Overview

Resilience & Leadership: Tools, Methods, & Applications is the second course of the ‘Resilience Engineering and Leadership in Crisis’ specialization. This course offers tools and methods for applying the concepts from the Course 1 (Resilience & Leadership: Concepts, Definitions, & Frameworks) to various applications and disaster scenarios. Systems thinking, crisis management lifecycle, and organizational strategy are presented to help cultivate and strengthen crisis leadership and communication skills. Learners will assess the resilience of a complex system and create a crisis management plan. This course can be taken for academic credit as part of CU Boulder’s Master of Engineering in Engineering Management (ME-EM) degree offered on the Coursera platform. The ME-EM is designed to help engineers, scientists, and technical professionals move into leadership and management roles in the engineering and technical sectors. With performance-based admissions and no application process, the ME-EM is ideal for individuals with a broad range of undergraduate education and/or professional experience. Learn more about the ME-EM program at https://www.coursera.org/degrees/me-engineering-management-boulder.

Syllabus

Applying Systems Concepts & Perspectives

Welcome to the second course of the Resilience & Leadership series. In this course, we will get started right away by introducing you to systems theory and discussing how systems concepts may be applied to crisis management. You will be presented with systems thinking and mental models to use as tools for working with unanticipated disruptions. We’ll discuss a few example disaster events and apply some of the resilience concepts and frameworks covered so far in this specialization. Finally, you will discover a method for scanning the environment to collect and analyze relevant information using a SWOT analysis tool that can help with identifying potential crises.

Crisis Management Systems, Teams, and Plans

In this module we’ll take a closer look at systems theory and how systems concepts may apply to a scenario composed of multiple complex systems. We'll review the important content and objectives of a Crisis Management Plan (CMP) and recognize the critical characteristics of Crisis Management Team (CMT) members. Finally, we’ll explore the integration of human and technical resilience capacities and processes in complex critical infrastructure systems.

Resilience Training, Business, & Organizational Strategy

In this module, we'll discuss a case that shows why organizational resilience is important in workplaces. We’ll discuss how some generic competencies are reasonable to expect, others are emergent and appear unpredictable. We’ll also take closer look at the link between corporate strategy and crisis from perspectives of industry, growth, and operations. Finally, we’ll review some of the crisis-related issues that can arise when forming the crisis management team.

Crisis Management Lifecycle and the Resilience Analysis Grid

Crises events challenge leaders to navigate paradoxical conditions. In the context of a crisis lifecycle, leadership actions have direct impact on organizational resilience in relations to unanticipated disruptions. To handle disruptions and paradoxes, leaders must be flexible and adjust their course. In this module, you will learn more about the Resilience Analysis Grid as a tool for assessing the resilience of a system by estimating the constituent elements of the social-technical processes: sensing, anticipating, adapting, and learning.

Crisis Leadership and Communication

In this final module, we’ll discuss crisis communication. The critical role of current, accurate, and transparent communication with internal and external stakeholders is vital to preparation and recovery. Different styles of communication are needed in different situations to effectively deliver the intended message. We’ll also discuss how crisis events challenge leaders to navigate paradoxical conditions.