Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
to say that as long as there have been governments, there have been public-private partnerships used to enhance security, survival, continuity, and resilience. This, after all, is and always has been the most basic and critical function of the public sector. So the question that comes to mind is what, if anything, is really new or different about the concept of resilience or the need to secure it through public-private partnerships? These are certainly important and timely concerns, but they have always been important and timely concerns. These concerns will always manifest in different ways because of the development of new products, new services, new supply chains, new technologies, new infrastructures, new resources, new demands, new threats, new competitors, new clients, new interconnections, new knowledge, and new information. However, the unavoidable answer seems to be that there is really not much that is novel or unique when it comes to the need for resilience, for, after all, how different is it from the desire, for example, to recover, to continue, to prevail, and to survive to fight another day? Additionally, as an emerging societal interest or field of study, how different or new is planning for reliance or managing for resilience from the more established field of crisis management, a field of study that was stimulated decades ago by such crises as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, tainted Tylenol capsules, and exploding Firestone tires? The field of crisis management has for a long time been concerned with such issues as how to plan for, how to prevent, how to deal with, how to minimize the negative impact of, and how to bounce back from a possible crisis. These issues seem to overlap entirely with the issue of how to build more resilient institutions. When thinking about the attacks of 9/11, one is naturally reminded of the last significant attack on US soil, namely the attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941, against US forces in Pearl Harbor. Displayed at Pearl Harbor today is a plaque that reads as follows: "FALL and RISE of the FLEET: More than two thousand Americans were killed on December 7, 1941, almost half of them aboard USS Arizona. Military installations around the island were attacked, and twenty-one vessels were sunk or damaged. Hundreds of Navy and Army planes were destroyed. In spite of this, the U.S. Pacific Fleet rebounded with remarkable speed. Rescue operations, which began immediately, soon gave way to a monumental salvage effort. Within a year, most of the vessels damaged in the attack were returned to duty. Only USS Arizona, USS Utah, and USS Oklahoma were total losses. The day after the attack, the United States Congress declared war on Japan. In the course of that war, all but two of the 67 Japanese ships of the Pearl Harbor Striking Force were sunk." Clearly this is a fantastic example of resilience on the part of the American people, resilience moreover that could not have been imaginable without significant sacrifices and public-private partnerships on the part of all sectors of the nation. When considering the example of the nation's response to the Pearl Harbor attack, it may be useful to consider not only the extent to which our interest in building more resilient institutions differs from or adds value compared to the older, more established field of crisis management, but also the extent to which it differs from and adds value compared to the general fields of either management per se or leadership. One could reasonably argue that a manager is not really managing effectively or that an organization is not well-managed unless and until long-term viability, continuity, and survival is likely, even in the face of defeat, losses, reversals, and disappointment. The manager of a sports team, for example, has to be concerned about building a strong enough bench of relief or substitute players to step in for starting team players who are injured so that the team can play on and still win games and perhaps the championship. Ensuring long-term survival, which is clearly impossible without resilience, has always been the most basic goal of any organization, a goal which is 35