ABSTRACT
Introduction In the night of August 14-15, 2004, a unit of the Dutch Military Police (MP) in SFIR-4 (Stabilization Force Iraq) is taken by surprise when they are engaged in the center of Ar Rumaytah. They manage to drive away, but get stranded with one serviceman fatally wounded. Emergency procedures are set in motion as they contact the local base. A so-called quick reaction force (QRF) is sent out to their assistance. QRF-1 arrives unharmed at the location of the stranded MP unit, but the second QRF encounters heavy fire on its way. One vehicle of QRF-2 breaks down and is stranded. The servicemen manage to leave the vehicle while under fire and find cover in a backyard, unable to contact the others. Meanwhile, medevac (a Medical Evacuation carried out by a helicopter) is on its way. A third QRF in armored vehicles is sent out to retrieve the stranded group, and they also are confronted with heavy fire. The forward air controller contacts one Apache escorting the medevac helicopter to fly above the city to locate the stranded group. The appearance of the Apache above the city center stops the shootings, and clears the way for QRF-3 to retrieve the stranded men. All units are back at the base four hours after the first shots were fired. In a world of increasing turbulence and complexity, one of the most crucial challenges organizations are facing is to make sense of what is happening in their environment. Therefore, the sensemaking perspective has become increasingly important in organization sciences (Allard Poesi 2005). Incidents, like the ambush described above, are sudden, threatening, and often ambiguous. Incidents put high demands on military organizations to interpret, and respond to, these situations effectively. Failure to do so can lead to injuries and even fatal casualties. This chapter shows the value of the sensemaking perspective for military organizations by making particular organizational characteristics, problems, and dilemmas visible. The sensemaking perspective offers more insight into how crisis-organizations can be developed in order to prepare them better for the difficult environments they are now facing. This chapter focuses on sensemaking processes during incidents. We illustrate the sensemaking processes using the ambush case described above. The value of the sensemaking perspective is demonstrated on the individual and team level of analysis. Individuals in military
organizations experience high levels of stress in threatening circumstances. The sensemaking perspective is used to show that in military operations, individuals have to deal with stress and simultaneously have to engage in acts of sensemaking. We discuss the way in which military organizations prepare servicemen for this dual task. The second level of analysis focuses on the way different units within an organization coordinate their actions in order to deal with incidents. We focus on the development of situation awareness (SA) at team level.
