordon the risk area. Yet later into theexercise commanders had to juggle multiple competing demands, wherein they had to deal with exhaustedresponders, an additional fire inside the station, and the unknown location of the shooters. Thus, when complexity ishigh, a decision strategy to satisfice to ‘least worst’ outcomes might lead to faster adaptation and decision makingthan one that seeks to maximise outcomes.What does this research mean for practice?We suggest the desire for joint decisions, in their traditional sense of collective consensus, is impractical due to thedifferences in how agencies process information through their own organisational lens. Teams might assume sharedgoals, but their interpretation is biased by their role. Furthermore, we suggest goals should be more concrete whenoperating in multi-team settings. The abstract ‘save life’ goal, commonly used in emergency contexts, is interpreteddifferently by different organisations in terms of how it translates into behaviour. Moreover, it seems unlikely that oneday commanders would choose not to save lives, and so the functional purpose of abstract goals like this isquestionable.What are the next steps for this research?First, we want to develop a collaborative decision-making tool to aid decision-making in high-stakes, fast-paced,multi-team contexts. Importantly, rather than joint decisions, we want to develop a decision tool that acknowledgesthe collaborative decision-making process and incorporates a greater understanding of concrete goals which reactto the needs of the decision context.Second, we advocate the need for organisational training to specifically teach individuals about the process ofdecision-making under pressure. Training of procedural and technical skills is routinely embedded in organisations,yet dedicated training to improve decision-making is less well established. We argue that the key to developing suchtraining is via the use of immersive simulations, whereby individuals are taught to reflect and think about decision-making in a realistic and high-pressured, yet safe decision space. Importantly, training can be used to unpack thedifferent perspectives of team members in order to help individuals emphasise and consider alternativeorganisational views.Terrorism is no longer an abstract threat, but an increasing reality for Western Europe. This makes it imperative thatthe Emergency Services are prepared, trained and able to make decisions when operating under extreme risk.Decision scientists have the tools to explore, test and study decision-making under these extremes to develop andshare knowledge that might facilitate decision-making and accelerate expertise. Through these collaborativeendeavours, we can ensure that practice is informed by theory and empirical evidence, and together we can work to2/3counter terrorism and save lives.♣♣♣Notes:This blog post is based on the authors’ paper Offence or defence? Approach and avoid goals in the multi-agency emergency response to a simulated terrorism attack, in the Journal of Occupational andOrganizational Psychology, Volume 90, Issue 1, March 2017, Pages 51–76The post gives the views of its authors, not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School ofEconomics.Featured image credit: Exercise Arden – MOCK terrorist attack. Emergency response , by West MidlandsPolice, under a CC-BY-SA-2.0 licenceBefore commenting, please read our Comment PolicyNicola Power is a lecturer in Psychology and Security at Lancaster University. Her researchexplores high-stakes decision-making with a special interest in multi-team contexts. Specifically,she is interested in decision inertia: the psychological phenomenon whereby individuals fail tocommit to a choice due to negative anticipatory thinking and redundant deliberation. You canfollow her on Twitter @nspower15.Laurence Alison  is a Professor of Psychological Sciences at Liverpool University. He has aninternational track record of publishing on the subject of high-stakes decision-making, investigativeprofiling and investigative interviewing. His core area of interest is social cognition and theprocesses by which individuals make sense of uncertain, high-risk, ambiguous, complex orcontradictory information, with special reference to decision inertia, anticipatory thinking and theuse of simulated environments. You can follow him on Twitter @LCritical.  Copyright © 2015 London School of Economics3/3

How multi-agency teams made decisions in a simulated terror attack

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