The Hot Seat - what can we learn from those who get burnt on the bum?

During any career you will witness good and bad decisions being made everyday. We should always continue to actively learn from mistakes made by others when they get burnt, just as much as learning from best practice - after all mistakes are our biggest learning experiences.

The second paper we had to construct as part of the Emergency Decision Making Unit of my EM degree was reviewing an incident and discussing the major decision points and which decision making theories to apply.

The incident I reviewed for the case study was “Police Commander – The Notting Hill Riot”, written by Tony Moore (2002). The extract provided for review was taken from R. Flin and K. Arbuthnot in “Incident Command: Tales from the Hot Seat” (p. g 69-87). The extract provides a breakdown of the incident as described by Moore who was the Divisional Commander for Notting Hill at the time.

Below is an adaption of my paper "Emergency Decision Making - Notting Hill Riot 1982". The first part of the paper was a timeline construction of the incident, which I have not included here. The second part was to discuss and apply relevant decision making theories and models.

Notting Hill was an area of London that witnessed racial tension and disorder since 1958, with a major riot occurring in 1976 at the Notting Hill Carnival.

On April 20 1982, an ethnic couple was stopped on suspicion of purchasing drugs. In the following minutes, a crowd forcibly removed the couple from arrest and a civil disturbance broke out. Police withdrew from the area and called for backup. Within a short space of time the area around All Saints Road had in excess of a hundred Immediate Response police officers engaged in new strategies and tactics that had been adopted in the wake of the recent spate of riots across the UK mainland.

In charge of this incident was Commander Tony Moore, who made numerous decisions in a very tense and time pressured environment.

During research for this paper I discovered Tony Moore, although now nearly 80, is still an active “pracademic” (Moore, 2016). We corresponded and discussed his views regarding decisions he made prior to and on 20 April 1982 and the influences on him.

It was evident Moore made two vital decisions pre- April 20 1982 which were fundamental to his management of the incident. Firstly, Moore gained direct and indirect experiences (Liddell Hart & Liddell Hart, 1967) of public disorders throughout his career to that point.

“I had been a police officer…nearly 24 years when the events of …1982 occurred. As a constable I had been involved in the St Pancras Rent Riots…I took part in my first ‘baton’ charge.” (Garnett, 2016)

He described his direct experiences in public disorder at:

• the march on the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square (1968)

• Arsenal football ground in the early 1970s when hooliganism was common and violent

• marches when the fascist National Front were confronted by the Anti-Nazi League

• Iranian Embassy Siege (1980)

• Notting Hill Carnival (1979) riot

Indirect experience involves learning via training and reviewing past incidents. In a wider context Britain had witnessed a number of large scale riots pre-1982 including Notting Hill Carnival (1976), Bristol (1980), Brixton, Liverpool and Manchester (summer of 1981).

However, it was rare for Commanders to face unplanned outbreaks of public disorder, as opposed to disturbances which occurred at pre-planned events. Moore notes that historically Police had not spoke or written of experiences with public disorder, making education on such matters difficult. Following the major riots a number of inquiries were held and Moore was aware of criticisms regarding police responses and frequently asked himself how he would manage a similar incident.

It seems his direct experience of poorly managed disturbances by other officers during his career and a passion for studying historical public disorder events led him to continually question “what would I do?”

The second pre-incident decision he made was to create a public disorder plan. Arriving in Notting Hill in 1980 he was familiar with the area and knew public disorder was a possibility. He instructed the Chief Inspector of Operations to draw up a plan specifically for All Saints Road and regularly gathered senior officers for a table top exercise, posing ‘what if this happened?’ scenarios.

Moore identified his main decisions during the incident as:

“Firstly, I had an objective to stop the disorder as quickly as possible, with the least number of casualties amongst the public and amongst my own officers.”

“The second thing that I was able to do on this occasion was to implement the plan in my own time.”

“Finally, I made a conscious decision not to get involved on the front line.” (Garnett, 2016)

The background to Moore’s decision making was heavily influenced by comments made in the Scarman Report. The report, commissioned by the British Government following Brixton Riots in 1981, was completed in November 1981 - a few months before the riot on All Saints Road.

The analysis by Scarman highlighted a need for increased training of officers “both at junior and command levels, in the handling of disorder” (Scarman, p. 97) and the “weakness in the capacity of the police to respond sufficiently firmly to violence in the streets” (Scarman, p. 71). Recommendations included every police officer should be trained in Diversity and Public Order tactics - both prevention and the handling of public order - and trained in Conflict Management. (Scarman, 1986).

As a result a training centre in Hounslow was established. The centre trained constables, sergeants and inspectors in the field of public disorder. It was here Moore began one part of the decision making process that influenced his decision making at All Saints Road incident. Moore had previous experience that commanders needed to be aware of and be comfortable with the tactics being taught officers they commanded in riot situations. He attended the centre regularly and took part in public disorder training.

Moore and I discussed how to apply his decisions to particular theories. On a personal level he prefers to apply the theories of three academics to his decision making process – Klein, Adair, Hersey and Blanchard.

Firstly, although not aware of Klein and Naturalistic Decision Making models prior to All Saints Road incident, Moore acknowledges that this model fits well with his decision making process during the incident. Developed by Gary Klein during the 1980’s, there are three main features of Naturalistic Decision Making

• conditions are dynamic and continuously changing,

• real time reactions are required and

• goals are often ill defined

In Tolleys Handbook of Disasters and Emergency Management (pg. 340) Moore himself describes his decision making process as a Recognition Primed Decision Making (RPD) model.

He states that the person making the decision has to make a rapid assessment of the situation, base decisions on experience and select an option which deals with the situation by checking in their own mind if the option will work. Normally the first option they have selected will work and the person will improve the option as they collect more information about the situation. This model fits with the decision making process made by Moore during the incident.

However, the difference of having previous experiences of a similar situation or not is a major factor in the decision-making process. RPD reveals a critical difference between experienced decision makers and novices. Experienced people are able to reach quicker decision because their knowledge rapidly eliminates inappropriate courses of action.

Despite public disorder being dynamic, dispersed, mobile and unpredictable, Moore was able to visualise different scenarios and select solutions based on previous direct experience of situations in demonstrations. Novices without experience, must consider different possibilities, and use a course of action they think will work. Moore acknowledges a constant narrative, against the criticisms aimed at the Metropolitan Police by the Scarman report, racing through his mind when considering his actions.

Moore considers the leadership theories of John Adair’s Action Centered Leadership as an influence on his decision making. The model is represented by three overlapping circles which illustrates Adair's three core management responsibilities:

• Task - achieving the goal (to end public disturbance)

• Team - managing/developing/building the team or group (training of units in the 9 months previously, table top sessions, communicating plans)

• Individual – helping individuals to reach potential (training, communicating policies/procedures)

Adair demonstrated that leadership is a trainable, transferable skill, rather than it being an exclusively inborn ability - Moore actively sought out training in public disorder, especially after witnessing time and time again bad leadership skills at previous incidents. However, Moore does not agree with it being an “inborn ability”. When teaching at the Police Staff College he states

“it is a fallacy to believe every police officer will make a good incident /ground commander…there are those who have a similar talent for the handling of public disorder…the selection and training of police commanders to deal with such eventualities is critical” (Moore, 1986)

Finally, he cites Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership. The fundamental principle is that there is no single "best" style of leadership. They argue that effective leadership is task-relevant and successful leaders adapt their leadership style to the group they are leading. Effective leadership varies, not only with the person that is being influenced, but it also depends on the task that needs to be accomplished.

Another theory that could be applied is the OODA loop by John Boyd (1961). This is a four-point decision loop which supports quick, effective and proactive decision-making. The four stages are observe, orient, decide and act.

• Observe – collect current information from as many sources as practically possible. Have an awareness of unfolding circumstances.

• Orient – analyze this information, and use it to update your current reality. Put it into context of long term memory i.e. training, past experiences, etc

• Decide – determine a course of action.

• Act – follow through on decision.

If the action is correct and effective you process through further loop cycles faster than your opponent, thereby winning. As shown Moore observed and collected information regarding rioters building barricades and petrol bombs. Based on his previous public disorder experiences, influences of Scarman report and two previous failed bids to bring order, he oriented himself to the situation, knowing that a slow response to the swelling crowds and a warning that police were about to act, would end in violence and potential injuries. He decided to act quickly and swiftly, gaining the upper hand by surprising the rioters.

Failing to act would have often resulted in defeat. Once acted you return to observe to judge the effects of your action. Actions influence the rest of the cycle – it is important to keep learning from what you and your opponents do. In the following weeks the feedback reflected that All Saints Road had been dealt with extremely effectively, mainly in part to the training undertaken by Units in the previous nine months.

An ability to observe and stay oriented to what’s going on is vital to succeeding in chaotic situations. This is also termed situational awareness. In the first response, Moore had poor situational awareness as he was too busy thinking about his approach to defusing the situation rather than noticing his non-regular driver had driven him directly into a crowd of 50 people who preceded to attack his car.

In emergency situations the ability to process through loops quickly and effectively can increase odds of survival. The fastest way is to orient to what is happening, bypass the decision-making process (by knowing what action to already take based on the stimulus) - Boyd refers to it as implicit guidance and control or it can be referred to as a learned automatic response.

Boyd argues an inability to make sense of changing reality is a bigger problem. When circumstances change, people fail to alter perspective and continue to try to see things as they think it should be. Moore agrees with this as he states historically the same decision making mistakes are repeated – a lack of plans, poor communication, lack of interoperability and a lack of leadership in emergency management.

“If you study the history of emergency management you will see the same mistakes are made time and time again” (Garnett, 2016)

Decisions are essentially a best guess based on the knowledge and experience you have up to that date. Effective decision makers know problem solving is not a one-size-fits-all process and that decision making depends upon the situation in front of you and how well you adapt.

In a rapidly changing world, latest models are quickly embraced to replace ones that appear outdated. Moore states we should not be so quick to dismiss older models, pointing out in the 1991 Gulf War; General Schwarzkopf used maneuvers first used by Montgomery in North Africa in WW2 in driving Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad – maneuvers he had learned about during officer training.

“We still talk about teams of ten…in relation to the span of control. So did the Roman legions! Just because it was expressed some time ago doesn’t mean it is not relevant.” (Garnett, 2016)

Personally, I am comfortable with the theories of Klein more than most – as is Moore, perhaps because in my experience decisions I have made, or have witnessed being made under pressure, have seemingly been done based on “gut feeling” based on knowledge from training or firsthand experience. Novices must try to strengthen their awareness by building on knowledge and experiences of others.

“Use every opportunity you can to learn from those who have been in that hot seat - whether it was managed well or not.” (Garnett, 2016)

On a personal note, Moore concluded our conversation with a quote which sums up my personal view on decision making under stress:

“After each emergency people talk about the lessons learned. They are rarely lessons learned – they are lessons identified. No-one knows whether they have been learned until a similar emergency occurs. And more often than not, we find they have not been learned!” (Garnett, 2016)

It is important in emergency management to listen and learn from the decision making experiences of others.

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About Tony Moore

His background includes:

• 1958-1986 Metropolitan Police

• Deputy President of the Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management (ICPEM)

• Co-chair of the Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management (ICPEM).

• Academic at Cranfield University

• regular contributor for the quarterly publication, Crisis Response Journal

If you are interested in reading more about the work undertaken by Tony Moore please visit his website http://tonymoore.org/books/

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References

Flin, R. (1996). Sitting in the hot seat. Chichester [England]: J. Wiley.

Garnett, J. (2016). All Saints Road Riot. Email.

Liddell Hart, B., & Liddell Hart, B. (1967). Strategy. London: Faber.

Moore, T. (1986). Public Order: The Police Commanders Role. Lecture, Police Staff College.

Moore, T., & Lakha, R. (2006). Tolley's handbook of disaster and emergency management. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Newnes.

Scarman, L. (1986). The Scarman report. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin.

Tonymoore.org,. (2016). Books | Tony Moore. Retrieved 15 January 2016, from http://tonymoore.org/books/